Tea at Trianon: Toile de Jouy: French By Design

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

Monday, April 11, 2022

Toile de Jouy: French By Design

From OuiPlease via Bright:

In 1759, Christophe-Phillipe Oberkampf discovered the ban on cotton was being lifted. Oberkampf had been working in his family’s textile business for years and decided to open his own factory. In 1760, Christophe Phillipe Oberkampf opened a factory in Jouy-en-Josas which was one of the first major producers of toile. Originally the design scenes were carved on woodblocks and printed in only one color onto a cream or white fabric.

Oberkampf was influenced by Rococo art and worked with designer and engraver Jean-Baptist Huet whose designs featured vignettes, pastoral scenes, and European mythology. The repeated designs were simple and classic and in a single color. In addition to these romantic pastoral patterns, many toile patterns told a story or reference major events.

Toile de Jouy was the fashionable choice in the 18th century for clothing and interiors – even Marie-Antoinette visited Oberkampf’s factory in Jouy-en-Josas. Although the word toile means fabric, the word toile has evolved to also refer to the original design aesthetic of the fabric. The elements were traditionally bucolic rural scenes but didn’t have to be. The toile prints and patterns were the perfect medium for recording historic events, political messages, and populists’ themes. For example, to highlight France’s scientific advancement, one Huet design, “Le Ballon de Gonesse,” shows Jacques Charles and Nicolas Marie-Noel Robert in a hot air balloon over the Tuileries Gardens. (Read more.)