Whatever you think you know about Marie Antoinette, however, prepare to put it aside – because the Victoria & Albert Museum is to hold the first show in Britain (and only the third outside France) dedicated to this most divisive of queens. And what it uncovers will, says the exhibit's curator, upend all our long-held opinions.
‘She is still seen as a byword for excess and frivolity… it is just this trope based on mythology that is trotted out repeatedly,’ says V&A curator, Sarah Grant. ‘This idea that she bankrupted France and was responsible for the [French] Revolution, which of course wasn’t the case.’It is intriguing that the exhibition will be held at a quintessentially English museum, as Grant feels that Marie-Antoinette is ‘viewed more sympathetically’ by the British than the French. Anyone seeking confirmation of this should look to the opening ceremony of the Paris Olympics in July – which featured a ghoulish version of the monarch, clutching her own sliced-off head in her hands. (Read more.)
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