1 00:00:10,830 --> 00:00:16,890 I've come to Wilson Manor in Buckinghamshire on the trail of objects related to Miyata Annette. 2 00:00:16,890 --> 00:00:19,920 She's not the first person you would think of when you get to Watson, 3 00:00:19,920 --> 00:00:28,350 which is set in beautiful countryside and looks rather like a pastiche of different bits of French chateau stuck together with Pippa Shirley, 4 00:00:28,350 --> 00:00:33,210 head of collections and Gardens. And I'm hoping she's going to be able to tell me a bit about the place. 5 00:00:33,210 --> 00:00:39,630 Well, if you are in search of Marie Antoinette, you couldn't have come to a better place, really, because this is a Rothschild house. 6 00:00:39,630 --> 00:00:44,400 It was built by Baron Ferdinand de Rothschild at the end of the 19th century as a place where 7 00:00:44,400 --> 00:00:50,130 he could bring friends and family to entertain them on luxurious weekends out of London. 8 00:00:50,130 --> 00:00:56,910 That is also the home for his spectacular and extraordinary collection, which is very much focussed on the 18th century. 9 00:00:56,910 --> 00:01:03,900 And objects that were associated with Marie Antoinette were one of the things that really set his heart aflame. 10 00:01:03,900 --> 00:01:08,070 When you arrive, you could be forgiven for thinking that you are in the French countryside, 11 00:01:08,070 --> 00:01:13,140 because what we're looking at here is torn intensive purposes, a French renaissance chateau. 12 00:01:13,140 --> 00:01:17,700 But it's a jigsaw French renaissance chateau because Ferdinand's French architect 13 00:01:17,700 --> 00:01:23,070 detailer created Waldstein out of all sorts of fragments of other buildings. 14 00:01:23,070 --> 00:01:27,840 You can see little elements from the Louvre, little elements from the sky. 15 00:01:27,840 --> 00:01:33,100 The staircases are copied from the Chateau Blau in the till then inside the house. 16 00:01:33,100 --> 00:01:36,060 So you are then transported into a completely different world, 17 00:01:36,060 --> 00:01:45,900 because then you move very swiftly and firmly into the 18th century with rooms that are, in many cases, taken from 18th century Parisian townhouses. 18 00:01:45,900 --> 00:01:49,650 The house is now owned by the National Trust, but managed by the Rothschild Foundation. 19 00:01:49,650 --> 00:01:53,430 And we're open to the public. We have nearly 400000 visitors a year. 20 00:01:53,430 --> 00:02:10,310 And in fact, we've just had a visit from a coach load of Chinese visitors who've come to learn about the Rothschild Cellars. 21 00:02:10,310 --> 00:02:16,610 I'm in the white drawing room. Pipper we have in front of us the most extraordinary picture. 22 00:02:16,610 --> 00:02:23,360 This is a state portrait of King Louis, the 16th of France looking slightly haughty. 23 00:02:23,360 --> 00:02:27,980 He's standing in his ermine robes. He's got his silk bloomers on. 24 00:02:27,980 --> 00:02:33,470 He's got his shoes with the red heels, which only members of the royal family were allowed to wear. 25 00:02:33,470 --> 00:02:40,670 He's in a very magnificent interior with great swathes of silk velvet all around him and a throne in the background. 26 00:02:40,670 --> 00:02:47,690 On the left of His Majesty's, something like the Boy Scouts on a sign on a Steve. 27 00:02:47,690 --> 00:02:53,540 What did it mean, Pepper? It denoted the king's ability to dispense justice to his people. 28 00:02:53,540 --> 00:02:56,750 So very important element of government. 29 00:02:56,750 --> 00:03:04,880 He is wearing the magnificent collar from which is suspended, the Oort Cloud, the Sante Spleen, which is one of the orders of the French royal house. 30 00:03:04,880 --> 00:03:08,330 The portrait was painted by the court artist Kelly, 31 00:03:08,330 --> 00:03:15,410 who was commissioned to paint the series of portraits of the King, which was the official image of the monarch. 32 00:03:15,410 --> 00:03:21,080 This particular portrait was painted in 1783 and it was commissioned for the French ambassador, 33 00:03:21,080 --> 00:03:25,580 the Atama, to bring with him to London as he started his embassy. 34 00:03:25,580 --> 00:03:30,140 And I think the thing to understand about these portraits is that they were not really portraits of the person. 35 00:03:30,140 --> 00:03:35,540 This was the state image, rather, as you find portraits of Queen and Prince Philip and every embassy around the world. 36 00:03:35,540 --> 00:03:41,690 Now, this painting performed exactly that function, so much so that it actually embodied the presence of the king. 37 00:03:41,690 --> 00:03:48,050 So they were always displayed in very grand reception rooms in these embassy buildings. 38 00:03:48,050 --> 00:03:54,110 And you would not turn your back on the portrait. It would be like turning your back on the king himself. 39 00:03:54,110 --> 00:04:00,500 The frame is just as extraordinary or possibly more extraordinary even than the painting itself. 40 00:04:00,500 --> 00:04:04,680 There are medallions in the corners, coats of arms on the top. 41 00:04:04,680 --> 00:04:12,650 What's going on? Well, the frame is as full of political and royalist imagery as the portrait itself. 42 00:04:12,650 --> 00:04:18,980 This frame was designed specifically to come with this portrait to London with a contour atmar. 43 00:04:18,980 --> 00:04:25,940 And we know that partly because at the bottom there is a rather beautiful cartouche which explains that it was given to the ambassador. 44 00:04:25,940 --> 00:04:31,790 The date that he was given and so on and so forth. But also, if we look up at the top, it's an immense painting. 45 00:04:31,790 --> 00:04:34,250 It must be over two metres high. 46 00:04:34,250 --> 00:04:43,550 This is very, very elaborate cartouche with the arms of France in the middle, surrounded by the very splendid colour of the order of the scientists. 47 00:04:43,550 --> 00:04:49,440 On top of the cartouche is a cushion with the mons Eustace again with a crown surmounting everything, 48 00:04:49,440 --> 00:04:55,520 and then to either side below the cushion and the arms of France is a wonderful assembly of banners, 49 00:04:55,520 --> 00:05:02,760 trophies of war, and they are all laid aside in peace. And that's very important because this is a pacifist frame, if you like, Adama. 50 00:05:02,760 --> 00:05:09,750 US Embassy was post the American War of Independence. England of France be completely at odds through that period. 51 00:05:09,750 --> 00:05:17,840 And this frame is about rapprochement and it expresses it very clearly, much more so than the figure of the king, who is a very standardised image. 52 00:05:17,840 --> 00:05:22,510 And how does this portrait end up in what's then? 53 00:05:22,510 --> 00:05:26,900 The portrait came to London with the ambassador who displayed it in the residence, 54 00:05:26,900 --> 00:05:33,140 which was on Piccadilly in London, for reasons that we don't completely understand when his embassy came to an end. 55 00:05:33,140 --> 00:05:41,420 He sold the contents of the official residence. And this portrait was bought by old Devon and it was displayed apart from Castle. 