Tea at Trianon: Marie-Antoinette’s ‘Trianon Guitar'

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

Wednesday, December 7, 2022

Marie-Antoinette’s ‘Trianon Guitar'

Madame Clotilde of France, sister of Louis XVI

Madame Clotilde of France, later Queen of Sardinia

Armand playing a guitar

I could not find a painting of Marie-Antoinette playing the instrument now called the "Trianon Guitar." Probably because she gave it as a gift. There are two portraits of Madame Clotilde, sister of Louis XVI, playing a similar guitar. There is also a picture of Marie-Antoinette's adopted son Armand playing a guitar, but not the same one, since it looks smaller. From Artnet:

A lover of music who played several instruments and sang, Marie Antoinette regularly held carefree musical and theatrical performances in her bucolic Trianon retreat in France, just outside the Palace of Versailles, while the rest of the country was heaving towards bloody revolution. In this haven from palace pressures, including her Petit Trianon, a chateau given to her by her husband, King Louis XVI, Marie Antoinette also offered instruments to friends and members of her inner circle.
What is believed to be one of them, a rare “en bâteau,” or boat-shaped guitar, made by Jacques-Philippe Michelot ca. 1775, will go on sale at the Aguttes auction house in Neuilly-sur-Seine on December 9. Kept in “remarkable condition,” the so-called “Trianon guitar”—decorated with ivory rosettes depicting the “Temple of Love” from the Trianon estate—was also “at the forefront” of French craftsmanship at the end of the 18th century, said Aguttes house expert Grégoire de Thoury, speaking to Artnet News.
Thoury researched the instrument’s provenance and relied on family documents, carefully kept over centuries, stating that the queen had given the guitar to her friend, the Marquise de La Rochelambert-Thévalles (1758–1835), who survived the French Revolution by fleeing to Switzerland. No official palace records exist for the personal gift.

About the same age as the queen, the marquise was a member of the queen’s inner entourage, praised for her musical talent and voice. The two women performed together, and the marquise’s parents were regulars in the king’s court. Her godfather was Louis de Bourbon, Dauphin of France.

The marquise’s family preserved the queen’s guitar in the ensuing centuries, and one of her descendants has put it up for auction. With French institutions reportedly interested in acquiring the instrument, according to the French daily Le Parisien, Thoury said its owner “would think it wonderful…if it became available to the whole world to see” in a museum. (Read more.)

From Tatler:

Aguttes writes that ‘although to date there is no document to formally certify that this guitar was the subject of a gift from Queen Marie Antoinette… Patrick Barbier, music historian, reports in his book Marie Antoinette and Music that Marie Antoinette used to buy many musical instruments’ and ‘gladly gave them’ as gifts. With this in mind, ‘considering the attested proximity of Queen Marie-Antoinette and the Marquise de La Rochelambert, it is therefore quite probable.’ Aguttes describes the instrument as a ‘rare so-called boat guitar’, with a rosewood body inlaid with mahogany and ‘adorned with ivory and ebony stringing’. It features a ‘spruce top with a beautiful tight grain’, plus ornate decoration of ‘openwork ivory rosettes representing two doves kissing on a temple of love.’ It originally had five strings but was reassembled with six strings around 1810.(Read more.)