Joan Rivers' real estate legacy includes $35m apartment 'fit for Marie Antoinette'

Joan Rivers once described her palatial penthouse in New York as "where Marie Antoinette would have lived if she had the money".

Photos of the late comedian's opulent digs have re-surfaced in the wake of her death last week, aged 81.

Her 2800-square-metre residence, built in 1910, was adorned with marble statues, cast-iron decor and velvet drapes over vast windows.

Her Renaissance-themed bedroom had a four-poster bed surrounded by vases of lilies.

In every corner sat a stack of index cards with written jokes she had delivered throughout her entire career.

Rivers bought the residence in the 1980s and had tried to sell it a number of times since 2009, when she planned to move to the US west coast to be closer to her daughter, Melissa Rivers.