Versailles Jewellery Collection
On the occasion of the 250th anniversary of Marie-Antoinette's birth, the RMN has joined together with master glass-maker Lalique to pay her tribute by creating a line of exclusive jewellery.
This pendant is inspired by a pair of earrings worn by the queen in the painting Marie-Antoinette de Hasbourg-Lorraine, reine de France et ses enfants, painted in 1787 by Louise-Elisabeth Vigée-Le-Brun. This pendant, with its baroque pearls made of clear cristal, brings together the refined skills and craftsmanship of both jeweller and master glass-maker.
Marie-Antoinette loved fashion and delighted in jewellery. One day, she fell for a pair of drop earrings with extravagantly large, very fine diamonds set by Boehmer, jeweller to the queen.
Frivolous and refined, Marie-Antoinette asked her friend, the famous portrait-painter Louise-Elisabeth Vigée-Le Brun, to immortalize her and her children in 1787.
Commissioned by the general director of royal buildings, this painting represents the queen as a mother, flanked by her children: Marie-Thérèse, known as "Madame Royale", born in 1778; and Louis-Joseph, born in 1781 and deceased in 1789. On her knees, Marie-Antoinette holds Louis-Charles, born in 1785 and future King Louis XVII. The cradle, empty, evokes the recent death of the queen's youngest child, Sophie-Helene-Beatrice, born in 1786. Marie-Antoinette is wearing a pair of very beautiful, pear-shaped pearl earrings.
This painting, portraying the queen as mother, was intended to help win back some of her popularity, her name having been sullied in the recent "necklace affair".
