Tea at Trianon: The Apartment of Madame de Taillac

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

Monday, January 16, 2017

The Apartment of Madame de Taillac

From The Telegraph:

Her New York home saves on hotel bills and also doubles as a showroom and lunch venue for VIPs. “I wanted to create something that felt European,” she says. “I used a certain shade of blue for everything which matches some of the stones I use in my work. It’s very calming. It’s a colour I really loved as a child. New York has so much energy, which is great when you are doing 10 appointments in a day and you’re jet lagged, but I also need an environment that’s calm. When you walk into this space, you’re transported from the chaos of the Avenue downstairs. You feel out of time. I wanted it to feel historic.”

The all-blue interior was inspired partially by visits to Marie Antoinette’s estate, and partly by the purchase of a pair of 19th century Austrian crystal light fittings with highly detailed mirror detailing, that are on the wall in the bedroom. “They were the starting point for the whole interior,” she says. (Read more.)