56 00:05:41,420 --> 00:05:45,170 Then a few years ago, it was on the market again. 57 00:05:45,170 --> 00:05:52,910 It was deemed to be of national importance because of this very unusual combination of the portrait with its original frame. 58 00:05:52,910 --> 00:05:56,030 And so an adult having an export stop placed on it. 59 00:05:56,030 --> 00:06:02,600 And the rostral foundation stepped in at that point and acquired it for Waldstein, very largely because of the sitter, 60 00:06:02,600 --> 00:06:08,870 because so much that we have here is associated with the osteo regime, with Louis, the 16th of Marie Antoinette. 61 00:06:08,870 --> 00:06:14,180 It seemed a rather wonderful opportunity to secure one of the iconic depictions of the king. 62 00:06:14,180 --> 00:06:38,580 And here he is in the white drawing room. I'm in the morning room at What's to Mama with Rachel Jacobs, the curator responsible for the books. 63 00:06:38,580 --> 00:06:46,020 The Morning Room is a large room with high ceilings which are extremely or neatly decorated in stucco. 64 00:06:46,020 --> 00:06:54,650 And on the walls is the original Damaske, which used to be green and has now faded to a rather pleasant gilt colour. 65 00:06:54,650 --> 00:07:00,600 Rachel is going to be introducing some of the books which have associations with nothing Ultranet. 66 00:07:00,600 --> 00:07:18,310 The room is lined with five bookcases. That's where these wonderful treasures live. 67 00:07:18,310 --> 00:07:22,510 So this is a black quarto volume with a coat of arms on it, Rachel. 68 00:07:22,510 --> 00:07:30,680 This is a manuscript of what appears to be the last will of friends, the first the father of Marie Antoinette. 69 00:07:30,680 --> 00:07:39,740 It's instructions for his children and the whole is manuscript with a lovely black border on each page. 70 00:07:39,740 --> 00:07:44,680 The binding is an Austrian binding, elegant but simple. 71 00:07:44,680 --> 00:07:52,290 It's black leather with two lines forming a frame around each of the covers and each corner. 72 00:07:52,290 --> 00:07:56,510 There's a simple flower with three flower heads in the middle. 73 00:07:56,510 --> 00:08:01,970 Quite prominently are the arms of Melling Antoinette, according to our catalogue. 74 00:08:01,970 --> 00:08:07,550 The arms had been updated once she became queen and her arms changed. 75 00:08:07,550 --> 00:08:12,620 The Hapsburgs were control freaks when it came to educating their children. 76 00:08:12,620 --> 00:08:17,160 Both Francis Steven or for swapped home turf hunts for first. 77 00:08:17,160 --> 00:08:23,360 There are several titles by which he's known my opponent's father and, of course, the formidable Maria Teresa. 78 00:08:23,360 --> 00:08:29,450 We're actually very interested in the upbringing of their children and both of them roots, sets of instructions. 79 00:08:29,450 --> 00:08:37,680 So France, the emperor wrote this, asked quicksort, poor missile fall, don't pull over spiritual good laptop. 80 00:08:37,680 --> 00:08:46,100 Bohle and Maria Teresa, whenever any of her children went off, would make sure they had a list reminding them of their royal duties. 81 00:08:46,100 --> 00:08:53,280 A lot of which revolved around remembering her in their prayers. 82 00:08:53,280 --> 00:09:06,960 This manuscript is dated the 14th of December 1750 to Vienna 19, it was born on the 2nd of November 1755, the 15th of 16 children. 83 00:09:06,960 --> 00:09:14,760 This manuscript was actually written before her birth, but the instructions to any child of the emperor and empress, 84 00:09:14,760 --> 00:09:24,780 and that's why a copy would have been made for muffing or to Annette. The manuscript is not in the emperor's own handwriting, but in his scribed. 85 00:09:24,780 --> 00:09:33,510 It's a beautifully elegant, rounded cursive, very clear, very legible, with quite a lovely gapping between each line. 86 00:09:33,510 --> 00:09:39,270 Fortunately, Miyata Annett didn't copy this out herself before leaving Vienna. 87 00:09:39,270 --> 00:09:43,920 She was notorious for having appalling handwriting as a child and a lot of 88 00:09:43,920 --> 00:09:48,790 her mother's early letters to her when she's arrived in VLSI say things like, 89 00:09:48,790 --> 00:09:54,350 Oh, couldn't you be more careful with your letters? Couldn't you write better? 90 00:09:54,350 --> 00:10:03,830 Almost all of the books in our collection, including this one, were collected by Baron Ferdinand de Rothschild, who built Waldstein. 91 00:10:03,830 --> 00:10:08,360 We often don't have much information about how he acquired his collection. 92 00:10:08,360 --> 00:10:17,270 He was quite secretive, although with his books he was slightly more forthcoming with the provenance of some of the collection. 93 00:10:17,270 --> 00:10:22,400 I think partly because often books show their early provenance. 94 00:10:22,400 --> 00:10:27,140 Previous owners love to write their names or put their X Libras in. 95 00:10:27,140 --> 00:10:33,050 And here, when you open the cover, there's a lovely small card that says CLX. 96 00:10:33,050 --> 00:10:39,890 So Taschner in Ferdinand's own writing, a reminder to himself as to where this came from. 97 00:10:39,890 --> 00:10:45,590 So all we know of this one is that it was in the collection Teschner in the 19th century, 98 00:10:45,590 --> 00:10:49,940 and then it's recorded in Ferdinand's own catalogue of books, 99 00:10:49,940 --> 00:10:57,200 which is the only part of the collection that he catalogued officially, and that was published in 1897. 100 00:10:57,200 --> 00:11:02,030 Taschner was a very significant bibliophile in the 19th century. 101 00:11:02,030 --> 00:11:07,490 Ferdinand came at book collecting rather late in the last sort of 10 years of his life. 102 00:11:07,490 --> 00:11:14,690 The middle to the late eighteen eighties, which is when he started building the space for his book collection. 103 00:11:14,690 --> 00:11:23,450 And he said at one point in his memoirs that at that time there were no longer any good French paintings to collect on the market. 104 00:11:23,450 --> 00:11:43,600 But there were a great number of good French books. And that's because there were some significant bibliophiles who died around that period. 105 00:11:43,600 --> 00:11:46,610 We're looking at a beautifully bound almanac. 106 00:11:46,610 --> 00:11:56,800 Why an almost entirely covered with Mica, which is a silicate mineral popular in the second half of the 18th century on bindings, 107 00:11:56,800 --> 00:12:03,580 particularly prayer books or almanac's books that were produced annually and at speed. 108 00:12:03,580 --> 00:12:13,120 This mineral can be cut into fine sheets and is transparent, is actually quite good at protecting against damage from light. 109 00:12:13,120 --> 00:12:18,760 You often found it in the middle of a binding where there was a painted coat of arms and it was 110 00:12:18,760 --> 00:12:25,480 covering that and the rest of the binding would be predominately decorated with leather tooled in gold. 111 00:12:25,480 --> 00:12:30,190 Here we find painted arms. Coat of arms of Marie Antoinette. 