PARIS, FRANCE.- Galeries Nationales du Grand Palais present Marie Antoinette, on view through June 30, 2008. The figure of Marie Antoinette has always set tongues wagging: the ‘Austrian’ who loved lavish pleasures was also the ‘victim’ of the ceremonial of Versailles or again a ‘scatterbrained’ girl gorging macaroons. But what do we know about the historical character? This is the aim of the exhibition which traces the exceptional destiny of one of the last queens of France, from Schönbrunn to the Conciergerie.

To shed light on all the facets of the personality of Marie Antoinette, her education and action in artistic and political fields, over three hundred works have been gathered from all over Europe including an extraordinary set of paintings (Vigée Le Brun), sculptures (Lemoyne, Boizot and Lecomte) and objets d’art (Carlin, Riesener, Weisweiler).

Marie Antoinette was born in 1755, the youngest daughter of Maria Theresa of Austria. She was not intended to rule, but the hazards of European politics decided otherwise. A few months younger than the future Louis XVI, the little archduchess married the heir to the throne of France on the 16th of May 1770. The girl who arrived in Versailles had been given a careful education. Like all her sisters, she could draw, act, dance and sing. She had developed her taste in the cosy cocoon of the imperial family taking her mother as an example. The Empress loved Oriental lacquer, Asian and French porcelain, mounted objects and pietra dura vases and had filled her apartments with them.

At Versailles, the Dauphine Marie Antoinette was adulated. Her beauty and vivacity were celebrated. When she became queen, interest in her person and manner of living was intensified. All the important events in her life were richly illustrated. Representations of her wedding ceremony and the festivities that followed and above all the births of her children and the public rejoicing they triggered emphasised her position in the court and the main role accorded to her: producing an heir for the kingdom.

Until the beginning of the French Revolution, Louis XVI and his ministers carefully kept the queen away from politics. So Marie Antoinette became a mirror of the arts of her time, through her commissions. Young, interested in fashion and new ideas, quickly wanting to escape from the etiquette of Versailles, she created, often with the attentive support of the Royal administration, sometimes escaping all control, refined surroundings which in some ways reflected her Austrian education. Receptive to modernity, she also evolved in her artistic choices, both in the decorative arts and in music or fashion and so, as the leading art patron in the realm, she helped develop a style which is now associated with her name.

Through her need for freedom, her desire to escape from the court and take refuge in a select circle, and through her extravagant nature which amplified the scandal of the necklace, Marie Antoinette quickly alienated her entourage.

As public opinion turned against her, the royal administration tried to project a noble, protective image of the sovereign by commissioning large portraits to be shown to the public at the salons. This probably echoed the Queen’s own preoccupations because she cared about her image. Drowned in the growing flood of pamphlets and satirical prints, these portraits were not understood. The ‘Austrian’, cloistered in her ‘Little Vienna’, Petit Trianon, became the root of all evils. When the royal couple left Versailles for Paris in October 1789, they did not seem to understand what was happening. Little inclined to change their lifestyle, buffeted by conflicting political interests, clumsy in their attempts at reconciliation or flight, they crystallised hatred. The execution of Louis XVI made Marie Antoinette even more dignified. Her darkest hours, leading to the scaffold, transformed her as a woman. The myth was born. Exhibition by the RMN, coproduced with The Château de Versailles. Curators: Pierre Arizzoli-Clémentel, CEO, Etablissement public du musée et du domaine de Versailles. Xavier Salmon, head of the Inspection générale des musées de France, Paris. Art Director: Robert Carsen.