#marie-antoinette

#marie-antoinette

The text of Marie Antoinette Style introduces her as "the most fashionable, scrutinised and controversial queen in history," and the portrait said to be most accurate in likeness has been animated in a wall projection so her visage smirks and twinkles out at us. Here are her most intimate clothes and belongings, an astonishing collection of perfectly preserved tiny slippers, corsets, and jewels; objects marked with her monogram in the caption indicate that they belonged to her personally.

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.

Marie Antoinette: the Fragonard cupcake who bankrupted France with her lust for fashion and diamonds, who bottle-fed pet lambs while her people starved. No matter that, in truth, her frocks and jewels were small fry in her country's financial ruin; the optics, as we would say now, were terrible. So what if she never actually said let them eat cake history is no match for a great soundbite. But while opulence hastened Marie Antoinette's downfall, it has also brought her immortality.

The 10.38-carat kite-shaped gemstone, linked to Marie Antoinette's daughter, recently showcased in a JAR-designed ring, is set to attract bids nearing €4.6 million.