112 00:12:30,190 --> 00:12:34,360 Then the rest of the binding is almost entirely covered in Mica. 113 00:12:34,360 --> 00:12:46,390 And underneath this type of early plastic is a foil, silver foil and red foil that's been tooled and decorated with wonderful leaves and foliage. 114 00:12:46,390 --> 00:12:50,200 What's holding the mica down is a lovely strap. 115 00:12:50,200 --> 00:12:58,720 Work of leather also tooled in gold decoration and those former border and corner pieces as well. 116 00:12:58,720 --> 00:13:03,820 In the 18th century when you went and bought a book, it would not be bound. 117 00:13:03,820 --> 00:13:10,480 There would be leaves of paper which had been sewn together into what the French would call Kagi or quires. 118 00:13:10,480 --> 00:13:16,750 You would then, if you wanted to keep the book and protect it, have a binding made for it. 119 00:13:16,750 --> 00:13:24,940 This means that bindings range and quality. You could have a very simple board binding where you could have a very elaborate binding. 120 00:13:24,940 --> 00:13:30,850 The more elaborate the binding, of course, the more expensive and the finer the materials used. 121 00:13:30,850 --> 00:13:35,350 Can we presume that this binding was made specifically for money or Toinette? 122 00:13:35,350 --> 00:13:36,610 Yes, we can. 123 00:13:36,610 --> 00:13:45,580 In her account books, we know that her household was purchasing large numbers of almanacs, which would have been used by members of her household. 124 00:13:45,580 --> 00:13:47,650 These books were extremely useful. 125 00:13:47,650 --> 00:13:57,340 They were your sort of equivalent of the Yellow Pages, but also provided every bit of information you needed to live within that regime. 126 00:13:57,340 --> 00:14:04,330 You had all of the members of each royal household, each of the ministers, the members of the military. 127 00:14:04,330 --> 00:14:12,850 You had information about when the post and certain travel information where you would bring petitions for each household. 128 00:14:12,850 --> 00:14:17,310 All of this information, as well as a calendar with the Saints days, 129 00:14:17,310 --> 00:14:23,950 the calendar with the Saints days is particularly important because at the time, you don't generally wish someone a happy birthday. 130 00:14:23,950 --> 00:14:30,250 That's not the most important day in their year. It's the Saints Day of the Saint to whom they owe their name, 131 00:14:30,250 --> 00:14:39,190 the day on which all their friends will be writing to them, sending the presence or bringing them bouquets of flowers. 132 00:14:39,190 --> 00:14:46,750 Binder's at this time were very, very clever in trying to maximise effect, but also minimise cost. 133 00:14:46,750 --> 00:14:54,730 What's interesting about this finding is despite the fact that it looks quite spectacular because of the silver foil, 134 00:14:54,730 --> 00:15:01,270 it catches the light and it would sort of glisten as you were holding it and flicking through it at the same time. 135 00:15:01,270 --> 00:15:09,910 MICA And the limited amount of leather used is quite a cost effective way of making something that looks quite luxurious. 136 00:15:09,910 --> 00:15:15,520 And this is evident here, the text block, which is the pages. 137 00:15:15,520 --> 00:15:20,620 The edges are gilt, which is lovely. So that adds to the overall shimmer effect. 138 00:15:20,620 --> 00:15:25,450 It's also quite a good method of protecting the pages from mould. 139 00:15:25,450 --> 00:15:30,340 And so the pace down when you opened the binding, 140 00:15:30,340 --> 00:15:38,140 the back of the board and the first piece of paper there is stuck down a beautiful blue watered silk, 141 00:15:38,140 --> 00:15:43,660 extremely expensive as textiles were at that time on the title page. 142 00:15:43,660 --> 00:15:48,820 It says Aluminium, Hawai'ian and Knee Mills sits sort Swiss on DVD. 143 00:15:48,820 --> 00:15:55,960 So 1778 present day as Her Majesty put a Pommier for Officer Gallivant is enough. 144 00:15:55,960 --> 00:16:04,240 So this is something which comes out every year absolutely vital to have in any household, let alone the royal household. 145 00:16:04,240 --> 00:16:09,550 There's a long tradition of Almanac's and originally within their agricultural setting, 146 00:16:09,550 --> 00:16:16,750 would hope to tell you what the year ahead would hold and give you advice as to when to set about your crops and so on, 147 00:16:16,750 --> 00:16:24,130 and also give you advice in terms of medical needs. What time of year would be best for such and such treatments? 148 00:16:24,130 --> 00:16:31,610 By this point, they had moved on from that. But they came from this tradition. 149 00:16:31,610 --> 00:16:39,980 So on page 168, we have the mayors on the left in all of the members of her household. 150 00:16:39,980 --> 00:16:47,060 And it covers a good three pages amongst the people who would be listed in the misdialled at a home. 151 00:16:47,060 --> 00:16:52,760 There is, of course, the shohat dot dot who ruled over everything, at least in theory. 152 00:16:52,760 --> 00:16:59,960 There would also be, for instance, members of her chapel staff, the chaplain to the queen had Docteur. 153 00:16:59,960 --> 00:17:04,190 Her equerry is the people who looked after her wardrobe. 154 00:17:04,190 --> 00:17:10,700 If you look through lists like these, you come across a number of people who are important in marking Antoinette's life. 155 00:17:10,700 --> 00:17:18,980 So since 1775, the process the noble has been shot at dot, dot, dot Aherne, if we look a little bit further along. 156 00:17:18,980 --> 00:17:24,500 One of the Chevallier dinner is should called the Pudding Jack Osteotomy Vos, the husband, 157 00:17:24,500 --> 00:17:31,020 the woman whom we know as the duchess, the pulling jack amongst the other people is her Lecter, 158 00:17:31,020 --> 00:17:36,560 the Abbey, the of a really important character in Miyata in its life since he was sent to Vienna 159 00:17:36,560 --> 00:17:42,170 before her arrival in France to help tutor her in French history and the French language. 160 00:17:42,170 --> 00:17:54,840 But also Mohle. The Eastaugh you have to force who also held the position as Bibliotheque Air or librarian to the Queen. 161 00:17:54,840 --> 00:18:04,500 These are albums, essentially modern scrapbooks, the beginning of these albums tend to be more the official royal image making. 162 00:18:04,500 --> 00:18:14,970 And then as we go through the album, we'll get some of the revolutionary images and counter revolutionary images as well. 163 00:18:14,970 --> 00:18:18,760 The volume opens with a portrait of Louis the 16th. 164 00:18:18,760 --> 00:18:24,850 And then right afterwards, we have Murray onto Annette, described as my Antoinette Doltish. 165 00:18:24,850 --> 00:18:28,900 Then the force, the Navar or maybe the crew heirloom model. 166 00:18:28,900 --> 00:18:35,230 Why Yan? So this is very obviously a state portrait representation of my Antoinette. 