Tea at Trianon: Masterpieces from a Rothschild Collection

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

Tuesday, May 7, 2019

Masterpieces from a Rothschild Collection

Marie-Antoinette's Writing Desk by Riesener

From Christie's:

‘The Rothschilds have a remarkable collecting history,’ says Christie’s Deputy Chairman Charles Cator. ‘The name Rothschild means the best of the best. They are the greatest family of non-royal collectors who have ever existed.’

Masterpieces from a Rothschild Collection at Christie’s London on 4 July comprises more than 50 lots with exceptional provenance collected by members of the Rothschild banking family, particularly by Baron Gustave de Rothschild (1829-1911), and housed in some of the family’s magnificent residences.

‘The Rothschild name is synonymous with collecting at the very highest level, with many of the world’s greatest works of art having a Rothschild provenance,’ Cator continues. ‘Their fabled name is added to the extraordinary roll call of illustrious owners of these masterpieces, so many of them royal, from Louis XV and Marie Antoinette to William Beckford and Prince Demidoff. This sale is a celebration of connoisseurship and passionate collecting.’

Among the treasures offered are cabinets by the celebrated Flemish master Hendrick van Soest. The cabinets were commissioned as a group of four for King Philip V of Spain, the second son of the Grand Dauphin and grandson of Louis XIV, to honour the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713 that finalised the War of the Spanish Succession. (Read more.)

From Barron's:

A Louis XVI ormolu-mounted mahogany table à écrire, circa 1780, commissioned by Queen Marie Antoinette of France almost certainly for her Petit Trianon, a small château located on the grounds of the Palace of Versailles. It has a high pre-sale estimate of £1 million. Made by Jean-Henri Riesener, the Queen’s favored cabinet-maker, the table is marked with Marie Antoinette’s garde-meuble brand that was applied to her personal furniture after 1784. (Read more.)

More HERE.