Madame du Barry
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Jeanne Bécu, Comtesse du Barry was the last maîtresse-en-titre of King Louis XV of France. She was executed by guillotine during the French Revolution on accusations of treason—particularly being susp
Portrait by Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun, 1782
Portrait of Jeanne Bécu, by François-Hubert Drouais in 1770: Museo del Prado
Madame du Barry, by Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun; posthumous, between 1789 and 1805. Vigée Le Brun began working on the portrait in 1789, but had to abandon it when she underwent exile the same year, due to the French Revolution. Eventually, the portrait was given back to Vigée Le Brun, who completed it and gifted it to her niece.
The diamond necklace commissioned by King Louis XV for Madame du Barry (reproduction)
Zamor
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Louis-Benoît Zamor was a Bengali-born slave and revolutionary who spent most of his life in France. Born in Chittagong, Bengal in c. 1762, he was captured and sold into slavery and brought to France,
Madame du Barry
…disapproved of Jeanne. Decades later, during the Reign of Terror in the French Revolution, Jeanne was imprisoned over accusations of treason by her servant Zamor. She was executed by guillotine on 8 December 1793. Her body was buried in the Madeleine Cemetery. The fabulous gems which she had smuggled to London…
Possible portrait by Marie-Victoire Lemoine, 1785
Alleged portrait of Zamor by a member of the Van Loo family
Zamor's final residence in the Rue Maître-Albert