Tea at Trianon: A Stately Summer Home

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, August 30, 2025

A Stately Summer Home

From Elle Decor:

The secret ingredient to Jenkins’s success might be his ability to use virtually any piece from a client’s existing collection in a new project, be it a Louis XVI daybed, a vintage sunburst mirror, or a pair of antique wooden swans—all of which figure into the interiors of the shore house.
“What I always tell my team is that a client’s vision, taste, and collection are like bricks in a brick wall,” he says. “And we are the mortar holding it all together. In the end, you should see the client’s personality, not ours.”
Nowhere is this approach more apparent than in the Chesapeake Bay home’s front hall, which features walls clad in a cheerful yellow grasscloth from Kravet. “The client’s favorite color is sunshine yellow,” says Jenkins. “We wanted to celebrate that.” He then glazed the wall covering with a special plaster mixed on-site, giving it a textured patina that complements the space’s crisp white architectural moldings.
For the front hall’s furnishings, Jenkins took a pair of armchairs the clients already owned and reupholstered them in a blue-striped fabric from his collaboration with Kravet. He also added a bespoke skirted loveseat, a gilded Aerin floor lamp from Visual Comfort, and window treatments in a blue and white floral motif. (The aforementioned wooden swans enjoy pride of place on an antique console just beyond the front door.) (Read more.)