Friday Video: Pearls & Diamonds Worn by Queen Marie Antoinette

Susan reporting,

Diamonds may be forever, but the jewelry that enhances them seldom is. Precious stones can be recut and reset, and precious metals reformed into new settings and pieces. Royal jewels are among the most transitory of all, especially those belonging to a doomed royal family in the midst of a revolution.

Queen Marie Antoinette of France was famous for her jewels, and it can be argued that her love for diamonds helped lead to her tragic downfall. This week, a few of her pieces (along with other jewels belonging to the Bourbon Parma family) came up for auction through Sotheby's. As can be imagined, the interest in jewels with such a history was considerable, and this video features the rarest of the pieces in the auction, and beautiful things they are, too.

Pre-auction sales estimates often tend to be low, but I imagine even Sotheby's was stunned by the final sales figures. The small enamel and seed-pearl pocket watch engraved with the queen's monogram and featured in the video was estimated to sell for around $8,000-9,000; it sold for $248,203. The triple-strand pearl necklace with the diamond clasp had an estimate of around $198,000-297,000; it sold for $2,278,499.

But the real star was the large pearl pendant on a diamond bow, right. The pre-sale estimate was around $1,000,000-2,000,000. The final price? A staggering $36,165,090.

See here for photos and a listing of all the pieces in the auction.

If you receive this post via email, you may see a blank space or black box where the video should be. Please click here to view the video.

A Formal Ball Gown from the French Court, c1780

Susan reporting,

For fashion historians, there are some garments from the past that become celebrities in their own right, featured over and over in books, exhibitions, and on Pinterest. These garments have earned this status for a number of reasons: because of the fame of the original owner or maker, exceptional craftsmanship, rare textiles or embellishments, or simply because of their beauty.

(As always, please click on the images to enlarge them. I know these photos are a bit dark, but the galleries were low-lit to preserve the textiles - a fair trade-off.)

The dress shown here qualifies on every count. It's currently on display through July 29, 2018 at the Metropolitan Museum of Art as part of the Visitors to Versailles: 1682-1789 exhibition (see here, here, and here for my posts featuring other objects from the exhibition.) This exquisite ball gown, or robe parée, would have been worn at only the most formal occasions at the French court at Versailles in the late 18thc.. Once linked to Queen Marie-Antoinette herself, the gown is still attributed to the queen's dressmaker, Marie Jeanne "Rose" Bertin (1747-1813).

The gown definitely belonged to a woman of very high status at the court, and it's exactly the kind of luxurious and costly garment that would bring the ire of French revolutionaries a decade later. Not only is the surface design - featuring draped ribbons, flowers, and peacock feathers - sophisticated and elegant, but the execution of the embroidery on the cream-colored silk satin is extraordinary. The list of the elements on the exhibition placard shows the complexity of the the needlework: silk embroidery, appliques of satin, metallic threads, chenille, sequins, and applied glass paste. Everything was designed to sparkle by candlelight, and make the wearer the center of attention as she danced.

What to me is even more extraordinary is that the gown remains a showpiece even though it has been significantly altered. Originally worn over the wide hoops (pannier) required for 18thc court dress, a later owner had the petticoat (skirt) narrowed to a bell-shape and the bodice remade to conform to mid-19thc tastes, and likely to make it more wearable and lighter as well. The ruffles shown are also later additions. No matter: it's still breathtakingly beautiful.

Formal Ball Gown, attributed to Marie Jeanne "Rose" Bertin, c1780s, Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto. Photographs ©2018 Susan Holloway Scott.

Friday Video: The Countess of Provence's Fabulous Jewel Cabinet, 1787

Susan reporting,

In this era of mass-produced, particle board furniture that's bolted together and has the lifespan of a loaf of bread, it's almost impossible to imagine the level of craftsmanship, skill, and pride that went into creating something like the jewel-cabinet shown in this video. This exquisite piece was made in the 1780s by the cabinetmaker Jean-Henri Riesener for Marie-Josephine-Louise of Savoy, who married Louis XVI's younger brother, the Comte de Provence (and future Louis XVIII.)

Although the Comte and Comtesse were able to flee to the safety of the Austrian Netherlands in 1791 and therefore escape the guillotine, all their belongings were confiscated by the state. Originally the jewel-cabinet was put on public display like much of the rest of the royal furniture, but as the government's funds began to dwindle, the cabinet eventually joined the pieces that were put up for sale. (In an earlier post, I shared one of Marie-Antoinette's armchairs that ended up in the home of an American Founding Father.)

