Marie-Antoinette sitzend, in blauem Mantel und weißem Kleid, ein Buch in der Hand haltend

Vigee Le Brun painted this in 1788, and the timing is everything. She was the queen's favorite portraitist and had spent years trying to soften Marie-Antoinette's image for a hostile public. Here the queen sits in a blue velvet mantle over white satin, holding a Book of Hours rather than a fan or a flower, its cover stamped with the joined arms of Bourbon and Habsburg, a quiet reminder that this Austrian-born woman was bound to France by marriage. The devout, matronly pose was meant to answer years of scandal and caricature. Within a year the Bastille would fall. Marie-Antoinette had barely five years left, and this was among the last state portraits made of her before the monarchy came apart.