Tea at Trianon: Queen Mary's Dolls' House

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, January 29, 2024

Queen Mary's Dolls' House

From Country Life:

Queen Mary's Dolls' House celebrates its 100th anniversary with a brand new exhibition and a reimagined display at Windsor Castle. As well as Lindisfarne Castle, Country Life’s former offices on Tavistock Street, London WC2, and numerous country houses in the Home Counties, Sir Edwin Lutyens is known for designing a miniature, four-storey Palladian villa given by the nation to Queen Mary in 1924. This year, the Royal Collection Trust celebrates the 100th anniversary of Queen Mary’s Dolls’ House with a reimagined display at Windsor Castle, which opened last week.

This extraordinary 1:12 scale replica of an Edwardian residence, complete with electricity, working lifts and running water, is not for children, but was designed as a showcase for the works of some 1,500 artists and crafts-people of the day. As such, there are Purdey shotguns, newspapers, wine resting in the cellar and the King’s red-leather dispatch box. Some 700 artists provided miniature works, such as paintings by Paul Nash and Tom Mostyn, a caricature by H. M. Bateman, fairy-tale murals in the Day Nursery by Edmund Dulac and female nudes on the ceiling of the King’s Wardrobe by Wilfrid de Gelhn. (Read more.)

More HERE.