MADAME ROYALE (Daughter of Louis XVI & Marie Antoinette) (22 years old in this portrait)
Both her mother and father are described as having swarthy skin complexions...
“Lewis XV was the handsomest youth in France, he had a swarthy complexion”
SOURCE;
(J. Dodsley, "The Annual Register, Or, A View of the History, Politics, and Literature for the Year 1774"; 1778)
As did his grandson Louis XVI:
”He appeared to me to have a striking resemblance to that most unfortunate and by far the best of all French monarch Louis XVI, large, massy, full face, aquiline nose, dark eye, Swarthy complexion”
SOURCE;
(Thomas Budd, “Good Order Established in Pennsylvania and New-Jersey, in America: Being a True Account of the Country; with Its Produce and Commodities There Made in the Year 1685”; 1865)
“Marie was not considered beautiful by the standards of the day, which required a pale complexion, blond hair and blue eyes, Marie was blessed with an abundance of dark curls, a swarthy complexion, and brown eyes”
SOURCE;
(Josephine Wilkinson, “Louis XIV: The Power and the Glory”)
Definition of SWARTHY:
Black, Dark Brown, Tawny.
SOURCE;
(Samuel Johnson, “A Dictionary of the English Language; in which the Words are Deduced from Their Originals; and Illustrated in Their Different Significations ... Together with a History of the Language, and an English Grammar.”; Vol 4; 1818)
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