Tea at Trianon: The Pursuit of Beauty

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

Sunday, January 15, 2017

The Pursuit of Beauty

From Victoria:

Victoria’s 2017 Artist in Residence, Carolyne Roehm, is not only lauded as an icon of style, but is also a noted fashion designer, floral arranger, and gardener. One of her more recent endeavors is the art of watercolors, which make their print debut in At Home in the Garden—an oversized art book whose sweeping expanse covers the 59-acre terrain of her Connecticut home. Here, through her photography and text, readers can witness Carolyne’s process as it unfolds from the design of the gardens through the phases of cultivation and arrangement.

Following her childhood dream of becoming a fashion designer, she moved to New York City after college and became the assistant to Oscar de la Renta. “He took a young kid,” she says, “who already loved decorating, music, food, flowers, and beauty, and exposed her to all of that at a more sophisticated and glamorous level. What fun I had working with him. He was the best mentor one could possibly wish for.” She would remain with Oscar for the next ten years until she left, in 1985, to start her own fashion house. (Read more.)