Marie-Antoinette

after 1783

Shown from about the hips up against a dark gray background, a rosy-cheeked, light-skinned woman stands before a wooden table as she arranges flowers in this vertical portrait. Her body is angled to our right, and she turns to look at us with clear blue eyes under curving brows. She has a straight nose, and her small bow lips are closed. Her gray hair is loosely bound, and curls fall over her shoulders. She wears a white muslin dress with puffed sleeves and blousy ruffles around the neckline. Her dress is gathered at her waist with a sheer, gold-striped sash. The wide brim of her straw hat curves down across her forehead, and a robin’s egg-blue ribbon is tied around the crown into a bow at the back. Puffy feathers of the same blue billow up and forward at the front of the hat. She stands at a wooden table that extends off the right side of the canvas. A deep blue bowl sitting on bright gold feet holds pale pink, yellow, crimson-red, and aquamarine-blue flowers. The woman holds up a pink flower, perhaps a rose, in her left hand and ties it with a blue ribbon.

Media Options

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On View

West Building Ground Floor, Gallery G11

Artwork overview

  • Medium

    oil on canvas

  • Credit Line

    Timken Collection

  • Dimensions

    overall: 92.7 × 73.1 cm (36 1/2 × 28 3/4 in.)
    framed: 141.61 × 99.06 × 17.78 cm (55 3/4 × 39 × 7 in.)

  • Accession

    1960.6.41

Artwork history & notes

Provenance

Comte Charles de Damas. Comte Arthur de Vogüé. Saint collection. (Wildenstein & Co., Inc., Paris and New York); (Reinhardt Galleries, New York); William R. Timken [1866-1949], New York, by 1928;[1] by inheritance to his widow, Lillian Guyer Timken [1881-1959], New York; bequest 1960 to NGA.
[1] The painting was lent by the Timkens in 1928 to an exhibition in New York.

Associated Names

Exhibition History

1928

  • Loan Exhibition of Paintings from Memling, Holbein and Titian to Renoir and Picasso, Reinhardt Galleries, New York, 1928, no. 17, repro., as by Marie Elisabeth Vigee Lebrun.

1955

  • Marie-Antoinette, grchiduchesse, dauphine et reine. (Exh. cat. Château de Versailles.) Paris, 1955: 40, under no. 59.

1967

  • Loan for display with permanent collection, Georgia Museum of Art, University of Georgia, Athens, 1967-1971.

2008

  • Marie-Antoinette, Galeries nationales du Grand Palais, Paris, 2008, no. 228, repro., as Marie-Antoinette en chemise ou en gaulle.

2016

  • Marie Antoinette, a Queen at Versailles, Mori Arts Center Gallery, Tokyo, 2016-2017, no. 133, repro.

Bibliography

1928

  • “New York.” Pantheon 4, no. 4 (Apr. 1928): 218, 219, repro.

1955

  • Marie-Antoinette, archduchesse, dauphine et reine. Exh. cat., Chateau de Versailles. Paris, 1955: 40, under no. 59.

1965

  • Summary Catalogue of European Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1965: 137.

1967

  • Bischoff, Ilse. “Vigée-Lebrun and the Women of the French Court.” Antiques 92, no. 5 (Nov. 1967): 710, 709, fig. 7.

1968

  • National Gallery of Art. European Paintings and Sculpture, Illustrations. Washington, 1968: 124, repro.

  • Garland, Madge. “Rose Bertin: Minister of Fashion.” Apollo 87, no. 71 (Jan. 1968): 43, fig. 6.

1975

  • European Paintings: An Illustrated Summary Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1975: 366, repro.

1981

  • Bernier, Olivier. The Eighteenth-Century Woman. Garden City, New York, 1981: 139, repro.

1984

  • Ribeiro, Aileen. Dress in Eighteenth-Century Europe 1715 – 1789. London, 1984: 153, fig. 96.

1985

  • European Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1985: 425, repro.

1988

  • Ribeiro, Aileen. Fashion in the French Revolution. London, 1988:33, repro.

1992

  • Gutwirth, Madelyn. The Twilight of the Goddesses: Women and Representation in the French Revolutionary Era. New Brunswick, N.J., 1992: 147, fig. 22.

1995

  • Ribeiro, Aileen. The Art of Dress: Fashion in England and France 1750 to 1820. New Haven and London, 1995: 71, fig. 74.

  • Cox, James A. “Asylum for a Queen.” Colonial Williamsburg 18, no. 1 (Autumn 1995): opp. 39, repro.

2008

  • Salmon, Xavier. “Si Marie-Antoinette nous était contée . . . parti pris d’une exposition.” L’Estampille / L’Objet d’Art 433 (March 2008): 36.

2009

  • Conisbee, Philip, et al. French Paintings of the Fifteenth through the Eighteenth Century. The Collections of the National Gallery of Art Systematic Catalogue. Washington, D.C., 2009: no. 95, 449-454, color repro.

Inscriptions

On stretcher: small paper rectangle, printed, "20.728"; small piece of paper with handwritten inscription, "peint en 1783/ Me. Vigée-LeBrun"; label, "BALTIMORE MUSEUM OF ART / 101 WEST MONUMENT STREET, BALTIMORE, MD/ Marie Antoinette/ By Mme Vigee LeBrun/ Box #V 24.1"; oval label with blue printed border, inscribed, "9".

Wikidata ID

Q20179240

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