Jean-Baptiste Isabey - Miniature of Marie Antoinette, about 1786

Jean-Baptiste Isabey (Nancy, 1767 - 1855, Paris)

Miniature of Marie Antoinette, about 1786

Oil, 9.5 x 6.5 x 0.5 cm (3 3/4 x 2 9/16 x 3/16 in.)

Commentary

This portrait miniature depicts Marie Antoinette (1755–1793) as a young woman. Isabella Stewart Gardner was interested in the tragic story of the last queen of France, and she displayed this portrait in the Little Salon, a room in the Palace decorated in the eighteenth-century Rococo style.