167 00:18:35,230 --> 00:18:44,770 Marie Antoinette is dressed in court style. The sort of cape which hangs down from her shoulders is blue, trimmed with ermine and covered in gold. 168 00:18:44,770 --> 00:18:52,720 Floated is the symbol of French royalty, which was used in the decorative arts and in fashion extensively. 169 00:18:52,720 --> 00:18:56,170 But there's also, I think in this picture, a lot to note. 170 00:18:56,170 --> 00:19:04,480 The fact that she was interested in fashion and trying to make even the traditional court garments into something quite original. 171 00:19:04,480 --> 00:19:10,000 And what gives it away more than anything else is the extraordinary confection she 172 00:19:10,000 --> 00:19:18,040 has on her head for large white ostrich feathers with a black one downturned, 173 00:19:18,040 --> 00:19:22,720 which seem to be sitting on top of a very high wig, 174 00:19:22,720 --> 00:19:26,650 which has ringlets to the side going down her neck, 175 00:19:26,650 --> 00:19:36,940 but pulled back into this great confection with a sort of cap and jewels and silks on the top of this very tall head of hair. 176 00:19:36,940 --> 00:19:45,780 My Ultranet was famous in her time not only for having reformed dresses, but also initially for what she did to women's heads. 177 00:19:45,780 --> 00:19:55,480 Male Toinette created fashions which were followed not only through art court circles, but widely beyond, including in foreign countries. 178 00:19:55,480 --> 00:20:04,690 One of the fashions she launched with great success was what was known as the Poof, essentially back combed hair and a wig, 179 00:20:04,690 --> 00:20:13,420 surmounting it with a cap, feathers, jewels and all sorts of extravagant things which were meant to tell you what was happening. 180 00:20:13,420 --> 00:20:19,420 Was there a naval victory? Then you would have a miniature ship with all its rigging on the top of your hair. 181 00:20:19,420 --> 00:20:26,020 There were all sorts of extraordinary creations which made getting in and out of carriages, particularly trying. 182 00:20:26,020 --> 00:20:38,250 But they were the talk of the town. The birth of a longed for daughter, Mahadev as Charlotte. 183 00:20:38,250 --> 00:20:44,010 Not as good as a son, of course, changed mouthing off to Annetts place in French court circles. 184 00:20:44,010 --> 00:20:50,280 Last she had shown that she could produce an heir. My alternate was interested in her own children. 185 00:20:50,280 --> 00:20:54,450 She played with them. She'd played with other children, even when an adult. 186 00:20:54,450 --> 00:21:00,270 This was quite unusual. And it was deplored by people like the Austrian ambassador who said that was never really 187 00:21:00,270 --> 00:21:06,480 possible for him to see her without her daughter being around and messing up papers and so on. 188 00:21:06,480 --> 00:21:11,590 We have a very charming print here, which purports to be of manyatta, Annette Darkish firm. 189 00:21:11,590 --> 00:21:16,680 And we said, what did he say, Madam Hawai'ian Fee Jawa. 190 00:21:16,680 --> 00:21:20,700 None of it looks particularly like either my Internet or her daughter. 191 00:21:20,700 --> 00:21:26,700 But what it does show is the importance of portraying the queen and the royal princess. 192 00:21:26,700 --> 00:21:34,680 It looks quite a lot like the many series of fashion prints that were produced at the time in terms of its small scale, its framing. 193 00:21:34,680 --> 00:21:41,850 So without that inscription below, it could just be any lovely fashionable lady with her child. 194 00:21:41,850 --> 00:21:52,940 And she's holding a wonderful fan as well. 195 00:21:52,940 --> 00:22:00,800 At a time when many people couldn't read caricatures were extraordinarily good ways of getting across a message, 196 00:22:00,800 --> 00:22:04,340 particularly when it was a politically subversive message. 197 00:22:04,340 --> 00:22:11,390 The French Revolution saw the development of a series of caricatures which would often turn members of the royal family, 198 00:22:11,390 --> 00:22:16,430 particularly the queen, who had a very bad press at the time, into animals. 199 00:22:16,430 --> 00:22:23,900 It was a way not only of showing that a king or queen was a human being like another, but actually they were no better than beasts. 200 00:22:23,900 --> 00:22:33,230 One of the caricatures, which was much reproduced during the revolution, showed Muffie or Toinette as an ostrich y an ostrich. 201 00:22:33,230 --> 00:22:39,920 You might ask. Well, it is a punning depiction because an ostrich in French is an touche. 202 00:22:39,920 --> 00:22:44,540 And Austria, the country of my Antoinette's birth, is uppish. 203 00:22:44,540 --> 00:22:50,120 So manyatta Annett became less popular. Do touche all pull do perish. 204 00:22:50,120 --> 00:22:52,210 On the one hand, the ostrich. 205 00:22:52,210 --> 00:23:02,410 But on the other, the kept woman of Austria and the kept woman of Austria or the ostrich is supposed to be saying in the caption to this print. 206 00:23:02,410 --> 00:23:08,480 JDF love a larger IVC facility, but a constitutional and a loverly. 207 00:23:08,480 --> 00:23:14,990 I can digest gold and silver with ease, but I cannot swallow the Constitution. 208 00:23:14,990 --> 00:23:20,420 This was the Constitution which was intended to reform the French monarchy and which 209 00:23:20,420 --> 00:23:25,370 indeed was something both the king and queen found very difficult to swallow. 210 00:23:25,370 --> 00:23:32,780 Well, this print is also saying is that Miyata Annett is someone who had got her hands on or in this case, 211 00:23:32,780 --> 00:23:39,500 her greasy beak on the gold with silver of France and that she had been responsible for bankrupting France. 212 00:23:39,500 --> 00:23:41,360 We, of course, know that this is a myth, 213 00:23:41,360 --> 00:23:51,290 but it's a myth which gained great currency during the revolution and prints like this would have been used to propagate it. 214 00:23:51,290 --> 00:23:55,670 The French Revolution sent shockwaves throughout Europe. 215 00:23:55,670 --> 00:24:04,220 One of the places where the French Revolution was watched in some circles with interest and enthusiasm and in others with great wariness, 216 00:24:04,220 --> 00:24:06,440 was, of course, the United Kingdom. 217 00:24:06,440 --> 00:24:13,910 On the one hand, the idea that Republican ideals might flourish was an extremely attractive one to a number of intellectuals. 218 00:24:13,910 --> 00:24:21,770 On the other, the traditional forces of the church and the aristocracy were extremely worried about the consequences. 219 00:24:21,770 --> 00:24:26,480 A number of British cartoonists made their fortune, 220 00:24:26,480 --> 00:24:33,050 or at least part of their fortune on prints and caricatures which related to the French Revolution. 221 00:24:33,050 --> 00:24:39,170 So we're looking here at a print called Lab Work Up Door Pandora's Box. 222 00:24:39,170 --> 00:24:46,580 There are a group of people, one of whom in the centre is carrying a box out of which is popping a sort of jack in the box, 223 00:24:46,580 --> 00:24:52,940 except the jack is mailed to Annette and it says on the box of all ills. 224 00:24:52,940 --> 00:25:04,810 I am quite the worst. In a medallion, we can see the king, the queen and the little dive. 225 00:25:04,810 --> 00:25:12,460 But what sets this print apart from some of the other earlier ones showing the royal family is that clearly it's a very late one. 226 00:25:12,460 --> 00:25:18,010 There is a panel underneath which shows the moment when the family was separated. 