Tea at Trianon: "Madame Elisabeth of France" by Joseph Ducreux (1770)

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Saturday, April 18, 2015

"Madame Elisabeth of France" by Joseph Ducreux (1770)

Some thoughts from Anna Gibson:

This portrait of a young Madame Elisabeth by Joseph Ducreux was painted in 1770, the same year that her new sister-in-law, Marie Antoinette, arrived from Vienna. Elisabeth would have been only 5 or 6 at the time of the sitting. Although like many painted children, her face seems more mature than her years, there is still an element of cherubic youthfulness to her face in this portrait. This is exemplified by the simple nature of her headdress, which seems to be hiding a relatively simple and unadorned hairstyle. (Read more.)