the queen's many faces

From its very beginning on November 2, 1755, the life of Queen Marie Antoinette was destined to become the stuff of history and legend, novel and film.  She grew up in the center of royalty, was married at age fourteen as part of a royal alliance, produced royal heirs and went about living as she had been raised -- as a royal entity.  Her 1793 execution by guillotine came as the result of revolutionary fervor, a people's rebellion fueled by contempt for monarchies and social injustice.  She was reportedly not as indifferent to the plight of her subjects as rumor would have it, and it's unlikely that she ever made any glib suggestions that peasants go eat cake or even brioche.

Still, she was high-spirited and undeniably caught up in court society, her style and beauty at first delighting the French people, then turning against her amid accusations of adultery and extravagance.  And along the way there were numerous portraits painted of Marie Antoinette as Dauphine and then Queen, notably by artist Élisabeth Vigée Lebrun as the official royal portrait painter until 1789.  Lebrun went into exile after the royal family was put under house arrest by the Garde Nationale, and Polish-born Alexandre Kucharski became the official portraitist instead.  One might think that by that point there would be no more royal portraits, but Kucharski did produce some paintings of Marie Antoinette in her last years, works rather different from Lebrun's sumptuous depictions.  The Widow Capet's final days and death came with as much dignity as she could muster, though she was said to be also quite ill with other physical ailments -- a state suggested by the Sophie Prieur portrait modeled from a Kucharski painting.  Though some were bayoneted by protestors in the heat of violence, most portraits of Queen Marie Antoinette survived the Revolution; Marie Antoinette herself, of course, did not. 


Pictured:
Queen Marie Antoinette of France -- Élisabeth Vigée Lebrun,1778
Marie Antoinette in a Muslin Dress --  Élisabeth Vigée Lebrun, 1783
Marie Antoinette with Her Children -- Élisabeth Vigée Lebrun, 1787
Marie Antoinette -- Alexandre Kucharski, ca. 1791
Queen Marie Antoinette of France in the Prison Temple, ca. 1793 -- Sophie Prieur (after Kucharski)