French Queen Marie-Antoinette’s silk slipper fetches $50,000 at auction

A white shoe manufactured from silk and goat leather-based that belonged to Marie-Antoinette, France’s final queen earlier than the 1789 revolution, offered for 43,750 euros ($51,780) on Sunday, the auctioneers mentioned.

The 22.5 centimetre-long (8.8-inch), heeled shoe, roughly equal to a European measurement 36, is adorned with 4 ribbons and in good situation, other than slight carrying of the silk, the Osenat public sale home mentioned.

With worldwide collectors displaying robust curiosity, Osenat mentioned the value shortly rose from the reserve of 8,000 to 10,000 euros ($9,450 to $11,800) and was snapped up by an unidentified purchaser.

The sale came about in Versailles, the city west of Paris that was as soon as residence to France’s royal court docket and the place from her arrival on the age of 15 Marie-Antoinette loved a lavish life-style.

In the turmoil of the French Revolution the shoe ended up within the fingers of Marie-Emilie Leschevin, a detailed pal of the queen’s head chambermaid.

Her household held on to it for generations earlier than it got here to public sale 227 years after her dying.

Marie-Antoinette — born an Austrian archduchess — was the spouse of Louis XVI.

“Let them eat cake,” she is commonly mentioned to have responded when instructed that peasants had been ravenous as a result of there was no bread.

The royal couple was executed by guillotine through the Terror in 1793 however France continues to be fascinated by Marie-Antoinette.

Last 12 months an exhibition on the Conciergerie, the previous Paris jail the place she was incarcerated earlier than execution, retraced modifications within the illustration of the nation’s final queen via work, mangas, movies and even Barbie dolls.

The Versailles palace, together with the grand Hall of Mirrors, and its grounds stay a serious vacationer attraction.

(This story has been printed from a wire company feed with out modifications to the textual content. Only the headline has been modified.)

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