Tea at Trianon: Jacques-Louis David's Sketchbook

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

Thursday, January 15, 2026

Jacques-Louis David's Sketchbook

From ArtNet:

The French media outlet Radio France launched its investigation into the sketchbook after being contacted by a descendant of the original owner. The broadcaster claims that it was able to pull together enough evidence to back the descendant’s claim in “just a few weeks.” The discovery sheds a light on the slow progress of ongoing provenance research into objects that were acquired by French museums after 1933.

France’s ministry of culture issued a response to the evidence gathered by Radio France stating that neither the ministry nor the Palace of Versailles had not been aware that the item was stolen during the war. They promised to “continue their research on this notebook and have discussions with the descendants of the owners.”

The Palace of Versailles declined to comment.

The sketchbook dates from 1790 and is filled with rare drawings and notes, including preparatory materials for one of David’s most famous works, The Tennis Court Oath (1790). The painting, which was never finished, records a foundational event in the French Revolution. It belongs to the Palace of Versailles but is currently on display in the Louvre’s landmark exhibition “Jacques-Louis David,” until January 26. The sketchbook is not featured in the exhibition.

Once stolen by the Nazis, the sketchbook was sent to Germany. It was sold by Munich’s Karl and Faber gallery in 1943. It came into the hands of the German dealer and art historian Otto Wertheimer, who had himself fled Nazi persecution of the Jews in the 1930s. He settled in Paris in 1944 and became known for supplying French museums with important masterpieces at a time when an artwork’s provenance was rarely questioned. He sold the David sketchbook to the Palace of Versailles in 1951. (Read more.)