Tea at Trianon: Schönbrunn

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Friday, May 20, 2016

Schönbrunn

From Geri Walton:

Schönbrunn was a wedding gift to Maria Theresa from her father, Charles VI, after her marriage in 1736. Over the years other rulers had added and modified the palace. When Maria Theresa decided to use it as a summer home, she found it dilapidated and in need of repairs. In addition, she remodeled it throughout the 1740s and 1750s. One person in the late 1800s described the palace as having “wings to the front and at end each of the main building…it is… whitish-yellow [in] color, and…too flat and squatty for good architecture.” However, it became one most popular country estate of the Habsburg’s under Maria Theresa’s reign.

Inside the Schönbrunn Palace, walls were adorned with wonderful paintings, murals, and medallions, and when the hunting lodge was converted into an imperial residence, its dining room was converted into what was called the Blue Staircase. Fortunately, when the staircase was added, the glorious ceiling—a fresco painted by the Italian artist Sebastiano Ricci in 1701-02—remained unaffected.

Another room with unusual artwork is known today as the Breakfast Room. It has appliqued medallions completed by Maria Theresa’s mother, Elisabeth Christine. She created these medallions from fabric scraps, assembled them into floral bouquets, and sewed them onto silk moiré, complete with insects.(Read more.)