A FRENCH WHITE MARBLE BUST OF MARIE ANTOINETTE

This celebrated portrait bust of Marie-Antoinette, wearing a bas-relief medallion of Louis XVI, was popularised in the l9th century by the version executed in the 1840s for Versaille's Galeries Historiques established by Louis-Philippe (d.1848) and copied from the original exhibited at the 1783 Salon by the sculptor Felix Lecomte (d.1817), a pupil of Falconnet.