Mason Gross Survivor

The Presentation of the Mother

       

“Poor little thing, you are not what was desired, but you are no less dear to me on that account. A son would have been the property of the State. You shall be mine.”-Marie Antoinette to her newborn daughter, Marie Therese. 1778.

“As part of their grand celebration[of the King and Queen’s daughter’s birth], one hundred wedding ceremonies were performed simultaneously in all parishes of Paris, the brides dressed at the Queen’s expense. Marie Antoinette announced that she was going to give each young couple an additional dowry of 500 livres and that she would pay for the care of the children born of these marriages-15 livres a month if the mothers nursed their own babies but only 10 livres a month of they sought outside help…Marie Antoinette informed the Empress [her mother] she wanted to encourage French mothers to breastfeed their own children.”-Marie Therese, Susan Nagel

The Queen and the Duchess

      

                                  ” Yes here they are, her features, her features I love
                                   Her sweet looks, her bearing, her ingenuousness
                                   When I press you to my heart
                                   I think I still embrace her herself”

                                   -“Portrait Charmont” written by Marie Antoinette

     ”I had friends.The idea of being forever separated from them and from all their troubles is one of the greatest sorrows that I suffer in dying. Let them at least know that to my latest moment I thought of them.”

-Marie Antoinette, 1793. 

Captain E. J. Smith

        

Temptress

        

pen and ink, 2012

The Unsinkable Molly Brown

             

Over the Top

                        

“We are being shown outfits so exaggerated that I cannot believe that the Queen, my daughter, should wear the like…”

Maria Theresa to Marie Antoinette, May 30th 1776

Oscar Dress

       

Ink drawing of Stacey Keibler’s gown from the 2012 Academy Awards. 

Habemus Papam!

         

Graphite, 2005. I did this way back in high school and just realized I never included it in with the rest of my pencil drawings. 

Lusitania

          

Graphite, 2012. 17”x20”

Generosity of the Queen

            

Whenever succoring the sick and the needy, Marie Antoinette never stopped to consider the distance between her social position and that of the unfortunate person she was assisting.

One day, as some of the Queen’s servants entered her suite, they were astonished to find her taking care of an old man who was lying down. Marie Antoinette was ripping up handkerchiefs, which she then soaked in a basin of fresh water, before cleaning the old man’s wounds as carefully as any professional nurse would have done. The patient was an old servant. She had asked him to move a very heavy piece of furniture and in doing this there was a mishap and he hurt himself badly

-Madam Campan, Marie Antoinette’s chamber-maid.