Jacques Necker was a Genevan banker and statesman who served as finance minister for Louis XVI. He was a reformer, but his innovations sometimes caused great discontent. Necker was a constitutional monarchist, a political economist, and a moralist, who wrote a severe critique of the new principle of equality before the law.
Portrait by Joseph Duplessis, c. 1781
Suzanne Curchod, Necker's wife
Germaine Necker by Carmontelle
Château de Madrid, Necker's home in Neuilly-sur-Seine
Louis XVI was the last king of France before the fall of the monarchy during the French Revolution.
Portrait, 1779
The young Duke of Berry (right) with his younger brother, the Count of Provence (by François-Hubert Drouais, 1757)
The Duke of Berry as a young boy (portrait artributed to Pierre Jouffroy)
Marie Antoinette, Queen of France and wife of Louis-Auguste with their three eldest children, Marie Thérèse, Louis-Charles and Louis-Joseph (by Élisabeth Vigée-Lebrun, 1787)