The cabinet was offered to Napoleon, who declined to purchase it, preferring to have new designs and decor to reflect his empire rather than such reminders of the ancien regine. In Britain, however, George IV, however, had no such qualms, and eventually bought the cabinet for 400 guineas in 1825. It has remained in the Royal Collection ever since: a true masterpiece.

If you received this post via email, you may be seeing a blank space or black box where the video should be. Click here to view the video.

Friday Video: A Silk-Covered Armchair that Belonged to Marie-Antoinette (and Gouverneur Morris, Too)

Susan reporting,

Today's video begins like any other local news feature piece (except, of course, that it's in French, with an English voice-over) but I hope you'll stick with it to reach the part about the nearly-forgotten art of silk weaving. The old wooden looms are beautiful in themselves, and what the weavers create is breathtaking. I love the idea that the modern mechanical looms - driven by automated machinery and computers - are incapable of duplicating the painstaking work of a single highly skilled human.

The video explains how the reproduction piece on the loom is destined to cover an armchair - fauteuil à la reine - made for French Queen Marie-Antoinette in 1779, and now in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. According to the Museum's site, the chair was part of a set that was intended for the queen's "grand cabinet intérieur at the château de Versailles during the winter months....but the chair and the rest of the set were removed in 1783, when the cabinet intérieur was redecorated, and placed in the queen's billiard room on the floor above."

Like so much of the exquisite craftsmanship commissioned by the 18thc French court, the chair was the work of several different master trades and their workshops. The designer was Jacques Gondouin, the maker was François Foliot, the carving was done by the workshop of Madame Pierre-Edme Babel, the gilding by the workshop of Marie-Catherine Renon, and the original upholstery was by Claude-François Capin.

Since this video was filmed, the project has been completed, and the armchair reupholstered in the reproduction silk lampas with silk passementerie. It's now on display in the Gallery 527, an installed room from the Hôtel de Cabris, right, where I saw it. The colors of the silk are bright and rich, the way they must have been when the queen first chose them. (Click here for more photographs of the chair, including details of the upholstery.) I'm sure Her Majesty would approve.

I thought that would be the end of my post, but to my surprise, there's actually a Hamilton connection to this chair. (I know, I know, because of my new book I, Eliza Hamilton, it seems as if everything has a Hamilton connection for me, but this really isn't as far-fetched as it might seem.) As the museum notes continue:

"Sold during the French Revolution, the entire set of furniture was acquired by the American statesman Gouverneur Morris, who served as minister of the United States in France from 1792 to 1794. The pieces were subsequently sent to Morrisania, Morris's country estate in the Bronx."

Gouverneur Morris was a long-time close friend of Alexander Hamilton, with both men working together from the days of the American Revolution through the fledging American government of the 1780s-1790s. Both were New Yorkers, and often socialized together. When Hamilton died after his fatal duel with Aaron Burr, Morris delivered Hamilton's public eulogy, and was instrumental in organizing a collection to help support widowed Eliza Hamilton and the couple's eight children. Considering the closeness of the friendship, it's entirely possible that at some point or another, Eliza and Alexander Hamilton may each have sat in Marie-Antoinette's armchair at Morrisania. How small a place the 18thc world was!

Many thanks to Melinda Watt, Curator, European Sculpture & Decorative Arts and Supervising Curator, Antonio Ratti Textile Center, Metropolitan Museum of Art, for her assistance with this post.

Photograph ©2016 Susan Holloway Scott.

If you received this post via email, you may be seeing a black box or empty space where the video should be. Please click here to view the video.

From Paris to New York City: Hedgehog Hair, c1785

Susan reporting,

It's a still-too-popular myth that early Americans were unfashionably plain and self-sufficient, wearing simply braided hair and clothes of homespun fabric. In this unrealistic vision of 18thc life, women not only tended the sheep, but spun the wool, wove the thread into fabric, and then cut and sewed all the clothes for their family.

Well, no. Very little fabric was produced at home, and nearly all of it was imported. People who lived along the coast were eager to follow the fashions of Paris and London, and the latest styles were imported along with fine woolens, silks, cottons, and linen. Even settlers and Native Americans living on the frontier traded for woolen cloth made in England. European visitors were surprised by how fashionable Americans were, and how the ladies in Philadelphia, Charleston, and New York followed the same trends as their sisters abroad.

