Yolande-Martine-Gabrielle de Polastron, duchessa di Polignac

When Vigee Le Brun painted this in 1782, Yolande de Polastron, Duchess de Polignac, was the closest friend Marie Antoinette had at Versailles, and one of the most resented women in France. The queen had given her rooms in the palace and made her governess to the royal children, and the Polignac family drew a small fortune from the court. Vigee Le Brun, herself the queen's favourite painter, shows her not in stiff court dress but in a soft straw hat and light muslin, the informal look the queen was cultivating out at her retreat, the Petit Trianon. Seven years later that world ended. As the Revolution broke in July 1789, the Polignacs fled France, and the duchess died abroad in 1793, the same year as the queen.