The Private Realm of Marie Antoinette

Marie Antoinete has been romanticized as the matyred queen and vilified as the Austrian whose extravagance and foreign sympathies fired the French Revolution. She has also been admired as the personnification of the 18th-century style: in retreat from the stifling protocol of the French court and in pursuit of her own personal tastes, she created her own personal domain,cultivating a new royal style that was the epitome of elegance. This work turns aside from the official portraits and the great historical events to rediscover the private places and objects that reveal Marie Antoinette's personality. Photograhs reveal in detail the apartments and gardens at Rambouillet, Versailles and Fontainebleau - designed and furnished by the most gifted artisans and craftsmen, among them the cabinet-makers Riesner and Sene and the archeitect Mique.