This painting was Maria Teresa’s favorite likeness of her youngest daughter. According to lore, the Empress hung it in her study in Vienna. Given what we know about Maria Teresa’s workaholic proclivities, she must have looked at it often. Maria Teresa declared it one of the most true-to-life images she had yet seen of her daughter. Krantzinger’s pastel captured Marie Antoinette “just as she is.”

The Dauphine of France is actually not wearing a redingote, which came into style later in the Petit Trianon days. Rather she is clad in a justaucorps, the official hunting uniform at the Royal Residence of Trianon. Rumour has it that Marie Antoinette’s excitement at posing in men’s hunting livery exceeded her enthusiasm for riding itself.

Marie Antoinette had only been at Versailles 5 months before she asked her “grandfather-king” for riding lessons. Louis XV agreed, to the complete disbelief of just about everybody. The young Dauphine proved to be quite the horsewoman drawing comparisons to her Renaissance predecessor, Catherine de Medici.