Adored or abhorred, Marie Antoinette remains an icon.

Her reign, both refined and excessive, coincided with the final days

of the Ancien Régime, illustrating forever a lost era. The beauty and charm

of the young Austrian archduchess, who became queen at the age

of nineteen, fascinated artists of her time ; at different stages

of her life, they portrayed and, above all, showcased this sovereign.

She was keenly interested in fashion and new ideas,

yet she squandered outrageous sums of money ; she was an arbiter

of taste and invented an intimate and sumptuous lifestyle,

which did not survive the French Revolution. From the Austrian court

to the scaffold, via the State Rooms of Versailles,

the Trianon and Fontainebleau, this book presents a visual narrative

of Marie Antoinette's destiny as the last queen of France.