Marie Antoinette portrait really sister, study finds

The famous portrait is now thought to depict Marie Antoinette's older sister Maria Carolina

A famous portrait of Marie Antoinette as a child is really of her sister, new research has found.

Swiss painter Jean Etienne Liotard's distinctive drawing of the last queen of France from 1762 has long shaped the way academics saw her early years.

But Prof Catriona Seth, from the University of Oxford, now believes the artwork likely depicts the queen's older sister Maria Carolina, who later became Queen of Naples.

She also suspects a separate drawing from the same Liotard collection, previously thought to be of Maria Carolina, is in fact a young Marie Antoinette.

In the drawing previously thought to depict Marie Antoinette, she is seven years old, holding a shuttle used for weaving and staring directly at the viewer with a determined look in her eyes.

This had been interpreted by academics as demonstrating that the future queen was destined for a life of significance.

Marie Antoinette was the last queen of France

Although she was "fascinated by the picture", Prof Seth said something had been "niggling" her about it.

While researching her latest book, which centres on portraits of Marie Antoinette, she revisited the Liotard collection at the Musée d'Art et d'Histoire (MAH) in Geneva.

"The first clue came from what was thought to be a brooch worn by 'Marie Antoinette' in the portrait," she explained.

The girl in the drawing is seen wearing the medal of a specific order of chivalry which was conferred on the siblings but Marie, as the youngest sibling, did not receive hers until nearly four years after the portrait was made.

"I worked out there had to have been a switch with the younger looking child in one of the other portraits being Marie Antoinette, rather than Maria Carolina," Prof Seth said.

Another drawing, now thought by Prof Seth to depict Marie Antoinette, shows her wearing distinctive earrings and holding a rose

The drawing now thought to depict the girl who would go on to become the wife of Louis XVI instead shows her wearing distinctive earrings and holding a rose.

Prof Seth said she had since found a subsequent later picture of Marie Antoinette with the same earrings, while roses were a "recurring feature of portraits throughout her life".

Marc-Olivier Wahler, director at the MAH, said: "While these remarkable portraits have been on display many times over the last 250 years, it will be extra special to see Marie Antoinette as she actually was, rather than mistaking her for her sister."

Marie Antoinette was born in Austria in 1755 and sent to France to be the bride of the future King Louis XVI.

She was guillotined in 1793 at the age of 37, along with her husband, at the height of the French Revolution.