Marie Antoinette dressed as she was expected to, in the finest French silks with jewels fit for a future queen. Versailles was home to the most lavish halls and grounds imaginable, and the people who occupied it dressed to match. When Marie Antoinette was sent to France to marry the dauphin at just 15 years old, she entered a world of extraordinary opulence. It caused cotton, and the institution of slavery it stood on, to explode. It flipped the textile industry on its head, lighting the fuse laid out by a fast-changing world of exploration, Enlightenment, and rebellion.

Despite its humble appearance, though, Marie Antoinette’s portrait in the plain cotton dress had an impact that reverberated through the world in ways no one could have foreseen. The gown gives off “an aesthetic of rustic simplicity,” writes Katy Werlin in Clothing and Fashion: American Fashion F rom Head to Toe. The scene is refreshingly natural when compared to the ornateness of the typical Rococo-era portrait.

The painting has a graceful and arcadian feel to it, at least to the modern eye. She doesn’t wear any jewels or embellishments, just a wide-brimmed straw hat tied with a ribbon band, topped with a few relatively modest plumes.

Full sleeves and a softly ruffled neckline add volume to the otherwise unstructured shape. The thin white fabric is airy and loose, cinched at the waist with a sheer golden sash. In 1783, portrait artist Élisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun painted Marie Antoinette in a simple cotton gown known as a robe de gaulle. Marie Antoinette en chemise, 1783 portrait by Louise Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun.

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