Liotard And Marie-Antoinette: Faces Under Scrutiny

Geneva-born artist Jean-Étienne Liotard (1702 1789) was one of the great portraitists of his time. Held in high regard by Empress Maria Theresa, he created numerous portraits of members of the Austrian imperial family, among them Archduchess Maria-Antonia (1755 1793), later Marie-Antoinette Queen-consort of France, and Emperor Franz I Stephan. A group of 11 portrait drawings showing members of the House of Habsburg-Lorraine are held today in the collection of Geneva's Musée d'art et d'histoire (MAH). Liotard & Marie-Antoinette is published to coincide with an exhibition at the MAH. It is based on a unique interdisciplinary research project that combined conventional archival research with state-of-the art facial recognition technology and forensics, comparing historic paintings and drawings as well as modern digital images to identify with precision the individuals portrayed by Liotard. The volume makes the findings of this fascinating dialogue between art historians, scholars of 18th-century history, and researchers in the fields of artificial intelligence and forensics accessible to a broader audience. It offers an unusually multifaceted view of Liotard's masterful drawings and an approach to the stories hidden within them that is equally exciting and novel. AUTHORS: Catriona Seth is a professor of French literature at the University of Oxford and leads a research project on the correspondence of the French queen Marie-Antoinette at the Palace of Versailles Research Centre. Marie-Eve Celio-Scheurer is senior curator and head of the Graphic Arts Collection at the Musée d'art et d'histoire in Geneva (MAH). SELLING POINTS: . Offers unusually multifaceted perspectives on the masterful portrait drawings of Jean-Étienne Liotard (1702 1789) and a novel science-based approach to the stories hidden within them . Makes accessible to a broad audience the findings of a unique joint research project between Geneva's Musée d'art et d'histoire, the University of Oxford, Idiap Research Institute, and the University of Lausanne . Offers insights into interdisciplinary research in the fields of art, cultural, and social history; artificial intelligence; and forensics 80 colour illustrations