Marie Joséphine was born at the Royal Palace of Turin on 2 September 1753 as the third child and second daughter of Prince Victor Amadeus of Savoy and Infanta Maria Antonia Ferdinanda of Spain.

At the time of her birth, her paternal grandfather, Charles Emmanuel III, was the King of Sardinia, thus her parents were styled Duke and Duchess of Savoy.

[4] The marriage was arranged as a part of a series of Franco-Sardinian dynastic marriages taking place in a time span of eight years: after the wedding between her first cousin the Princesse de Lamballe and Louis Alexandre de Bourbon, Prince of Lamballe,[3]: 7  and the wedding between Marie Joséphine and Louis Stanislas, her younger sister Maria Theresa was married to her younger brother-in-law, the Count of Artois (future King Charles X of France) in 1773, and her eldest brother Prince Charles Emmanuel of Savoy (the future king of Sardinia) was married to her sister-in-law Princess Clotilde of France in 1775.

[3]: 53  The Franco-Sardinian marriage alliance was greatly disliked by Austria and Empress Maria Theresa, who feared that Marie Joséphine might gain influence upon Louis XV in France in favor of Sardinia, (which was the rival of Austria) in Northern Italy, and that she would undermine the position of the childless Marie Antoinette if she gave birth to an heir to the French throne while the marriage of the dauphin was still unconsummated.

[5] Marie Joséphine received 300,000 livres' worth of jewels from Louis XV, three-quarters of the dauphine's casket, and from the Count of Provence his portrait as "a pledge of the sentiments that are engraved in my heart for you.

"[5] She did not make a good impression upon her arrival in France, and was described as small, plain, with sallow skin and what Louis XV called “a villainous nose”, and as a person as timid, gauche and "ill educated in all those graces considered so important at Versailles", coming from the more strict Sardinian court, where rouge was found repugnant.

[6] In order to rectify the bad impression of her appearance, the ambassador to France from Sardinia was required to ask her father to tell her about the necessity for a careful toilette, in particular with regard to her teeth and hair: “It is embarrassing for me to discuss such things, but these mere details to us are vital matters in this country”.

Later in his life Louis Stanislas suffered from obesity—all existing painted portraits and engravings of him in 1771 show him to be of normal weight, and the idea that he was too obese to consummate his marriage is without historical supporting evidence.

[3]: 56–57  During these years, the count and countess of Provence are frequently mentioned as accompanying the crown prince couple on sleigh rides, masquerades, opera performances and other entertainments.

[11] As the second lady of the French court after the queen, she alternated with the Mesdames de France in accompanying Marie Antoinette on official representational assignments.

[15] She preferred to spend most of her time in her private retreat villa, the Pavillon Madame in Montreuil, on which she spent lavishly and constructed a fashionable model village with a pavilion of music, and a model village with twelve houses, dovecotes and windmills, a dairy made of marble with silver vessels, as well as allegorical temples consecrated to love and friendship, a hermitage and a belvedere.

[5] Prior to the meeting of the Estates General, every member of the royal family was publicly mocked by libelous verses, in which Marie Joséphine was satirized for her alleged alcoholism.

[16] They regularly attended court in the Tuileries and were also present at the evening family suppers, where Marie Joséphine was described as humorous and entertained with character reading of people's faces.

[2] On 2 June, de Balbi left for Brussels, leaving an English passport issued for a Monsieur and Mademoiselle Foster, which would be altered by d'Avaray to suit their purpose.

Provence and Artois unsuccessfully asked the governor of the Austrian Netherlands, Maria Christina, Duchess of Teschen, to intervene with military force across the border before the king and queen, whose party had been arrested, could be brought back to Paris, but she refused as she needed the permission from the emperor to do so, by which time it was already too late.

[2] After a meeting with Gustav III of Sweden at Aachen, they continued via Bonn to Koblenz, where they were welcomed by their uncle, the Archbishop-Elector Clemens Wenceslaus of Saxony, who gave them the Palace of Schönbornslust to their disposal, and where they installed their émigrée court in exile.

[18] Her husband, who had lived in Hamm in Westphalia since the émigré court had been dissolved after the Battle of Valmy, visited her in Turin between December 1793 to May 1794 before continuing to Verona, but she did not join him there.

[19] While her sister returned to Turin after the peace between France and Sardinia in May, Marie Joséphine continued to Austria and settled with Marguerite de Gourbillon in Budweis in August 1796,[19] while Louis Stanislas moved to Blankenburg.

There, her brother King Charles Felix of Sardinia had an imposing monument erected over her grave, whereon she is described personally as "sapiens, prudens, pientissima" ("wise, prudent, kindest") and as "Galliarum Regina", literally "Queen of the Gauls", i.e. of France.

[5] The Countess of Provence was played by French actress Clémentine Poidatz in the 2006 motion picture Marie Antoinette directed by Sofia Coppola.

[citation needed] The film portrays her as the mother of the Duke of Angoulême (Louis XIX), who was really the son of her sister Princess Maria Theresa of Savoy.