Marie Antoinette (1755-1793) 1779 - 1780

Curator: This is a medallion featuring Marie Antoinette, crafted by Giovanni Battista Nini. Editor: It has an austere beauty, doesn't it? The crisp profile set against that stark background... the pure, unadorned form is quite striking. Curator: Nini captured her likeness around 1770. The portrait is a testament to the era's fascination with capturing and preserving images of power. She became a symbol of a fading world. Editor: The precision in modeling, especially the rendering of her elaborate hairstyle and the lettering, is technically brilliant. The circular frame really focuses the eye. Curator: Absolutely. The medallion echoes classical precedents, associating Marie Antoinette with enduring ideas of royalty, but knowing her fate it almost feels like foreshadowing. Editor: Yes, the circular format becomes an almost inescapable enclosure... perhaps we are meant to see her as trapped by her role, her very image defining her. Curator: Indeed. It's a small object that contains vast echoes of cultural and historical memory. Editor: I agree; the piece exemplifies how close looking reveals an entirely unexpected scope of feeling and thought.