Combining style with practicality, the queen’s chair hides an ingenious swiveling mechanism that allowed Marie-Antoinette to casually turn as her hair was styled and powdered. Its low back facilitated this important part of her daily toilette, or act of dressing for the day. Hairstyles of the 1780s were meant to appear more natural than they had been in Marie-Antoinette’s earlier years. Instead of towering tresses crowned with feathers and flowers, she opted for simpler, curled coiffures that were less likely to provoke accusations of extravagance and excess in the years before the French Revolution.
Raised up on a special plinth and enlivened with engaging new audio tour components, the queen’s swiveling armchair invites you to stop and look closely. Discover the skilled craftsmanship of the master furniture maker Georges Jacob or the carver Jean-Baptiste Rode. Imagine Marie-Antoinette sitting before you, gazing out the window onto the landscape of her beloved Trianon as her hair is curled and powdered to “rustic” perfection.
As it happens, this chair is not the only object in the Getty Museum’s collection with a direct connection to Marie-Antoinette. Four giltwood side chairs and four gilt bronze wall lights commissioned for her use are also on view nearby in the Getty Center’s South Pavilion.
Art, Music, Revolution
The chair’s new installation in the Getty Center’s Neoclassical Furniture Gallery coincides with a citywide celebration around the staging by the L.A. Opera of the Figaro Trilogy. These operas, inspired by the plays of Marie-Antoinette’s contemporary Pierre Caron de Beaumarchais, bring a comic touch to stories of aristocratic excess in the years leading up to the French Revolution.
The fest also includes a day of music, talks, and tours here at the Getty on January 24, which features a talk by curator Charissa Bremer-David about art on the eve of the French Revolution. The day begins with coffee and pastries—Marie-Antoinette would have approved.