These two portraits show how swiftly and thoroughly fashion came across the Atlantic. The portrait, left, of Marie-Antoinette, Queen of France, was painted by Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun in 1785. The queen wears her hair in the latest style, a la hérisson, or the hedgehog, devised by her hairdresser Léonard-Alexis Autié. Monsieur Léonard (as he was known at court) cut the front of the queen's hair shorter, brushed it with a scented "hard" pomade made from beeswax, curled it on narrow rollers or with heated tongs, and frizzed it for extravagant volume. Unlike today, frizz was an 18thc lady's best friend, and the more, the better. Loose falling side curls towards the back soften the effect. Finally the entire hair is dusted with a starchy powder to whiten it. (See here, here, and here for more about 18thc hair powder and pomade.)

The queen not only favored this hairstyle, but found it was a good "support" for the oversized turbans, plumes, and poufs she liked to wear during this period. While white-powdered hair was beginning to fall from fashion - it disappeared for good with the French Revolution - the queen continued to powder her fair hair to an even whiter pallor, the better to show off her complexion in contrast.

Variations on the hedgehog style were popular throughout the 1780s. Many of the ladies in portraits by Thomas Gainsborough sport hedgehog-inspired hair, and the hairdressers of the recent movie The Duchess gave Kiera Knightley wigs with stupendous hedgehogs.

In 1787, the style was being worn in New York City, too. The second portrait, right, by American artist Ralph Earl, is of Elizabeth Schuyler Hamilton, wife of then-member of the Continental Congress Alexander Hamilton; she's also the heroine of my upcoming book I, ELIZA HAMILTON. The Hamiltons were a fashionable young couple in Federalist New York City and in Philadelphia, attending the theatre, balls, and dinners with equally fashionable friends, and would have been very aware of European styles in hair and dress.

In her portrait, Eliza has clearly followed the royal trend-setter. Some historians (male, and dismissive of fashion history) describe her as wearing a wig, but that's her own hair, frizzed and powdered into an elegant hedgehog. It's a surprisingly close copy of the queen's hair, down to the horizontal falling curls at the back, although Eliza chose a simpler headdress of fine linen or silk gauze instead of Marie-Antoinette's plumed turban.

That snowy white hair must have taken a considerable amount of powder to achieve, too, for beneath it Eliza's natural hair color was described as a very dark brown, almost black - you can see it showing through the powder. So much powder made a statement of affluence as well. Hair powder was considered a luxury good, and while flour could be substituted as a low-cost alternative in a pinch, the best powder was imported, a finely ground mixture of starch, bone, and orris root for scent. It's likely that Eliza wore her hair this heavily powdered only for special occasions, and by the time she sat for another portrait in the 1790s, she'd given it up, and is shown wearing her own dark hair. There is, however, a record of Eliza receiving a gift of hair powder in 1780 from Martha Washington - a thoughtful present from another 18thc lady who enjoyed a good powdering.

Above left: Marie Antoinette with a Rose by Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun, 1783, Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Lower right: Portrait of Elizabeth Schuyler Hamilton (Mrs. Alexander Hamilton by Ralph Earl, c1787, Museum of the City of New York.

A Gift from Marie-Antoinette: An Elegant Traveling Case, c. 1780

Isabella reporting,

On Tuesday, Christie's held a sale in Paris entitled Collection Marie-Antoinette, featuring dozens of artworks and other items that were linked in one way or another to the doomed French queen. Not surprisingly, a number of items sold above the estimate, and in a few cases, far, far above. A humble woven basket with a history of having been used by the queen during her last imprisonment at la Conciergerie had a pre-sale estimate of $884-$1,326, but instead sold for $11,736!

According to the engraved brass plaque on the lid, this traveling case was a gift from the queen to Madame Auguie of Lascans sometime between 1773-1786. In French, the case is more elegantly called a necessaire de voyage, and for a lady traveling in the 18thc., it did in fact contain every little necessity for a journey. Wealthy travelers didn't expect many amenities along the way, and planned accordingly - and luxuriously.

This mahogany case is a wonderful example of what to bring. Among the things packed inside the relatively small case (it's about 18" long) are a small teapot, two teacups, and a box for loose tea; a box with perforated lid for hair powder; an oval mirror; a basin for washing; a pair of candlesticks with bases that unscrewed to for packing; a gilt fruit knife; an inkwell, a funnel, and an hourglass, as well as assorted boxes and jars for cosmetics and creams. In addition there's a smaller shagreen-covered case that housed more personal items, such as manicure tools, a comb, and a razor.

Everything has its fitted place within the case, making it easier for a maid to find and repack each item, and to keep it all secure while being jostled in a carriage. Not surprisingly, the case and its components were the work of a small team of the best specialized craftsmen in 18thc. Paris, including Jean-Etienne Langlois, Gabriel Gerbu, Antoine-Gaspard Lorett, Francois Corbett, and Pierre-Claude Mottie.

