Tuesday, September 10, 2019

The Hair of Marie Antoinette?

There is also some question as to how close Marie-Antoinette really was with the Duchess of Devonshire. I think they were friendly but Georgiana was never part of the Queen's circle of intimate friends. From Royal Central:
In the British Museum, there is a locket containing hair traditionally said to be that of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France and Navarre. Donated to the museum as part of the Hull Grundy Gift (Gere, Charlotte; Rudoe, Judy; Tait, Hugh; Wilson, The Art of the Jeweller, A Catalogue of the Hull Grundy Gift to the British Museum, Vol 1-2, London, BMP, 1984), the locket was formerly held at the Victoria and Albert Museum and is not on display. Given the fact that the object is popularly believed to contain her hair, it is interesting that such a locket exists in London, a city which holds other items that claim an undisputed important connection with her, such as the Jean-Henri Riesener corner cupboard – from Marie Antoinette’s private study at Versailles, made by her favourite cabinet-maker – at the Wallace Collection and Madame Tussauds in London, which contains the “gruesome” relics of the French Revolution in what was once Tussauds Baker Street Bazaar, Tussaud having been forced on her release from prison to make death masks of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette. So, is there anything that might support this hair belonging to her?
The heart-shaped, filigree-set locket with a padlock and matching key on a chain is late 18thC to early 19thC, but there is no evidence to support the fact that the hair was presented in this locket, though it is contemporary to the period. The piece of paper in the back of the locket could have been added at any point prior to the date when the locket was given by Lady Napier in 1853.
As the British Museum rightly states, there is nothing that directly supports the slip of paper referring to the hair, as it could have been added later at any time, into a locket which contained the hair of someone else. The provenance which the locket claims, is described in the slip, namely as a “lock of hair of Marie Antoinette Queen of France, given by her to Lady Abercorn, by whom it was given to her sister Lady Julia Lockwood, whose daughter Lady Napier gave it to W.S, 1853”. In other words, even if the lock of hair should belong to Marie Antoinette, there is nothing on the slip of paper to suggest that the hair was given in this locket. (Read more.)
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