Affair of the Poisons at the Court of the Sun King: Research
Amidst what felt like a deathly cold in late March, I was reading about arsenic poisonings to make myself feel better (as one does when you're ill). It was during this week that I came across the Affair of the Poisons the scandalized the court of King Louis XIV.
Image Sources:
By order of appearance
Jacob-Ferdinand Voet, Portrait of Anna Caffarelli Minuttiba, late 17th century, oil on canvas, San Francisco, de Young Museum of Fine Art
Note: This painting is often misattributed to Madame de Brinvilliers
Charles Le Brun, The King Governs by Himself (Le Roi gouverne par lui-même), 1661-64, oil on canvas, Palace of Versailles, France.
Giovanni Martinelli, Death Comes to the Banquet Table, c. 1630-1640, Oil on canvas, New Orleans Museum of Art.
Jules-Joseph-Guillaume Bourdet, The Marquise de Brinvilliers Testing Her Poisons on the Patients of the Hôtel-Dieu, 1840, engraving, engraved by Madame Albitès, Paris, Drouart Printing House.
Artist unknown, Marie Madeleine Marguerite d’Aubray, marquise de Brinvilliers, 1931. Woodcut illustration from Le Petit Journal Illustré, July 1931
After Louis Ferdinand Elle the Younger, Portrait of an Unknown Woman as Iris, formerly identified as Madame de Montespan, ca. 1651–1700. Oil on panel, Musée de l'Histoire de France, Palace of Versailles, France.
