Michal Korman Captures the Spirit of Marie Antoinette at Sketch

Child bride. The final Queen of France. An infamous style icon. ‘Let them eat cake,’ she once allegedly said, in reference to her starving subjects. More than two centuries after her execution, Marie Antoinette’s life - dazzling, tragic, salacious - continues to enthral the public imagination. Her ruffled Rococo ballgowns inspired one of the looks in John Galliano’s A/W 2000 Christian Dior Haute Couture show, and, in 2006, was the focus of Sophia Coppola’s gossamer film Marie Antoinette. This September, Antoinette will even be the subject of a V&A exhibition. Alas, the renowned South Kensington fashion and textile museum isn't the only London-based cultural institute interested in Marie Antoinette's story this year, just take a look at Michal Korman's latest exhibition presented at Mayfair's iconic sketch restaurant titled The Rendezvous for an Innocent Walk.

Rather than focus on the pomp or, even the gore, it's the softer side of Antoinette that Korman's graphic paintings depict, all of which share in the theme of looking to Antoinette’s favourite landscapes. L’Accalmie (The Lull) captures a modern Château de Bagatelle, built by Count d’Artois in 1777 as a bet between him and Antoinette to construct a château within 100 days.

With electric greens and dusky purples and a couple puckering up for a selfie, it recalls a happy, hazy memory rather than a symbol of the bourgeoisie - perhaps how a young Marie Antoinette would’ve seen it. Polarising and vivid, the exhibition marks the end of Pearl Lam Galleries’ year-long collaboration with sketch, a partnership which exposed the gallery’s international roster of artists to the U.K.. ‘This collaboration with sketch has been an incredible opportunity to bring the voices of our Hong Kong and Shanghai galleries to London,’ explained Pearl Lam, founder of Pearl Lam Galleries.

‘In a time when galleries in Asia are striving to connect globally, this partnership has been a vital way of engaging people beyond traditional museum contexts and inspiring new ways of experiencing art,' she added, proving Antoinette's appeal stretches far beyond Europe's waters.

And so, whether the public's obsession with the doomed royal comes from her duality, (seen by critics as a symbol of gross consumption during a period of hardship), or because the story of a naive young woman who made poor choices and paid for it with her life is just too much to bear, you can rest assured that while hanging in sketch’s Yves Klein blue hallways, Korman's paintings will certainly provide good conversational fodder over a Michelin-starred meal. (Or when going to the iconic egg-shaped loos to take a selfie.) Take your pick.

The Rendezvous for an Innocent Walk will be on display at sketch until 9 March.