My Marie Antoinette..

 

 My Marie Antoinette
I sourced this doll in a little antique shop. She was basically a head and a torso, made of wax and hairless, with wire extensions where her arms and lower body would've been.
I have given her auburn hair, sourced from an old child's doll, an antique rhinestone necklace (remnant), a beaded tulle bodice, which is likely to be the remnant of a Victorian cuff or sleeve,  and a large tulle ballgown, the colour of butter, from a piece of fabric I found in an op-shop. The tulle is antique (and beautifully moth eaten). Her tiny gold shoes are also very old and would have been handmade by a doll maker.

 I felt that her costume represented 18th century French fashion and instinctively called her my little "Marie Antoinette". I then recalled the Vincent Price film, The House of Wax, and the wax sculpture of Marie Antoinette which was the artist's most prized piece and later in the film goes up in flames.
Upon researching Marie Antoinette I discovered that she was very fond of dolls from a young age right into her teens,  "as captured by a family portrait in which seven-year-old "sweet Antonia" excitedly holds up a doll dressed as fancily as she is.Numerous dolls arrived at the Hofburg as soon as Marie Antoinette turned thirteen, wearing miniature versions of the ball gowns, afternoon dresses, and gold-trimmed gowns proposed for her."

     

A pair of handmade doll's shoes,
Delicate and imperfect.
As small as my thumb.