Maria Josepha Amalia of Saxony

Luis de la Cruz y Ríos
Spanish 1776–1853
Maria Josefa Amalia de Sajonia, third wife of Fernando VII
oil on canvas
67.0 x 52.0 cm
Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid (P03031)

Lived: 6 December 1803 – 18 May 1829

Third wife of Ferdinand VII.

After two marriages that had failed to produce an heir, for his third wife Ferdinand chose a bride of Saxon lineage, whose females were renowned for their fertility. Maria Josepha was young and naïve when she married Ferdinand and had been brought up in a convent after her mother died when she was a baby. During the ten years of her marriage she gradually withdrew from public life as she failed to become pregnant, before dying suddenly from a fever.