Portrait of young Marie Antoinette is really of her sister, study says

"One of her most famous portraits allegedly shows the queen as a young girl, holding a shuttle used for weaving in one hand and a red thread in the other. Assumed to have been about seven years old, she wears a steely gaze directed at the observer, typical of a powerful queen-to-be. The acclaimed watercolour, painted in 1762 by Genevan painter Jean-Étienne Liotard, appears in biographies of Marie Antoinette all around the world."

"Professor Catriona Seth, scholar of French literature at the University of Oxford, says it actually depicts her older sister Maria Carolina, who later became Queen of Naples. 'I am certain that the picture said traditionally to be Marie Antoinette (the girl with the shuttle) is in fact Maria Carolina,' she told the Daily Mail. Two decades ago, Professor Seth used the image as the cover of a book about Marie Antoinette, who was brutally guillotined in the centre of Paris in 1793."

A celebrated 1762 Jean-Étienne Liotard watercolour long attributed to Marie Antoinette shows a young girl holding a shuttle and a red thread. The sitter appears about seven years old and meets the viewer with a steely, assertive gaze. The portrait appears widely in biographies and museum collections. Closer inspection of the ornament pinned to the sitter's chest reveals a medal and large black ribbon identified as the Order of the Starry Cross. Marie Antoinette would not have received that order until nearly 1766. The portrait therefore aligns with Maria Carolina, who later became Queen of Naples, and captions will require correction.

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