Tea at Trianon: A Love Affair With France

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

Saturday, October 6, 2018

A Love Affair With France

From Christie's:

To enter the Stafford apartments on Avenue Foch in Paris and Fifth Avenue in New York was to be transported to another place and another time — Paris in the mid-18th century when the art of luxury goods reached such an extraordinary apogee. Colourful Sèvres and Chinese porcelain mounted in lustrous ormolu glistened on exquisite marquetry tables and commodes, while sinuously carved armchairs and settees beckoned in every corner, all set against boiserie panelling.

Fred and Elizabeth Stafford bought from all the best dealers of the day, such as Rosenberg and Stiebel, René Weiller, Samy Chalom, Kraemer and Bensimon, while many pieces came from illustrious collections, such as Henry Ford II, Baron de Lopez Tarragoya, Mrs. Alexander Hamilton Rice, Antenor Patiño and Madame Lucienne Fribourg.

Their daughter, Alexandra, recalls how the first questions new friends asked when they entered the apartment was how could she live in such a museum? As they hesitated before sitting down on the silk brocade-covered 18th-century gilded chaise à la Reine, she would answer: ‘No problem!’ Here, Alexandra Stafford discusses her mother’s collecting with Jody Wilkie, ahead of a special sale, A Love Affair with France: The Elizabeth Stafford Collection, which takes place on 1 November at Christie’s in New York. (Read more.)