tiny-librarian:

Larseneur’s coiffure is more careful than the Austrian style, with no free-flowing curls on top or behind, each strand of hair neatly placed. Although Larseneur’s coiffure, like the Austrian style, is powdered,the original portrait shows that it also allows the natural blond hair color to appear, an effect enhanced by the work’s overall blue and yellow color scheme(a fortuitous combination in light of the topos of the gold Bourbon lilies on a blue background). Similar contrasts may be observed between Austrian and French hairstyles in other portraits of the same period including Franz Xavier Wagenschoen’s(1726-90) portrait of Marie-Antoinette at the harpsichord (c. 1770)and another work by Ducreux, also from 1769, showing the archduchess in a silver gown and wearing the same hairstyle as in Ducreux’s second portrait.

The Queen’s Hair: Marie-Antoinette, Politics, and DNA

Desmond Hosford