Geneva's MAH Tests AI and Biometrics to Identify Sitters in Liotard's 1762 Royal Portraits

Key facts

• The exhibition Liotard & Marie-Antoinette: Faces Under Investigation opened this month at the Musée d'art et d'histoire in Geneva and runs through February 7, 2027
• The show presents all 11 of Liotard's 1762 chalk drawings of Empress Maria Theresa's children, plus a portrait of François-Étienne de Lorraine recently added to the collection
• A portrait long identified as Marie-Antoinette was reattributed to her sister Marie-Caroline after Catriona Seth noted the Order of the Starry Cross medal, which Marie-Antoinette had not yet received in 1762
• INTERART is a collaboration among the MAH, the University of Oxford, the Idiap Research Institute and the University of Lausanne's School of Criminal Justice
• Jean-Étienne Liotard (1702–1789) produced the Vienna series of portraits of Maria Theresa's children
• The MAH holds the largest collection of Liotard portraits in the world
• The University of Lausanne is home to the world's oldest school of forensic science
• Researchers say the AI tools generate probability thresholds, not conclusive identifications, and only portraits made directly from life are suitable for biometric analysis