Tea at Trianon: A Twist on Old-School Style

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

Friday, April 30, 2021

A Twist on Old-School Style

From Architectural Digest:

His client, Kelsey Brown, was more than enthusiastic about the idea of boldness. Brown is the cofounder of Pepper, a company that sells home textiles and wallpapers featuring whimsical prints. She wanted to include some of these prints in her home, which she shares with her husband, Alec Simpson, while also embracing her longtime affection for classic decor. “I grew up in a historical home with lots of antiques and also a lot of color,” she says. “Nicholas understood me and he also pushed me out of my comfort zone.”
Obeid did not hold back. He paired candy-colored walls with rolled-arm sofas, chinoiserie with abstract art, and rattan with velvet. In the vast parlor-level reception room, he replicated the colors of the existing ceiling fresco, a celestial scene painted sometime in the early 1900s, covering the decorative plasterwork and wainscoting in dazzling shades of blue. He then added pops of chartreuse and rose throughout the space. “It’s a pretty traditional room, it just has a brighter take,” says Obeid. “I mixed in some modern pieces to balance the weight of the more classic ones.” For example, he placed a substantial sofa with bullion fringe and two dressy velvet armchairs by Milo Baughman next to a Lucite-and-glass coffee table from the 1970s. At the other end of the room, past a central fireplace with an ornate wooden mantel and antique foo dogs standing guard, the designer mixed a Jean-Michel Frank sofa upholstered in camel mohair with a lacquered black coffee table and a Hollywood Regency brass torchère.
Although every corner of the two-story, three-bedroom apartment is full of personality, there is one particularly eye-catching nook: the so-called “sun room,” a cozy space facing the property’s leafy garden that’s used for informal meals. Here, the designer echoed Duquette’s famed Dawnridge estate in Beverly Hills (an over-the-top residence awash in green), painting the entire room a malachite shade called Parsley Snips. To add drama, he created ribbons of green rising from the floor all the way across the ceiling. Vintage rattan chairs with velvet pillows in a burnt orange hue complete the look. “My client and I share an admiration for design,” says Obeid. “Everything these days is safe and flat; we wanted something that evoked a little bit more.” (Read more.)