Here’s to Anne Vallayer-Coster, savvy with the still-lifes and bosom buddy to every Parisian royal.

Although her character is called into question by virtue of her friendship with Marie “Spend-it-all” Antoinette, there’s no denying Vallayer-Coster’s talent with a brush. She also exited the French Revolution with neck intact, an enviable achievement from a woman so cozy with the crown.

It’s possible Vallayer-Coster saw a side to Antoinette that escaped the history books. After all, the poor girl was married at fourteen and criticized seven years thereafter for not getting it on with Louis XVI. After their wedding night, Louis simply wrote “nothing” in his journal and quickly left the room to hunt. Perhaps she wanted more for her friend; Antoinette came to Vallayer-Coster’s Versailles wedding and signed her marriage documents. Still, although Antoinette was Vallayer-Coster’s patron and a lifelong fan of her artwork, she didn’t know the meaning of a little white lie. Antoinette criticized a pastel portrait Vallayer-Coster made of her, calling it a bad resemblance. Queens aren’t well versed in the “pretend you like it” etiquette commoner children learn on Christmas morning.

Vallayer-Coster herself was no stranger to success. She was unanimously accepted to the Académie Royale despite the cutoff of four female students. (After all, you wouldn’t want any sensitive male artists to feel threatened by their female counterparts). Unfortunately, the human body was deemed far too excitatory for delicate female painters, preventing Vallayer-Coster from the higher art of nude figure drawing. A clever businesswoman, Vallayer-Coster painted for the Empress Joséphine long after Antoinette’s death. The more sinister side to their transactions? Vallayer-Coster may have been rewarded for her efforts with the belongings of executed prisoners. A bit shady for a woman whose royal pal suffered the same fate years prior, but you know what they say— Nothing drives friends apart like a guillotine.