Tea at Trianon: Set Designs for 'Chevalier'

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, May 1, 2023

Set Designs for 'Chevalier'

Kelvin Harrison Jr as Joseph Boulogne and Lucy Boynton as Marie-Antoinette

I must say the sets look incredible. From Elle Decor:

The swaggering figure and the film’s hero is Joseph Bologne, aka Chevalier de Saint-Georges, a man who is today remembered as the “Black Mozart,” and more than worthy of remembrance in his own right. Bologne—born enslaved on a plantation in Guadeloupe in 1745—came to epitomize the 18th-century Black excellence. Not only was he exceptionally prodigious in music (at one point he was considered for the role of director at the Paris Opera), he also excelled in math, literature, and fencing. His immense talent was paired with charming character traits designed to attract attention. In fact, he befriended Marie Antoinette, who gave him a knighthood while he was just a teenager. No surprise, amid his white French peers, he became a target both for admiration and near-lethal envy. (Read more.)