Christie's description of the case notes that a few things have been lost over time, but it's hard to imagine what else a lady might need. The case was passed down through the family until it was finally sold to a private collector in 1955, and now again today. I would guess that its connection to Marie-Antoinette made it a treasured heirloom, even a relic, which helped it remain so complete today.

If you're curious to see more from the sale, the results have already been posted online here. And if you'd like to compare this case to later traveling cases, here's a blog post featuring one from 1870, and another from 1920.

Above: Traveling case (necessaire de voyage), made in Paris, 1773-1786. Photograph courtesy of Christie's.

Sumptuous New Fashion History: "Fashion Victims: Dress at the Court of Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette"

Isabella reporting,

There are few things that make the heart of a Nerdy History Girl beat faster than a new fashion history book. I know it's only February, but I'm willing to bet that Fashion Victims: Dress at the Court of Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette by Kimberly Chrisman-Campbell (Yale University Press) might just be the fashion history book of the year.

This is not just another pretty costume book (though it is a glorious volume for picture-browsing), nor is it another telling of Marie-Antoinette's love of clothes. Instead historian Ms. Chrisman-Campbell explores how 18th c. style and fashion permeated nearly every level of Parisian society, with an influence that extended globally through economics and politics.

The excesses of the royal court are here, but so are the extraordinary talents of the specialized craftspeople and merchants who created and sold the newest gowns, coats, and irresistible caps, as well as those manufacturing the latest in cosmetics, textiles, hair styles, jewels, lace, and every other branch of the fashion trade. (For an idea of just how many different trades it took to clothe a stylish lady, see this post.) In this equation, the consumer, too, was every bit as important as the supplier: "The Parisian in general is inevitably abstemious," wrote Louis-Sebastien Mercier in 1783, "eating very badly out of poverty so he can pay the tailor and the bonnet seller."

Also intriguing is the emergence of the petite-maîtresse ("little mistress"), the 18th c. equivalent to today's "fashion victims" - the women "whose primary occupation is keeping up with the latest fads, regardless of how frivolous, arbitrary, unflattering, or expensive. The term was not necessarily derogatory; it was a common and useful form of social taxonomy and, to those who prided themselves on their modishness, highly complimentary." Ms. Chrisman-Campbell supports her well-researched observations with numerous quotes from primary sources; the notes and bibliography are also scholarly and thorough, something the NHG in me appreciates.

But in addition to being a thoughtful, intelligent book, it's also a supremely beautiful one. There are lavishly printed color images on almost every page, from familiar portraits of the French queen in her ruinous finery by Elisabeth Vigee-LeBrun, to lesser-know paintings, fashion plates, and satirical prints. Photographs of extant garments and details of exquisite embroidery and textiles reinforce the luxury described in the text.

With the excesses of New York Fashion Week currently visible all over the social media (could there be a better modern example of the petite-maîtresse than Kim Kardashian-West?), it's fascinating to consider the historical context of fashion - and how the more things change, the more they stay the same (Plus les choses changent plus elles restent les mêmes.) I only hope it doesn't end in the twenty-first century the way it did in the eighteenth: with the fall of the guillotine's blade.

Many thanks to Kimberly Chrisman-Campbell and Yale University Press for supplying a copy of this book for review.

Friday Video: Marie-Antoinette's Automaton

Isabella/Susan reporting:

Loretta and I are fascinated by historical automata – those elaborate wonders of clockwork mechanics from the 18th and 19th centuries. (Long-time readers of this blog will recall the Silver Swan, still swimming after more than 200 hundred years, and the twin Golden Elephants with the spinning rubies, as well as this description from La Belle Assemblee.) Automata represented the highest levels of ingenuity, craftsmanship, and imagination, and are as amazing today in the digital age as they must have been to their earlier audiences. They were favorites of royalty, extravagant toys for the king, queen, or emperor who truly did have everything.

This elegant lady – known as La Joueuse de tympanon (The Dulcimer Player) – is a stunningly beautiful example. Made in Germany by clockmaker Peter Kintzing and cabinetmaker David Roentgen, this automaton was presented to Queen Marie-Antoinette in 1785. The queen was enchanted, bought the piece at once, and had it placed in the Academy of Science.

I know the little dulcimer-player is only painted clockwork, but when she turns her head with that little side-long glance, I can't keep from thinking of everything she's seen in her long, long life. . . .

Are These Marie-Antoinette's Shoes?