227 00:25:18,010 --> 00:25:22,660 We're in the top prison. They are captives. They cannot leave. 228 00:25:22,660 --> 00:25:26,980 The Trinity was a palace in which the royal family was held under house arrest. 229 00:25:26,980 --> 00:25:35,230 But once they got to the top, there was no going out. You can see the absolute despair of some of the members of the family. 230 00:25:35,230 --> 00:25:41,860 We can see the queen with her daughter and her sister in law and then the little dulfer hanging 231 00:25:41,860 --> 00:25:48,430 onto his father's coattails as his father is being marched away during the last part of his life. 232 00:25:48,430 --> 00:25:56,800 Louis the 16th was indeed kept apart from the rest of the family. 233 00:25:56,800 --> 00:26:10,150 So we go upstairs. We've just stopped in what's called the West Hole to look at a beautiful painting by visual empire of the famous dishes, 234 00:26:10,150 --> 00:26:16,880 the pulling back, which was collected by Baron Ferdinand de Rothschild and has been at Winston since his time. 235 00:26:16,880 --> 00:26:23,150 The dishes were put in the back. Who was one of my Antoinette's closest friends is wearing one of the famous white 236 00:26:23,150 --> 00:26:27,770 muslin dresses which my Ultranet made fashionable after she'd had her children. 237 00:26:27,770 --> 00:26:34,490 It's gathered loosely at the waist with a pink silk sash. She has a broad blue hat on with a feather. 238 00:26:34,490 --> 00:26:42,920 So to us, she looks very elegant. And yet, for the 18th century onlooker, this is very much her relaxed style, its natural elegance, its grace. 239 00:26:42,920 --> 00:26:49,280 It's the sort of thing my Ultranet was promoting visual. Abha was the most famous woman painter of her time. 240 00:26:49,280 --> 00:26:57,230 She was made a member of the prestigious academy while back to school two at the king's specific request. 241 00:26:57,230 --> 00:27:05,300 She enjoyed royal patronage. And this, on the one hand, meant that she had a list of clients longer than anyone else at the time. 242 00:27:05,300 --> 00:27:09,590 And on the other, there were a lot of painters who were very jealous of her. 243 00:27:09,590 --> 00:27:17,600 My Ultranet was painted a number of times by visual beha on her own in simple white muslin with flowers, 244 00:27:17,600 --> 00:27:21,890 but also in court dress and indeed in a very famous portrait of her, 245 00:27:21,890 --> 00:27:30,560 with her children looking very regal in a red dress which echoes the Rafale Madonnas and which shows in the background. 246 00:27:30,560 --> 00:27:35,030 One of the important pieces of furniture she had commissioned, the set of Beautiful. 247 00:27:35,030 --> 00:27:38,660 That is to say, her jewellery chest. It's in the background. Why? 248 00:27:38,660 --> 00:27:44,630 Because in the foreground of the royal children, this echoes a famous classical exemplar, 249 00:27:44,630 --> 00:27:52,640 erm that of the mother of the great guy who showed her children saying My children are my jewels in the portrait, 250 00:27:52,640 --> 00:27:56,510 the dishes, the pudding yak is holding a piece of sheet music. 251 00:27:56,510 --> 00:28:02,180 She looks as though she's just picked it up to start singing possibly or to suggest a duet. 252 00:28:02,180 --> 00:28:08,870 And you could understand looking at a painting like this, why visit Abha was so popular amongst muffing Antoinette and her contemporaries? 253 00:28:08,870 --> 00:28:15,770 There's a very natural heir to the portrait. My AlterNet was trained as a musician. 254 00:28:15,770 --> 00:28:20,660 She was in particular very good at playing the harp. She enjoyed singing. 255 00:28:20,660 --> 00:28:28,430 She put on a lot of amateur operas with her friends, including the Duchess to Berlin, Jack and her family. 256 00:28:28,430 --> 00:28:37,330 My husband was also a patron of the arts. She can be credited to a large extent with making German music fashionable in France. 257 00:28:37,330 --> 00:28:44,030 Glueck was her protege. He'd been a protege of her brother and produced if the second the court in Vienna. 258 00:28:44,030 --> 00:28:53,690 She enjoyed opera particularly as a job. My Internet as a child had met Mozart when he came to perform for her mother, Maria Teresa. 259 00:28:53,690 --> 00:29:01,970 She was very much someone who practised music and enjoyed it and who saw music as a social occupation which could bring people together. 260 00:29:01,970 --> 00:29:08,090 Whether this was in the form of intimate gatherings where people would sing duets from a recent opera, 261 00:29:08,090 --> 00:29:14,540 for instance, or going to public performances which she attended regularly throughout her life. 262 00:29:14,540 --> 00:29:21,470 Josef, the second Holy Roman emperor, was the elder brother of my Ultranet, Joseph. 263 00:29:21,470 --> 00:29:26,780 Not only was the big brother she'd looked up to when she was a child in Vienna. 264 00:29:26,780 --> 00:29:34,100 He was someone who came to visit her whilst in France. My aunt Annette felt the absence of her family very cruelly. 265 00:29:34,100 --> 00:29:40,580 She left Vienna when she was a teenager to go and marry the Dulfer France, whom she'd never met. 266 00:29:40,580 --> 00:29:50,360 When Joseph was sent to see her by their mother, Maria Teresa, he came semi incognito, as was often the rule during princely visits using a pseudonym. 267 00:29:50,360 --> 00:29:57,800 He was the call to De Fleckenstein and as called the Fleckenstein, he could attend on his sister at leisure. 268 00:29:57,800 --> 00:30:04,340 Without the whole formal protocol, the would have been for a state visit of a monarch from a foreign country. 269 00:30:04,340 --> 00:30:09,740 Joseph got on well with my Ultranet and acted as an adviser to her in many ways. 270 00:30:09,740 --> 00:30:12,680 On his first visit to see her in VSI, 271 00:30:12,680 --> 00:30:21,510 he was entrusted by their mother with the mission of finding out why an heir to the French throne had not yet been produced. 272 00:30:21,510 --> 00:30:23,540 Miyata, Annett and the Dulfer, 273 00:30:23,540 --> 00:30:31,610 who since then had become King Louis says had been married for a number of years and not produced an heir during her lifetime. 274 00:30:31,610 --> 00:30:35,150 Maria Teresa sent countless letters to my Ultranet, 275 00:30:35,150 --> 00:30:44,660 urging her to get on with the business of producing an heir because not having an heir meant that money Annetts position was not secure. 276 00:30:44,660 --> 00:30:52,310 Marie Antoinette and Louis the Sixteenth had four children, a daughter first, who, like all first granddaughters of Maria Teresa, 277 00:30:52,310 --> 00:31:01,920 was called Maid Affairs Money that has Charlotte, who was known formally as Madame Hawai'ian, but who to her mother was mousseline or Mossel. 