Marie Antoinette Being Taken to Her Execution (Hamilton)
| Marie Antoinette Being Taken to Her Execution | |
|---|---|
| Artist | William Hamilton |
| Year | 1794 |
| Type | Oil on canvas, history painting |
| Dimensions | 152 cm × 197 cm (60 in × 78 in) |
| Location | Musée de la Révolution française, Vizille |
Marie Antoinette Being Taken to Her Execution is an oil on canvas history painting by the British artist William Hamilton.[1][2] It depicts a scene in Paris from the French Revolution.[3] On 16 October 1793 Marie Antoinette, the widow of the deposed French monarch Louis XVI who had been executed earlier that year, was herself taken to be guillotined.[4]
She is portrayed in white, emphasising her innocence, with the executioner Charles-Henri Sanson binding her hands. A priest is shown beside her while soldiers hold back the revolutionary mob of Sans-culottes. The composition emphasises the former queen's dignity. It was produced at a time when Britain and the French Republic were at war. Today the painting is in the collection of the Musée de la Révolution française in Vizille.[5]
References
Bibliography
- Bindman, David & Dawson, Aileen. The Shadow of the Guillotine: Britain and the French Revolution. Trustees of the British Museum, 1989.
- Rauser, Amelia. The Age of Undress: Art, Fashion, and the Classical Ideal in the 1790s Yale University Press, 2020.
- Worth, Rachel. Fashion and Class. Bloomsbury Publishing, 2020.