Tea at Trianon: Hillwood

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, August 19, 2016

Hillwood

I visited Hillwood when I was young and loved it. From Victoria:

In 1955, the heiress purchased the 25-acre property known as Arbremont (renamed Hillwood, after the palatial Long Island estate she had shared with former husband E.F. Hutton) with the express intent of utilizing the neo-Georgian mansion as both a home and a gracious milieu in which to showcase her vast collections. “She felt that her way of life was one that was ‘fast disappearing’ and that there was value in sharing it with the next generations,” says Lynn Rossotti, director of marketing for Hillwood Estate, Museum & Gardens.

From the moment visitors cross the threshold into the grand entry hall, they are greeted by the regal gazes of Russian royalty peering from portraits and the sparkling visage of a rare French rock-crystal chandelier—the first glimpses of the opulence that fills each elegant room. The dining room holds special allure, with walls of carved-oak paneling serving as a backdrop to four large Dutch paintings depicting hunting scenes. An antique Aubusson carpet lies beneath an enormous mosaic-topped table commissioned from Opificio delle Pietre Dure—the celebrated artistic workshop in Florence, Italy. (Read more.)