New research has shown that a famous child portrait, previously thought to be of French Queen Marie Antoinette, may actually belong to her older sister Maria Carolina. This is reported by UNN with reference to the BBC.
Details
The unique child portrait of Marie Antoinette by Swiss artist Jean-Étienne Liotard from 1762 long shaped historians' understanding of the early years of the future Queen of France. However, Professor Catriona Seth from the University of Oxford now believes that this drawing likely depicts her older sister Maria Carolina, who later became Queen of Naples.
The researcher also suspects that another drawing from the same collection, previously attributed to Maria Carolina, actually shows a young Marie Antoinette. In the drawing, long considered a portrait of Antoinette, a seven-year-old girl holds a shuttle and looks directly at the viewer.
Seth said something about the painting "didn't sit right" with her.
The first clue came from what was believed to be a brooch worn by "Marie Antoinette" in the portrait.
The girl in the drawing wears a medal of a certain knightly order, which was awarded to siblings, but Maria, as the youngest of the sisters, received hers only almost four years after the portrait was created.
I realized that a change had to happen: in one of the other portraits, the younger child was Marie Antoinette, not Maria Carolina.
In another drawing, Maria Carolina was believed to be depicted wearing special earrings and holding a rose in her hands. Professor Catriona Seth noted that she later found a photograph of Marie Antoinette with the same earrings, and the rose was a "constant feature of her portraits throughout her life."
Marc-Olivier Wahler, Director of the Museum of Art and History (MAH), added: "While these magnificent portraits have been exhibited for the past 250 years, it is now particularly interesting to see Marie Antoinette as she truly was, rather than confusing her with her sister."
Addition
Marie Antoinette was born in Austria in 1755 and was sent to France to become the bride of the future King Louis XVI. In 1793, she was guillotined along with her husband during the French Revolution, when she was 37 years old.