278 00:31:01,920 --> 00:31:07,930 She's the only member of my Ultranet, and we've sixteen's immediate family to have survived the revolution. 279 00:31:07,930 --> 00:31:15,910 Two boys followed the Pommier too far who died in 1789, probably of a form of tuberculosis. 280 00:31:15,910 --> 00:31:24,610 He was a very sickly child from the start. The child who then was to become the far and who had been known as the Duke, the normal D. 281 00:31:24,610 --> 00:31:32,770 Detained with his parents in the title prison in Paris, along with his sister Mahi to Charlotte. 282 00:31:32,770 --> 00:31:37,210 He died in mysterious circumstances during the revolution. 283 00:31:37,210 --> 00:31:45,220 He was mistreated by his jailer. He was called upon to make false accusations against his mother during her trial. 284 00:31:45,220 --> 00:31:53,800 He has remained a mythical figure in French history under the name of Laffont Daytop, the child of the top prison. 285 00:31:53,800 --> 00:31:59,140 The fourth child of my Internet and lawyer, 16th Safieh l.n. bare clicks. 286 00:31:59,140 --> 00:32:33,400 A little girl died before her first birthday and was a very sickly infant from the start. 287 00:32:33,400 --> 00:32:39,970 So here we have one of our printed board games. It's quite a large sheet of paper. 288 00:32:39,970 --> 00:32:46,750 Almost a metre long made to be played by a group of people sitting around it. 289 00:32:46,750 --> 00:32:52,660 It's based on the game of the goose, a luck sort of game similar to snakes and ladders. 290 00:32:52,660 --> 00:33:01,110 Now where you have a serpentine track around the board with numbers one, two, sixty three. 291 00:33:01,110 --> 00:33:11,710 The players roll dice and either win tokens or money in some instances and also have a series of forfeits. 292 00:33:11,710 --> 00:33:16,180 The aim of the game is to land on the last square number. 293 00:33:16,180 --> 00:33:23,590 Sixty three. But you have to land exactly on that square. If you roll too many, you have to then move backwards. 294 00:33:23,590 --> 00:33:33,760 Games like this were extremely popular in the 18th century as educational tools because each square could hold quite a lot of information. 295 00:33:33,760 --> 00:33:41,980 A big print like this could teach you all about geography, about history, about language, all sorts of things. 296 00:33:41,980 --> 00:33:49,870 So here we have the new Vaugirard. The mud, of course, was the new game of French fashions in the middle of the board. 297 00:33:49,870 --> 00:33:53,110 Gives you the rules, but also a short introduction. 298 00:33:53,110 --> 00:34:01,450 And it's quite fun, this one, because it says here we've tried to show you the French fashions in the last three years, 299 00:34:01,450 --> 00:34:06,970 but there are so many that it would have taken out many, many more squares than just 63. 300 00:34:06,970 --> 00:34:09,430 So we've tried to make a selection. 301 00:34:09,430 --> 00:34:17,110 There is a bit of tongue in cheek here and making fun of how quickly fashions, especially in France, were changing at the time. 302 00:34:17,110 --> 00:34:28,390 Each square is a combination of either the bust of a woman down to her waist or full length view of the woman with wonderful, fanciful hairstyles. 303 00:34:28,390 --> 00:34:32,950 They're all named, so no one's burning home round Bonnett. 304 00:34:32,950 --> 00:34:36,730 Number three is left. Frivolity, frivolity. 305 00:34:36,730 --> 00:34:46,060 The final square led them on ground robe, as you see, referring to a print of Malhi on Toinette that exists in other formats. 306 00:34:46,060 --> 00:34:54,880 Here she is, beautifully dressed, also holding a fan in a landscape with a balcony, looking onto the trees in the background. 307 00:34:54,880 --> 00:34:59,980 On the surface, it looks like a simple array of the wonderful French fashions of the day. 308 00:34:59,980 --> 00:35:05,170 But I think that there was possibly also a masculine audience intended for this game, 309 00:35:05,170 --> 00:35:10,390 because number 59 is a lovely woman with ostrich feathers in her hair. 310 00:35:10,390 --> 00:35:16,990 But she's showing her legs. She's lifted up her dress over her knee and her foot is resting on a stone. 311 00:35:16,990 --> 00:35:24,760 When you read the rules, it says when you get to number 59 and you get to contemplate LaBelle's arm. 312 00:35:24,760 --> 00:35:33,310 Junior, you having the pleasure of seeing this beautiful leg, you have to pay for tokens for the pleasure of doing so. 313 00:35:33,310 --> 00:35:42,100 So it's a forfeit, but it's possibly an enjoyable forfeit. Lots of the squares show headdresses or Kofu. 314 00:35:42,100 --> 00:35:48,040 Some of them have references to individuals, to cultural events and so on. 315 00:35:48,040 --> 00:35:53,770 One of the ones we can see shows like if you allow a whole crew in number 43. 316 00:35:53,770 --> 00:35:57,670 Man, was it cool. Was a famous thespian of the time. 317 00:35:57,670 --> 00:36:04,990 So she was obviously setting trends. Number ten is like, poof, piece of poof. 318 00:36:04,990 --> 00:36:12,340 Is a very elaborate headdress where your hair and quite often artificial hair on top of it is back combed. 319 00:36:12,340 --> 00:36:17,980 You have a sort of cap on top and then there's something special on the cap. 320 00:36:17,980 --> 00:36:23,020 In this case, the something special is a truce or an insect. 321 00:36:23,020 --> 00:36:29,680 Something like a tick. So why is a puce important? Well, puce is what gave us the name for the colour. 322 00:36:29,680 --> 00:36:39,850 Puce. The whole of the garment trade in Paris in the late 18th century witnessed the development of a whole series of new colours. 323 00:36:39,850 --> 00:36:45,820 There were colours which referred to the CHIVA that I had said the queen's hair. 324 00:36:45,820 --> 00:36:55,360 There were other colours which purported to be representations of feelings, soupy size or soupy, as it were, food stifled. 325 00:36:55,360 --> 00:37:01,510 Sighs There were also other colours, one of which was get gout too far. 326 00:37:01,510 --> 00:37:07,150 The Crown Prince is pooh and puce. So how did Puce get its name? 327 00:37:07,150 --> 00:37:16,660 One day my aunt, when it is said to have come along with a new dress and her husband have said to her, Well, Madame, what colour is that? 328 00:37:16,660 --> 00:37:24,820 It looks like the colour of a piece and its stock at the time it distinguished J puce old tick. 329 00:37:24,820 --> 00:37:30,820 They had vaults could pews the prince's belly or do the puce abuses back. 330 00:37:30,820 --> 00:37:35,710 We have stock with puce. Next time you see somebody went puce. 331 00:37:35,710 --> 00:37:41,050 Think about the fact that my art, when it was there, when the colour was first christened, 332 00:37:41,050 --> 00:37:45,550 everything on this game is in French, the fashions of French. 333 00:37:45,550 --> 00:37:51,700 The scenes are French. But if you look at the bottom, it says London printed for Robert Sair, number 53, 334 00:37:51,700 --> 00:38:00,070 Fleet Street and John Smith, number 35, Cheapside French fashions were loved by people throughout Europe. 