Marie Antoinette, whose marriage at 15 made her queen of France before she was 20, died under the blade of the guillotine in 1793. She has been romanticized as the martyred queen, admired as the personification of 18th-century French royal style, and vilified as the Austrian whose frivolous extravagance and foreign sympathies fired the French Revolution. This book turns aside from the official portraits and great historical events to rediscover the private places and objects that reflect Marie Antoinette's personality and reveal her more directly to our modern gaze. Beautifully photographed by Francois Halard, the rooms and buildings she inhabited are shown here in fascinating detail, from the distinctive fabrics and furnishings to the queens favourite objects an amber curiosity, a Chinese lacquer gift from her mother, a porcelain bowl.