Historian Helihanta Rajaonarison traced the history of images depicting Ranavalona III during a conference. Behind the elegant portraits of Ranavalona III lies a story marked by exile, deprivation, and humiliation. This other facet of Madagascar's last queen was unveiled yesterday by historian Helihanta Rajaonarison during a conference organized by the Photography Museum in collaboration with the French Alliance of Antananarivo, in Andavamamba. Dedicated to the iconographic journey of Ranavalona III, the meeting explored photographs, sculptures, postcards, and caricatures that shaped her image over time. For the historian, these representations often maintained an incomplete vision of the sovereign. "Behind her beautiful images lies profound distress," she emphasized, recalling that the queen, stripped of her kingdom after exile, lived in poverty and endured press judgments as well as numerous colonial caricatures. Helihanta Rajaonarison explained that the most well-known photographs often show an elegant woman traveling and posing, sometimes compared to a model. Yet this image masks a much more painful reality. "She suffered greatly from the loss of her kingdom," she stated. Some photographs, particularly those used for postcards or advertisements such as LU biscuits, were taken because the former sovereign needed income. Other images were even taken without her consent. The historian also noted a striking detail of this iconography: in official portraits as in many photographs, Ranavalona III almost never smiles. "She is a sad queen," she summarized, evoking a woman who never officially had children, lived in destitution, and died young from heart disease. Through this conference, Helihanta Rajaonarison invited the public to look beyond appearances to rediscover the destiny of a queen whose images tell as much of past grandeur as the trials of exile.