Marie-Antoinette, A Personally Worn Shoe Fetches Over $50,000 In Auction

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Owned by France's last queen before the 1789 revolution, Marie-Antoinette a white shoe made of silk and goat leather sold for 43,750 euros (US$51,780) at a French auction house last Sunday. Marie-Antoinette, an Austrian duchess at birth, was the penultimate child and youngest daughter of Empress Maria Theresa and Emperor Francis I. She was the wife of King Louis XVI. They were executed in 1793, during the Reign of Terror. 

The sale took place in the town of Versailles, which was once home to the French royal court. Marie-Antoinette lived there from her arrival at the age of 15. The slipper was passed on to Marie-Emilie Leschevin, a close friend of the queen’s head chambermaid during the upheaval of the French revolution. Her family held on to the slipper for generations before it went to the Osenat auction house 227 years after her execution.

The slipper was expected to go from €8,000 to €10,000 on the auction block, but international interest pushed the price to more than four times that. 

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The 22.5 centimetre-long (8.8-inch), heeled shoe, roughly equivalent to a European size 36, is adorned with four ribbons and in good condition, apart from slight wearing of the silk, the Osenat auction house said. The shoe bears her name on its heel and Jean-Pierre Osenat, of the auction house that is conducting the sale, said she is thought to have worn it regularly during daily life at the palace.

The slipper was expected to go from €8,000 to €10,000 on the auction block, but international interest pushed the price to more than four times that. 

“This auction is coming at a time when French people are facing real uncertainties regarding their values, and many of them are clinging onto the history of France,” said Osenat.

Earlier, several items of Marie-Antoinette's jewelry went to auction two years ago and fetched tens of millions of dollars.