335 00:38:00,070 --> 00:38:04,300 French was also spoken by a lot of people throughout Europe. 336 00:38:04,300 --> 00:38:12,010 And in that respect, it's not surprising to find printers in London who can print texts or games in French. 337 00:38:12,010 --> 00:38:18,880 This is true, but in the case of this game, this is actually a ruse by the French publisher Kappy, 338 00:38:18,880 --> 00:38:26,980 who is actually in quite a bit of trouble over this particular game because the publisher of a series of fashion prints 339 00:38:26,980 --> 00:38:34,480 took him to court because headdresses and the squares were taken after prints that this other publisher had published. 340 00:38:34,480 --> 00:38:42,010 We know from the records that Kelpies workshop was raided and they found some few 341 00:38:42,010 --> 00:38:47,500 hundred copies of this game and the plates which were then ordered to be destroyed. 342 00:38:47,500 --> 00:38:54,700 And his defence was that they had actually been published in England and he'd imported them and was selling them as such. 343 00:38:54,700 --> 00:39:05,110 Questions of literary copyright and questions of censorship are very important to understand how prints and books circulate in Austria. 344 00:39:05,110 --> 00:39:11,650 Jim, France, if you want to have a book published, you're supposed to submit your manuscript to the censor, 345 00:39:11,650 --> 00:39:17,380 who will then decide whether there are passages to be struck out or whether it can be allowed at all. 346 00:39:17,380 --> 00:39:24,220 One of the ways of getting round the censor is to pretend that you have published something overseas. 347 00:39:24,220 --> 00:39:32,470 There are lots of French books which have totally spurious addresses, as they're called, which will indicate, for instance, 348 00:39:32,470 --> 00:39:41,110 that a book has been published in Constantinople in the Seraglio or that they were ordered by the Great Mufti. 349 00:39:41,110 --> 00:39:48,520 There are libertine novels which are supposed to have been printed in Agra, for instance, where there was no publishing press at the time. 350 00:39:48,520 --> 00:39:53,050 There's a lot of invention and there's also something of a game going on. 351 00:39:53,050 --> 00:40:22,700 There is some tolerance when things are not considered to be dangerous of such false addresses for books. 352 00:40:22,700 --> 00:40:29,360 Dr. Mia Jackson, curator of decorative arts here, I believe, were in Ferdinando Roshan's. 353 00:40:29,360 --> 00:40:37,090 Bathroom. We are indeed. And there are still remnants of tiles behind these cases. 354 00:40:37,090 --> 00:40:45,860 The cases don't hold very much, which relates to bathrooms. This is part of our collection of safe porcelain Waldstein. 355 00:40:45,860 --> 00:40:53,240 This room displays a number of services, whether for dessert or dinner. 356 00:40:53,240 --> 00:41:03,170 And the one that we're here to talk about today is the one ordered by Marie Antoinette in 1781 from the Serve Porcelain Manufactory. 357 00:41:03,170 --> 00:41:07,520 Serve is a royal manufactory from its inception. 358 00:41:07,520 --> 00:41:11,990 It has strong links with the royal family throughout the Arsenault regime. 359 00:41:11,990 --> 00:41:21,960 And one of the things which happens is that my Internet orders not only objects for her own consumption, but gifts from save much of serve. 360 00:41:21,960 --> 00:41:27,770 Her porcelain is famous for its turquoise blue, the blue to serve her rather like the colour you're wearing today. 361 00:41:27,770 --> 00:41:33,020 Mia Malhotra. Annette didn't go in for that sort of serve, did she? 362 00:41:33,020 --> 00:41:40,130 Well, it's more to do with how the serve manufactory developed over the 18th century. 363 00:41:40,130 --> 00:41:46,850 What Marie Antoinette is ordering is the sort of thing that Sav were producing at that time. 364 00:41:46,850 --> 00:41:52,310 So with the white of the porcelain in the centre against a white ground, 365 00:41:52,310 --> 00:42:01,700 rather than having ground colours throughout the 17 60s, there was more of an emphasis on ground colours. 366 00:42:01,700 --> 00:42:10,520 But by the 17th 80s, says, porcelain had become more likely to be on a paler background. 367 00:42:10,520 --> 00:42:14,030 If we take one of the plates, an example in the centre, 368 00:42:14,030 --> 00:42:22,190 we have a bouquet of flowers with pink as a dominant colour, then a garland around the flowers. 369 00:42:22,190 --> 00:42:28,610 A large amount of white and a border, which is actually quite a complicated border, 370 00:42:28,610 --> 00:42:37,730 which uses the same flowers as in the central nosegay swags Rehm's which were painted medallions containing flowers. 371 00:42:37,730 --> 00:42:41,240 So it's quite a complicated decorative programme. 372 00:42:41,240 --> 00:42:51,890 And the commission of this service actually used a third of the painting, a tele, and they were all flower painters. 373 00:42:51,890 --> 00:42:59,870 We have 106 pieces of the service, which is only part of the original delivery for the queen. 374 00:42:59,870 --> 00:43:09,470 It also contains some objects which we wouldn't expect nowadays as a soup tureen, for instance, with extraordinary feet and handles. 375 00:43:09,470 --> 00:43:17,030 There are some very beautiful large serving dishes, round ones and oval ones, often with good borders. 376 00:43:17,030 --> 00:43:22,160 But there are also things which look like gigantic egg cups. 377 00:43:22,160 --> 00:43:28,790 Those are wine coolers. The larger ones would be used for cooling bottles of wine. 378 00:43:28,790 --> 00:43:38,750 You would surround the wine with ice and the smaller ones would be used for either smaller bottles or for cooling glasses. 379 00:43:38,750 --> 00:43:43,850 In terms of other unusual pieces, pretty exceptional. 380 00:43:43,850 --> 00:43:50,810 Other large serving plates called plates for roasts are exceptionally big. 381 00:43:50,810 --> 00:43:59,030 And what makes this service interesting is that it's produced in a mixture of soft and hard paste porcelain. 382 00:43:59,030 --> 00:44:10,610 So for the most part, they serve. Manufactory was producing in soft paste porcelain until the discovery of Kailin nearly merge in 1768. 383 00:44:10,610 --> 00:44:17,810 This service, most of the smaller plates are made in soft paste porcelain, even though it's from the 70s 80s. 384 00:44:17,810 --> 00:44:25,370 But the large plates, because soft paste porcelain is much more likely to fail in the kill, are made of hard paste. 385 00:44:25,370 --> 00:44:31,070 So it's incredibly skilful of the serve manufactory to be able to replicate the 386 00:44:31,070 --> 00:44:37,820 same type of decoration on both soft and hard paste on the different pieces. 387 00:44:37,820 --> 00:44:45,440 There are several types of flaws Pansy's and roses and so on, with the rose paint to paint all the roses on all the pieces. 388 00:44:45,440 --> 00:44:49,580 Or would one person paint all the flowers on a single piece? 