arie-Antoinette – The Dark Side M

A visit to the Chateau de Versailles led Courteille to imagine an entire collection in pale blue, the colour of Marie-Antoinette’s chambers at the Trianon, which Marie-Antoinette had designed herself. Courteille depicts Marie-Antoinette both at court and at the Hameau de la Reine with her animals. Throughout the collection, she explores the tragedy of Marie-Antoinette’s life, how it changed from luxurious garments, ostrich feathers, balls and parties to imprisonment in the Temple Prison and the Conciergerie. She was beheaded at the height of the Terror.

Courteille travels through time to the tragic world of this great French icon, Marie-Antoinette, Queen Consort to Louis XVI. An Austrian princess, Marie-Antoinette came to France aged 14 and was married to the dauphin, Louis, in 1770, to seal an alliance between the two countries after the Seven Years’ War. The fact that she came from Vienna was already a disadvantage and her dislike for court etiquette at Versailles did not help.

To escape the constraints of her court life, Marie-Antoinette built a small village within the grounds of the Chateau of Versailles, a place where she could be reminded of her simpler life in Austria. Courteille brought this episode alive in her 2012 collection, ‘Animal Farm’ (Lydia Courteille, 2016), by creating jewels inspired by the farm animals Marie-Antoinette spent so many hours with there.

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Below: Hameau de la Reine ring, ‘Marie-Antoinette – The Dark Side’ collection, 2016 – sapphire, diamond, titanium, 18k yellow gold. The hen sits within a crown, representing Marie-Antoinette’s life of escape in the hamlet.

Opposite page: Marie-Antoinette of Austria, Queen of France. Colour print by Jean-Francois Janinet, 1777. © Classic Image / Alamy Stock Photo

Often criticised for her spendthrift ways, Marie-Antoinette’s unpopularity steadily increased. As a result, during the ‘scandal of the necklace’, public opinion considered her guilty, even though the courts of the land had proven her innocence.

The story behind this necklace began when Louis XV commissioned the crown jewellers, Boehmer and Bassenge, to create a spectacular diamond necklace for his mistress Madame du Barry, for the hugely extravagant price of two million pounds. Unfortunately for the jewellers, the king died before they could deliver the necklace and receive payment. To their further dismay, his successor’s wife, MarieAntoinette, had no interest in the necklace, and refused to buy it. There followed a plot orchestrated by a descendent of King Henri II, named Jeanne de Valois-Saint-Remy, who schemed with her husband to persuade the Cardinal de Rohan to obtain the necklace as a way of winning the queen’s favour. Having previously made an enemy of Marie-Antoinette and wishing to re-establish himself at court, the Cardinal agreed. In order to convince the Cardinal that the queen had indeed forgiven his former indiscretions, Jeanne arranged a clandestine meeting one evening between the Cardinal and an actress pretending to be the queen. Suitably persuaded, he made arrangements for the queen to acquire the necklace. The subterfuge was only brought to light when the jewellers asked to be paid and, having no knowledge of the supposed purchase of the necklace, both the king and queen refused.