Well-heeled: Marie-Antoinette's silk shoe auctioned for 40,000 euros
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By AFP
This handout picture taken on October 5, 2020 and released on November 13, 2020 by the Osenat Auction House in Versailles, west of the French capital Paris.
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A white silk shoe that belonged to Queen Marie-Antoinette was auctioned on Sunday for 43,750 euros, over four times more than it was expected to sell for.
The shoe, with a 4.7 cm heel and 22.5 cm in length, would today be roughly a size 36.
It was given to Marie-Emilie Leschevin de Prévoisin, a close friend of Madame Campan, the Queen's first chambermaid, who died in 1816. Her family have kept it ever since.
The auction house, Osenat, expected the shoe to fetch between 8,000 to 10,000 euros.
Marie-Antoinette, who was Austrian, was beheaded during the Terror in 1793, nine months after her husband Louis XVI, who was deposed during the 1789 revolution.