Beauty Through Art
Art historian Katy Hessel traces how art has shaped, and been shaped by, our ideas of beauty across time.
The second half of the 1700s saw the reign of Marie Antoinette. While she was a complex and controversial figure, the French queen has left a lasting impression on taste and style, remembered as one of history’s most influential fashion and beauty icons. Part of this was thanks to her portraitist: Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun, who immortalised her in circa 30 portraits.
Marie Antoinette helped popularise the towering hairstyle known as the pouf or pouffe, also toque (literally, ‘a thick cushion’), sparking a wave of French noblewomen to wear their hair in the same manner.
Marie Antoinette’s mother admonished her in a letter dated 5 March 1775: “I cannot refrain from mentioning to you something that many of the gazettes repeat to me too often... They say your hair is 36 inches high from the roots, and with so many feathers and ribbons that it rises even higher!”
Jean-François Janinet, Portrait of Marie-Antoinette (1777), Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Image credit: © Museum Associates/LACMA.
The second half of the 1700s saw the reign of Marie Antoinette. While she was a complex and controversial figure, the French queen has left a lasting impression on taste and style, remembered as one of history’s most influential fashion and beauty icons. Part of this was thanks to her portraitist: Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun, who immortalised her in circa 30 portraits.
Marie Antoinette helped popularise the towering hairstyle known as the pouf or pouffe, also toque (literally, ‘a thick cushion’), sparking a wave of French noblewomen to wear their hair in the same manner.
Marie Antoinette’s mother admonished her in a letter dated 5 March 1775: “I cannot refrain from mentioning to you something that many of the gazettes repeat to me too often... They say your hair is 36 inches high from the roots, and with so many feathers and ribbons that it rises even higher!”
Jean-François Janinet, Portrait of Marie-Antoinette (1777), Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Image credit: © Museum Associates/LACMA.
Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun, Marie Antoinette with a Rose (1783), Palace of Versailles, Versailles. Image credit: Incamerastock/Alamy
Scent was important too. Marie Antoinette employed French perfumer Jean-Louis Fargeon to conjure a blend of rose, jasmine and tuberose – legend has it that she even thought to bring it with her during her imprisonment in the Tower of Paris!
It’s no surprise that Vigée Le Brun often pictured her with a rose.
Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun, Marie Antoinette with a Rose (1783), Palace of Versailles, Versailles. Image credit: Incamerastock/Alamy
Scent was important too. Marie Antoinette employed French perfumer Jean-Louis Fargeon to conjure a blend of rose, jasmine and tuberose – legend has it that she even thought to bring it with her during her imprisonment in the Tower of Paris!
It’s no surprise that Vigée Le Brun often pictured her with a rose.
Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun, Marie Antoinette en chemise (1783), Hesse House Foundation, collection of the prince Ludwig von Hessen und bei Rhein, Germany. Image credit: Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun, Marie Antoinette en chemise (1783), Hesse House Foundation, collection of the prince Ludwig von Hessen und bei Rhein, Germany. Image credit: Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
1: Etro Womenswear SS23. Image credit: Rosdiana Ciaravolo/WireImage via Getty Images. 2: Christian Dior Couture AW00. Image credit: Guy Marineau/Condé Nast via Getty Images. 3: Vivienne Westwood AW95. Image credit: Guy Marineau/Condé Nast via Getty Images
1: Etro Womenswear SS23. Image credit: Rosdiana Ciaravolo/WireImage via Getty Images. 2: Christian Dior Couture AW00. Image credit: Guy Marineau/Condé Nast via Getty Images. 3: Vivienne Westwood AW95. Image credit: Guy Marineau/Condé Nast via Getty Images
