However removed from feeling like a cop-out, it makes the items right here that truly belonged to Marie—on the exhibition labels, these are marked with the queen’s distinctive monogram—really feel all of the extra particular: a fragile black lace collar, dainty beaded footwear, and two richly embellished fragments of courtroom robes, designed to glitter in candlelight. “To have these two surviving samples,” says Grant, “offers you a style of how distinctive her robes would have been.”
Up subsequent is a deep dive into her jewels. Marie’s private jewellery was smuggled out of France and stored by her solely surviving youngster, Marie Thérèse, however in “Marie Antoinette Type,” many of those displayed items are reuniting with Marie’s personal elegant jewellery casket for the primary time since her demise. You’ll discover eye-popping diamonds, brooches, and pendants right here, after which we’re taken by way of galleries inspecting Marie’s hairdos, the work of her hairdresser Monsieur Léonard and stylist Rose Bertin.
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There are additionally bejeweled followers to admire, panels of 18th-century animal print, letters within the queen’s personal hand, and a bit devoted to her escape to the Petit Trianon—all floral-printed furnishings, porcelain plates, Toile de Jouy, tinkling pianos, and, hilariously, gardening instruments that have been solely used for staged performances of pastoral idylls.
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The following part is genius: a chapter dedicated to scents, a specific obsession of Marie’s. “Versailles was very fragranced,” explains Grant. “All people reported that it smelled unhealthy as a result of so many individuals have been crowded collectively, and there have been issues like chamber pots and cesspits, so Marie Antoinette was burning scents in her room and fully perfumed from head to toe. It was additionally a method of projecting her attract and standing.”
To that finish, 4 fake marble busts are displayed, infused with 4 fragrances that inform Marie’s story and draw you absolutely into her world. The primary, a mixture of beeswax, smoke, oak, and physique odor, transport you to a masquerade ball in Versailles’ Corridor of Mirrors. The second is orris root, rose, lavender, tuberose, violet, and musk, the aroma of Marie’s personal powder and rouge, which takes you on to her mid-morning dressing desk. The third evokes her dreamy backyard on the Petit Trianon, with grass, lilac, roses, and honeysuckle.
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After that, the fourth comes as a shock: mildew, chilly stone, sewage, and the polluted Seine, which takes us to Marie Antoinette’s cramped, dank cell. Leaning in to breathe within the perfume, you may detect a be aware of juniper amongst the stench—one thing the queen had requested to be burned to purify the air of her jail. You’ll be able to nearly sense her presence, simply out of attain. “We wished one thing else to counter all that magnificence,” says Grant. “To deliver you the truth.”