Tea at Trianon: Louise Élisabeth of France, Duchess of Parma

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

Monday, March 27, 2023

Louise Élisabeth of France, Duchess of Parma

The posthumous portrait by Adélaïde Labille-Guiard of the eldest daughter of Louis XV was painted almost thirty years after her death. It was painted at the request of her younger sisters, the Mesdames. From Marie-Antoinette's Boudoir:

The tremors of romanticism brought to the court a new taste for the past which also infected fashion. The superb dress painted by Adélaïde Labille-Guiard to represent Élisabeth of Parma is totally fancy, of Spanish or Renaissance inspiration to evoke a distant and bygone era. The harmony of tones, the delicacy of execution, and the love for a meticulous description of the textures (from the silk of the dresses, through the lace of the neckline and sleeves, to the feathers of the hat and the parrot perched on the balustrade) make this portrait absolutely admirable. Adélaïde Labille-Guiard, however, delivers here a posthumous portrait of the Duchess of Parma, who died nearly thirty years earlier. (Read more.)

Here is Louise Élisabeth during her lifetime, in hunting garb, by Nattier: