Marie-Antoinette’s Perfume Burner (F292) Marie-Antoinette,
France’s most tragic queen, arrived from her native Austria in
1770 to marry the Dauphin, the future Louis XVI. At the time she
was just fourteen years old and four years later she was crowned
Queen. It was not long before she started to refurbish her
apartments at the royal palaces, which provided her with an
attractive distraction from the monotony of court life. With her
high-spirited nature and extravagant approach to life, she
commissioned sumptuous furnishings for her private apartments,
using the most skillful craftsmen of the day. In the turbulent
times that followed the Revolution, the Queen was guillotined in
1793 and soon afterwards many of her finest possessions were
sold. This perfume burner passed through the hands of various
collectors until it was purchased by the Fourth Marquess of
Hertford at the Beauvau sale in 1865. It remained in Paris until
1871, when Richard Wallace brought much of his Parisian
collection back to London. Althoug