389 00:44:49,580 --> 00:44:54,990 I think one person would be more likely to paint all of the flowers on a single piece, 390 00:44:54,990 --> 00:45:04,100 although maybe in some cases somebody might paint the bouquet and somebody else might paint the individual flowers. 391 00:45:04,100 --> 00:45:12,320 What it does mean, though, is that there was a sort of template for representing the flowers because we can't set the plates apart. 392 00:45:12,320 --> 00:45:20,950 Yes and no. So particularly well-trained self specialists can distinguish between different flower painted. 393 00:45:20,950 --> 00:45:26,110 Is there any trace, for instance, on the plates themselves of who painted them? 394 00:45:26,110 --> 00:45:31,630 Does it indicate when they were ordered and by who? On the items themselves? 395 00:45:31,630 --> 00:45:39,550 Yes. Each plate has a painter's mark. It tends not to be manuscript, but some sort of symbol. 396 00:45:39,550 --> 00:45:46,540 And most of those painter's marks have been identified by matching up extant pieces of saids 397 00:45:46,540 --> 00:45:53,200 porcelain with the kiln records and the painter's records that are still at the manufactory. 398 00:45:53,200 --> 00:45:57,970 It doesn't say on them who the client was. 399 00:45:57,970 --> 00:46:02,710 Again, that comes from the Killam and sales ledgers. 400 00:46:02,710 --> 00:46:09,100 So this is a luxury service which any wealthy person could have bought at the same time. 401 00:46:09,100 --> 00:46:18,520 Catherine the Great, who loves everything French, is ordering a service for herself in Russia and she puts her monogram on. 402 00:46:18,520 --> 00:46:26,500 I suspect that these services for Americans were net worth more for private use. 403 00:46:26,500 --> 00:46:33,160 They don't shout their patron in the way that Catherine the great service does. 404 00:46:33,160 --> 00:46:39,040 We know that Myoclonic got very bored during court receptions. 405 00:46:39,040 --> 00:46:46,510 She very much disliked the public taking of meals, which was expected of the French royal couple. 406 00:46:46,510 --> 00:46:51,060 And there are reports of her toying with her food. She didn't like wine. 407 00:46:51,060 --> 00:46:54,520 She liked water, but not water from actually anywhere. 408 00:46:54,520 --> 00:47:02,680 So she had it brought to her, especially one of the things she really missed about Vienna was Viennese bread, which may surprise us. 409 00:47:02,680 --> 00:47:07,780 Considering that we always think of French bread as being much nicer than most other kinds of bread. 410 00:47:07,780 --> 00:47:15,910 Including Austrian bread. But she obviously spent a lot of time choosing her services for her own receptions. 411 00:47:15,910 --> 00:47:23,320 Does this tend to indicate that she was somebody who wanted to show that she had a beautiful set of everything? 412 00:47:23,320 --> 00:47:31,030 You have to bear in mind that it become Derica for the royal family to purchase safe porcelain. 413 00:47:31,030 --> 00:47:37,750 Every New Year's Day, there was a sale at VSI of, say, porcelain, 414 00:47:37,750 --> 00:47:45,670 where the factory would bring its latest wares and arrange them around the room for all of the courtiers to come and purchase. 415 00:47:45,670 --> 00:47:51,220 And so purchasing them almost became an act of loyalty to the monarchy. 416 00:47:51,220 --> 00:48:01,300 So you would expect her to have served porcelain. In many ways, this is similar to some of the furniture my Ultranet is ordering. 417 00:48:01,300 --> 00:48:10,790 We've got the swags. We've got the flowers. We've got this extraordinary mixture of simplicity and great artifice. 418 00:48:10,790 --> 00:48:20,800 And we see that in a lot of the furniture. I think noble materials, strong colours and a desire to have the best of everything. 419 00:48:20,800 --> 00:48:30,310 And it's also the development of the neoclassical style, according to Mario Antoinette's own taste. 420 00:48:30,310 --> 00:48:40,540 So this very refined and delicate mixture of floral motifs and architectural motifs, 421 00:48:40,540 --> 00:48:45,580 French meals at the time weren't quite like meals we have nowadays. 422 00:48:45,580 --> 00:48:55,390 And one of the aspects which survives in the expression service, he says, was the meat and the vegetables weren't served together. 423 00:48:55,390 --> 00:49:00,130 You would often have different cuts of meat and you would then have vegetables. 424 00:49:00,130 --> 00:49:08,050 And the meal would be started by a kind of meaty broth that was served in these large two regions. 425 00:49:08,050 --> 00:49:13,840 And then you would follow it with roasts, then vegetables and salads and then dessert. 426 00:49:13,840 --> 00:49:19,240 And this service has elements for all of those courses. 427 00:49:19,240 --> 00:49:26,050 So, for example, the service that you see behind me, which was made for Cam rather Baffsky, 428 00:49:26,050 --> 00:49:31,960 that's just a dessert service, whereas this service was a full service. 429 00:49:31,960 --> 00:49:38,230 And do we know if my alternate would, for instance, have used this service or one like it, a piano? 430 00:49:38,230 --> 00:49:43,330 We don't know exactly where this service was used, but it's relatively portable. 431 00:49:43,330 --> 00:49:47,560 So we can assume that it could have been used in the triangle. 432 00:49:47,560 --> 00:49:50,560 It seems particularly appropriate for the Trianon. 433 00:49:50,560 --> 00:49:59,320 Well, certainly the decorative programme ties in so well with what we know of how the piano was decorated in Miles when its time. 434 00:49:59,320 --> 00:50:03,760 And despite the number of pieces, there are a lot of pieces. 435 00:50:03,760 --> 00:50:09,250 There is some elements which we don't have, which we know from the records were delivered. 436 00:50:09,250 --> 00:50:16,060 For example, there were only 12 egg cups delivered. So is it a service for only twelve diners? 437 00:50:16,060 --> 00:50:20,660 And if it is, then obviously it's going to be a lavish meal, but relatively. 438 00:50:20,660 --> 00:50:26,070 Intimate. Not these grand suppers that took place in their counterparts. 439 00:50:26,070 --> 00:50:32,760 And certainly the choice of iconographic programme with the flowers and the swags, 440 00:50:32,760 --> 00:50:37,860 the relative simplicity would indeed plead in favour of this being a service chosen 441 00:50:37,860 --> 00:50:42,030 for more intimate meals and therefore potentially for a more intimate setting, 442 00:50:42,030 --> 00:50:57,270 for instance. Yes. And it speaks of the bucolic rather than the grand formality. 443 00:50:57,270 --> 00:50:59,900 You've been listening to In the Footsteps of My Ultranet. 444 00:50:59,900 --> 00:51:05,430 With me, Katrina Seth Marshall Forche, professor of French literature at the University of Oxford. 445 00:51:05,430 --> 00:51:09,990 I hope you'll join us next time when we visit the cool cells of you in Paris where nothing else. 446 00:51:09,990 --> 00:51:17,370 I spent her final days before being executed on the 16th of October 1793 at the age of 37. 447 00:51:17,370 --> 00:51:24,552 You may also like to catch up with our first podcast from the Wallace Connexion.