Мария-Антуанетта сидит, в синем плаще и белом платье, с книгой в руке

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.