3-002-832 - Heritage Art/Heritage Images

Portrait of Queen Marie Antoinette, c 1774. Marie Antoinette of Lorraine (1755-1793) married Louis XVI of France in 1770 and shared her husband's fate, being executed by guillotine, in 1793. Peter Adolf Hall left Sweden for France in 1766. Within three years, he was court painter to Louis. Hall introduced to French miniature painting a seemingly spontaneous technique employing broad, loose brushstrokes. This miniature was previously attributed to Hall. However, as the style is rather more precise than his typical work it may be by another artist or a follower of Hall. The case is later than the miniature appears to be, and was probably made 1809-1810.