Les Armes de la Séduction (Musée des Beaux-Arts de Saint Quentin – June to September 2021) found itself a truly royal follow-up at the Domaine Royal de Marly Museum in 2023. The exhibition Seduction & Power, the art of dressing at court, has just closed its doors. In a head-to-toe journey featuring over a hundred accessories and engravings from museum and private collections, the public was able to discover just how much the art of seduction and asserting one’s social status in the 17th and 18th centuries depended not only on the codification of one’s appearance, but also on the possession of extremely sophisticated objects well worth flaunting in society. The beauty of these accessories, fruit of the remarkable skills of French masters of art, made France famous and were crucial in the promotion and development of the luxury professions.

Anne Camilli