A portrait of the young dauphine Marie-Antoinette, aged 16, turned the heads of collectors. Each week, Stéphane Bern deciphers the royal news with a new meeting: Côté Cours.
Can Queen Marie-Antoinette dethrone Napoleon I in the hearts of collectors of historical memories? Throughout the auctions, the relics of the unfortunate queen are snapped up at a high price, like so many testimonies of the indelible mark that she will have left in the collective unconscious, sacred queen of fashion and fashion. the art of living in the 18th century, as shown by Sofia Coppola in her film Marie-Antoinette in 2006 or as evoked by the Nantes Arts Museum with the exhibition which has just opened “A la mode, l ‘ art of appearing in the 18th century ”. This week in Paris, the auction house Aguttes offered for sale a portrait of the young dauphine Marie-Antoinette, aged 16, and which was intended for her mother the Empress Marie-Thérèse of Austria, certainly proud to see her one day accede to the most prestigious throne in Europe, but also undoubtedly a little sad to see her move away from Vienna.
The Palace of Versailles pre-empted the work
The king’s painter, Joseph-Siffred Duplessis, was therefore commissioned in 1771 to produce an equestrian portrait of the young Dauphine of France. But for lack of a sufficient number of posing sessions, the representation on horseback has become a bust portrait of the teenager. The Palace of Versailles museum did have a sketch of this original commission in its collections, but the completed version of the portrait could not be found until Grégoire Lacroix, director of the Old Paintings & Drawings department at Aguttes, recently found it by chance. at private homes when two saleswomen sent him photos of this painting which had always been enthroned in a room and which was nicknamed “the little marquise”. Estimated between 20,000 and 30,000 euros, the portrait set fire to the auction in five minutes, a fire fueled by the enthusiasm of potential buyers. This enthusiasm for the collections for paintings and other royal souvenirs that belonged to the French sovereign, in fact our last queen of France, raised the auction to € 175,500 including fees. Immediately, in general relief – with the exception of that of the putative buyer – the Palace of Versailles pre-empted the work which will join its collections to be admired by visitors.
But Marie-Antoinette’s rating continues to climb. After his shoes or a trunk that belonged to him, records are multiplying when it comes to objects that belonged to him. Until recently, diamond bracelets that belonged to Marie-Antoinette were auctioned for 7 million euros at Christie’s, a sum certainly less important if we compare it to the 32 million euros achieved by a diamond pendant adorned with a pear-shaped pearl that belonged to the Queen of France, sold in 2018 at Sotheby’s. It took only five minutes in Geneva to award these two bracelets composed of 112 diamonds from the personal case of the queen, miraculously saved during the Revolution, returned to her surviving daughter Marie-Thérèse, Duchess of Angoulême, who had bequeathed them to his niece, the Duchess of Parma. Remained in the Bourbon-Parma family, these bracelets had never been shown in public sale. “
There were multiple bidders. (…) The first auction was for 5 million euros, which is to say the enthusiasm of collectors to try to acquire a real piece of history that has remained in the same family for 200 years ”, explained Rahul. Kadakia, Director of the Jewelry Department at Christie’s. “It’s an important price, but if these pieces had not been associated with Marie-Antoinette, with their historical significance, they would only have sold for a few hundred thousand euros. The magic of provenance has added the necessary zeros ”. In fact, all the experts testify, collectors are ready to splurge to appropriate a piece of history. “People want to identify with the people who owned them at the time and are willing to pay a price for a provenance, for a story, which far exceeds the intrinsic value of the object,” notes Olivier Wagner at Sotheby’s. However, with the 2018 record for her famous diamond pendant adorned with a pear-shaped pearl of exceptional size, Queen Marie-Antoinette took the head of the prize list and since then she has become the most important historical figure. most expensive auction. A fair revenge for the one who was unfairly accused for a famous necklace that she had never ordered, and which gradually regains all its credit in public opinion.
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