Tea at Trianon: Country-Chic Home Goods

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, March 6, 2021

Country-Chic Home Goods

From Architectural Digest:

Her octagonal Brindille dishes are largely white and lightly speckled with folkloric flowers in classic blue—but she also offers the flowers in unexpected burnt ochre, “which I thought would look wonderful on a denim tablecloth.” Another pattern, La Savane, features exotic animals that one would see in the African savanna; it was inspired by Givenchy’s own children, who are passionate about the zoological world. AD100 interior designer Tom Scheerer asked if Givenchy could make a bamboo-motif dinnerware, telling her that “everyone tries to do it, but it always looks too chunky or it’s the wrong color.” Weeks of trial and error later, the artisans pulled together a particularly delicate-looking version. As for her cutlery, it features hand-carved boxwood and olivewood that has been artfully channeled for visual and tactile enjoyment, proof of the enduring power of the handmade. (Read more.)