Pair of busts Louis XVI Louis XVI biscuit Marie-Antoinette Saint-Esprit bronze 19th
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Superb pair of biscuit sculptures mounted on bronze, depicting the busts of the King of France Louis XVI * bearing the medal of the Order of the Holy Spirit *** on his chest, and that of his wife Marie-Antoinette ** bearing a diadem adorned with a fleur-de-lys, signed MR on the back, of the XIXth century.
These busts are in good condition. They are signed on the back see photos.
Note: some small dirt and micro-scratches of time, see photos.
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* Louis XVI (1754-1793) was King of France and Navarre from 1774 to 1791, then King of the French from 1791 to 1792. Louis XVI was the son of the Dauphin Louis-Ferdinand of France and of Marie-Josèphe of Saxe. He succeeded his grandfather Louis XV in 1774. The reign of Louis XVI was marked by important reforms concerning the right of the people. The last years of the reign of Louis XVI were marked by important stock market speculation, then by the French Revolution, which, while taking up some of the reforms supported by the king before 1789, transformed the king's political role and the government's system of government. France by putting an end to the absolute monarchy of divine right. At first, King Louis XVI became a constitutional monarch facing a more and more hostile opposition. In a second stage, the king was overthrown on 10 August 1792 by the republican sections and the monarchy was abolished on 21 September. Judged guilty of treason by the National Convention, he was sentenced to death and guillotined on 21 January 1793 on the Place de la Révolution in Paris.
Marie Antoinette of Austria (Vienna, November 2, 1755 - Dead Guillotine in Paris, October 16, 1793), was Archduchess of Austria, Imperial Princess, Princess Royal of Hungary and Bohemia, dauphin of France, queen of France and Navarre (1774-1792), wife of Louis XVI, king of France.
The Order of the Holy Spirit was, during the two and a half centuries of its existence, the most prestigious order of chivalry of the French monarchy. It was December 31, 1578, in full religious wars, that Henry III founded the "order and militia of the blessed Holy Spirit". Suppressed in 1791 during the French Revolution, the Order of the Holy Spirit was re-established in 1814. The order was definitively abolished by Louis-Philippe I in 1830.