Paris (AFP)
How did a hated queen sent to the scaffold turn into a pop figure? In painting, manga, Barbie doll or film, an exhibition traces the evolution of representations of Marie-Antoinette at the Conciergerie in Paris.
"Of all the monuments to which is attached the image of Queen Marie Antoinette, this one is surely the strongest: it is here that she was incarcerated and sentenced to death", resituates Philippe Bélaval, president of the Center National monuments (CMN), under the high white stone arches of the Conciergerie.
The old prison of the Revolution welcomes from Wednesday more than 200 pieces gathered by the commissioner Antoine de Baecque. "The idea was born three years ago, in the cafe opposite: we wanted to come back to this + Marie-Antoinette-mania + It is not a rehabilitation but a renewal of the image, that of a modern princess who emancipates the pros or cons, "said the latter.
- Worship -
Marie-Antoinette arrived very young at Versailles to be married to Louis XVI. Bad at first, she will undo many uses of the court, including its extravagant hairstyles, to become an emblematic figure of the French monarchy.
Her nightgown, the shoe she is said to have lost on the scaffold and her last letter are exposed where her cell was. If these effects were considered as relics by the royalists, it is his time-honored act of condemnation to death which was the object of a republican cult.
But it is less to the life of the queen than to her image that the exhibition is devoted. Sometimes caricatured as a harpy, sometimes painted as a holy martyr, the representations are opposed and multiplied.
Some performances have become ultra-famous, such as "The Portrait of Marie Antoinette Rose". Painted by Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun in 1783, this official portrait was reviewed by Botero in 2005 in its style all in size, then replayed by ex-escort girl Zahia Dehar, photographed by plastic artists Pierre and Gilles in 2014.
- Pop -
Popularized in Japan by the manga "The Rose of Versailles" by Riyoko Ikeda in 1972 - adapted in cartoon under the name "Lady Oscar" and by Jacques Demy in a film of the same name - the Archduchess of Austria has become especially an icon worldwide thanks to the big screen. A movie theater occupies the center of the exhibition, where excerpts from more than 100 films about the Queen's life are shown.
The oldest goes back to 1903, another can find Michèle Morgan in the role of the queen in the 50s, but it is the film of the American Sofia Coppola that transforms Marie-Antoinette into a figure of pop culture. 2006. With her colors and her anachronistic soundtrack, largely composed of rock, Kirsten Dunst plays a queen "punkette" in crisis of adolescence.
"This film allowed the youth to identify with Marie Antoinette," says Annie Duprat, a specialist in historical iconography. "It came out a few years after the death of Lady D., another pretty passionate princess of art and fashion, tragically dead."
- A French symbol -
Sofia Coppola's famous pale blue dress is on display in front of another Christian Dior dress, the "most difficult to get" piece, according to the curator of the exhibition, who devotes a room to repeated references by fashion designers. of Marie Antoinette.
"If the fashion is so present in France, it is also because this industry was much more stimulated by Marie-Antoinette than by the previous queens" traces Annie Duprat. "Behind the adoration abroad for Marie-Antoinette, there is the adoration of French taste of the eighteenth century.It is also a marketable figure because it is recognized quickly: just a woman's face, 'a wig and jewelry'.
And to close the exhibition, obviously some products with the effigy of the queen: cups, chocolate, and ... a doll Barbie.
© 2019 AFP