Susan reporting:

Some things from the past are valued for their intrinsic worth (a diamond ring, set in gold) while others become valued for what they represent (the original Declaration of Independence) or who created them (any painting by Rembrandt.)

These 18th c mules, left, don't fall into any of those categories. They're faded and worn, they're not remarkable in design from many other surviving 18th c women's shoes, and their maker is long since forgotten. But because they were said to have been worn by the French Queen Marie-Antoinette, they recently were sold at auction in Toulon, France for a staggering 43,225 euros, or $54,800 - far exceeding the pre-sale estimates of 3000-5000 euros.

The provenance (history) of the shoes is unsubstantiated, and even the auction organizers admit that the pair only "may" have been worn by the queen. The main evidence seems to be that they're the same size (about a modern 36.5) that Marie-Antoinette is known to have worn. They're also reputed to have been worn to the Fete de la Federation on July 14, 1790, marking the first anniversary of the storming of the Bastille. While the first Fete was supposed to be celebrating the establishment of a constitutional monarchy in France, in time it came to be called Bastille Day, a holiday with very different connotations that supporting any sort of monarchy.

Even if none of this is true, there's an undeniable poignancy to the idea of these white silk shoes with their much-faded tricolor pleated ribbons being worn by Marie-Antoinette. None who attended that long-ago celebration could have imagined the horror of the coming years in France, or the significance that the tricolor ribbon would acquire. As symbols go, these shoes have it all: white silk mules with high heels perfectly exemplify the "let-them-eat-cake" decadent luxury of the ancien-regime, while the tricolor ribbon adds that innocent yet tragic foreshadowing. Just like the questionable legend that these shoes belonged to Anne Boleyn, another doomed queen, it's the story that gave this pair their value - all $54,800 worth.

Visiting the Ruins of Marie Antoinette's Petit Trianon at Versailles, 1803

Susan reporting:

The English have always been intrepid travelers, and for hundreds of years, they have eagerly crossed the Channel in search of the enlightenment, entertainment, and edification to be found on the Continent. The 18th c is the heyday of the famous "Grand Tours", that final finishing touch to a young gentleman's education, and not even the hazards of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars could keep the determined tourist in Britain.

One of the more famous travelers of this era was a lawyer-poet-travel-writer named Sir John Carr (1772-1832.) Undeterred by inconvenient current events, he traveled widely throughout Europe in the early 19th c. and wrote a series of travel books that documented his journeys. The books were popular, and sufficiently influential to earn him a knighthood from the Duke of Bedford in Dublin in 1806. Styles in writing change, however, and while his detailed descriptions remain interesting, it's also painfully clear that he believed that no noun or verb should go unmodified, ever, ever.

Still, where else would we find this description of the tattered remains Marie-Antoinette's Petit Trianon at Versailles, which Carr visited less than a decade after her death? This excerpt and the illustration, above, are both from The Stranger in France, published in 1803 – and, if you'd like to read more, it's available on-line free as a Project Gutenberg Ebook here.

    "I approached, with increased delight, the enchanting little palace and grounds of the late queen, distant from Versailles about two miles, called the Petit Trianon, to which she very justly gave the appellation of her "little Palace of Taste." Here, fatigued with the splendours of royalty, she threw aside all its appearances, and gave herself up to the elegant pleasures of rural life. It is a princely establishment in miniature. It consists of a small palace, a chapel, an opera house, out offices and stables, a little park, and pleasure grounds; the later of which are still charming, although the fascinating eye, and tasteful hand of their lovely but too volatile mistress, no longer pervade, cherish, and direct their growth and beauty. By that reverse of fortune, which the revolution has familiarized, the Petit Trianon is let out by the government to a restauranteur. All the rooms but one in this house were preoccupied, on the day of our visit in consequence of which we were obliged to dine in the former little bed room of the queen, where, like the Idalian goddess [Venus], she used to sleep in a suspended basket of roses. The apertures in the ceiling and wainscot, to which the elegant furniture of this little room of repose had once adhere, are still visible.
    "After dinner, we hastened through our coffee, and proceeded to the gardens. After winding through gravelled walks, embowered by the most exquisite and costly shrubs, we entered the elegant temple of Cupid, from which the little favourite of mankind had been unwillingly, and rudely expelled, as appeared by the fragments of his pedestal. 
    "Thy wrongs little god! shall be revenged by thy fair friend Pity. Those who treated thee thus, shall suffer in their turn, and she shall not console them!...."


Above: Ruins of the Queen's Farm-house in the Petit Trianon, Engraving in aqua tint of sketch, published in The Stranger in France, 1803