Miniature of Marie Antoinette
painter
Jean-Baptiste Isabey
(Nancy, 1767 - 1855, Paris)
Dateabout 1786
Place MadeFrance, Europe
MediumOil
Dimensions9.5 x 6.5 x 0.5 cm (3 3/4 x 2 9/16 x 3/16 in.)
ClassificationsPaintings
Credit LineIsabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston
Accession numberP18s24
eMuseum ID725498
EmbARK ObjectID14288
Previous Number557
TMS Source ID3097
Last Updated8/9/24
Status
Not on viewWeb 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.
BibliographyNotesLoan Collection of Portraits for the Benefit of the Associated Charities and the North End Union. Exh. Cat. (Copley Hall, Boston. 2-23 March 1896), p. 58 no. 127 (as an unknown artist).
Gilbert Wendel Longstreet and Morris Carter. General Catalogue (Boston, 1935), p. 148. (as an unknown artist, dated about 1775)
Rollin Hadley. “Notes, Records, Comments.” Gardner Museum Calendar of Events 8, no. 29 (21 Mar. 1965), p. 2. (as about 1775)
“Notes, Records, Comments.” Gardner Museum Calendar of Events 9, no. 1 (5 Sep. 1965), p. 2. (as about 1775)
Nina Wutrich, "Marie Antoinette in the Gardner Museum," Inside the Collection (blog), Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, 31 October 2023, https://www.gardnermuseum.org/blog/marie-antoinette-gardner-museum
Gilbert Wendel Longstreet and Morris Carter. General Catalogue (Boston, 1935), p. 148. (as an unknown artist, dated about 1775)
Rollin Hadley. “Notes, Records, Comments.” Gardner Museum Calendar of Events 8, no. 29 (21 Mar. 1965), p. 2. (as about 1775)
“Notes, Records, Comments.” Gardner Museum Calendar of Events 9, no. 1 (5 Sep. 1965), p. 2. (as about 1775)
Nina Wutrich, "Marie Antoinette in the Gardner Museum," Inside the Collection (blog), Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, 31 October 2023, https://www.gardnermuseum.org/blog/marie-antoinette-gardner-museum
MarksNotesSigned (left edge): J E Isabey
ProvenanceNotesPossibly in the collection of the Marquis de Girardin, grandson of the Duc de Gaeta, Minister of Finance under Napoleon I.
Purchased by Isabella Stewart Gardner from the jeweler Shreve, Crump & Low Co., Boston on 20 October 1891 for $125.
Purchased by Isabella Stewart Gardner from the jeweler Shreve, Crump & Low Co., Boston on 20 October 1891 for $125.
