The Hybridized Identity of Marie-Antoinette

A diatribe against Marie-Antoinette originated in France during the mid-eighteenth-century and has carried on into present day discourse. Sadly, our views of Marie-Antoinette tend to be shaped by two hundred year-old opinions that were likely not fully accurate. So who was Marie-Antoinette? Over the past century, more and more scholars, biographers, and filmmakers have attempted to answer this question. Yet have we received a proper depiction of Marie-Antoinette or are we still presented with a representation that communicates the past condemnations of eighteenth-century France? Is it possible that Marie-Antoinette was the foolish and thoughtless woman Norma Shearer played in the Stephan Zweig inspired biopic Marie-Antoinette? Or maybe she was the sweet, naive, and careless dauphine/queen who never fully understood the importance of her position that was depicted in Sofia Coppola’s film Marie-Antoinette. Similarly, Benoît Jacquot’s movie Farewell My Queen, based on Chantal Thomas’ book, also tried to offer its viewer a softer image of the queen, but Marie-Antoinette still came off as a selfish woman. Although all are excellent in their own way, they do not explore who Marie-Antoinette really was both before and after her arrival to France. These depictions fail to investigate how Marie-Antoinette was able to be both the archduchess of Austria and the dauphine and queen of France at the same time. I am equally concerned that most eighteenth-century scholars have traditionally interpreted images of Marie-Antoinette after 1770 as representing a French aristocratic woman, dauphine, and queen. Their classification of Marie-Antoinette’s identity as solely French dismisses her childhood experiences in Austria and the deep-rooted effects her family, upbringing, and country had on the development of her adult identity. Like the French courtiers of 1770, historians regard Marie-Antoinette’s remise as the moment in which she completely surrendered her Austrian identity in exchange for her newly assigned role as dauphine of France. But how could Marie Antoinette be expected to abandon her Austrian identity upon demand? Can a ceremonial stripping of garments in which she retains nothing belonging to her former foreign court, actually erase her past? To answer these questions, my thesis will take an art historical approach to the connection between biographical accounts and visual representations to see how Marie-Antoinette as both the subject and patron fashioned her image. I will analyze artworks of Marie-Antoinette to present an image of her that was defined by and recognized through a combination of Austrian and French gender and social class ideologies.Bachelor of Art