Paintings of New Orleans Creole Cottages

 "The pride of a Free woman of color" by Andrew LaMar Hopkins 

Two weeks ago I completed two Creole Cottage paintings  "The pride of a Free woman of color" and "Creole cottage Dandy" out of the 6 that I started. One week ago I dropped them off at Nadine Blake's located at 1036 Royal street in the French Quarter. Yesterday she sold them both to a collector. Nadine has sold over 20 of my paintings in the last 60 days. My lovely show at her shop was suppose to come down at the end of 4th of July weekend, but now it has been decided that my art will be a fixture in her shop tell the end of the year. I'm thankful & excited beyond words as this is truly a dream come true. To have my art on the most fashionable street for art in the city of New Orleans. Nadine is selling my paintings faster then I can paint them. It is keeping me very busy. 

Also I have been invited to have a show at Nadine Blake's for Dirty Linen Night August 9, 2014. I will be in France but the show must go on. I will be there in spirit. The evening, annually staged on the second Saturday in August, is patterned after the Warehouse Arts District’s annual White Linen Night, which is always held on the first Saturday of August. Its popularity, like that of its namesake, grew steadily over the years, drawing crowds into the thousands since it began in 2001. The Royal Street merchants suggest that people wear the linens they might have soiled the week before during White Linen Night.

"Creole cottage Dandy" by Andrew LaMar Hopkins

Creole Cottage Dandy shows a fashionably dressed young white Creole gentleman in front of a French Quarter Creole cottage. A dandy (also known as a beau or gallant) is a  young man who places particular importance upon physical appearance, refined language, and leisurely hobbies, pursued with the appearance of nonchalance in a cult of Self. Historically, especially in late 18th- and early 19th-century Creole New Orleans, a dandy, who was self-made, often strove to imitate an aristocratic lifestyle despite coming from a middle-class background. This dandy might have got his cloths from Free man of color Cordeviolle and Lacroix merchant tailors in the French Quarter. 

This elaborate billhead was produced for Cordeviolle and Lacroix by a printing house in Paris.

They proudly proclaimed that the firm had "The most elegant and fashionable articles pertaining to the Gentleman's Wardrobe, Imported, And constantly on hand." An "importer of French cloth, fancy casimere, and the best and most extensive assortment of clothing of every description, made in Paris, by the first fashionable tailors, and an elegant variety of gloves, cravats, stocks, etc." The Creole Cottage is the earliest remaining local housing type in the City of New Orleans.  It is a vernacular type – typically designed and built by the owners and builders to fit local needs – and heavily influenced by both French and Spanish construction methods and the local climate.  

The typical Creole Cottage is 1‐ to 1½‐ stories tall,  2 rooms  wide  and  2 rooms  deep,  often  with small storage rooms (cabinets) attached at the rear to each side.  Creole Cottages have hipped or side gabled roofs, frequently with tall, narrow gabled dormer windows. A typical Creole Cottage façade is symmetrical with four openings, usually four sets of French doors or two sets of French doors and two double hung windows, all shuttered.

"Creole cottage Dandy" by Andrew LaMar Hopkins 

"The pride of a Free woman of color" by Andrew LaMar Hopkins

The Pride of a Free Woman of Color. Shows a New Orleans Free woman of color in the latest fashions from Paris standing in front of her two two bay Creole cottages. Free women of color by law were forced to cover their hair with a tignon in the early part of the 19th century. Being clever, they soon sported elaborate headgear complete with feather and jewels. 

Free woman of color obtained land in the Quarter and surrounding areas most by Plaçage. Plaçage was a recognized extralegal system in French and Spanish slave colonies of North America (including the Caribbean) by which ethnic European men entered into the equivalent of common-law marriages with women of color, of African, Native American and mixed-race descent. The term comes from the French placer meaning "to place with". The women were not legally recognized as wives but were known as placées; their relationships were recognized among the free people of color as mariages de la main gauche or left-handed marriages. They became institutionalized with contracts or negotiations that settled property on the woman and her children, and in some cases gave them freedom if enslaved. The system flourished throughout the French and Spanish colonial periods, reaching its zenith during the latter, between 1769 and 1803. It was most practiced in New Orleans, where planter society had created enough wealth to support the system. The Creole style, while often thought of as a “French Colonial” style, in fact is an architectural style  developed  in New Orleans.   

   It represents  a melding  of the French,  Spanish  and Caribbean  architectural  influences  in  conjunction with the demands of the hot, humid climate of New Orleans.  As the aesthetics of American architecture were  accepted within the Creole population, the style died out  in favor of more fashionable styles. Hallmarks  of the  Creole style  include simplicity,  brick, stucco  or exterior walls, large six over six windows, French doors, no dominant entrances and shutters  attached with strap hinges on  all windows  and doors.   Smaller Creole Cottages like the ones in the painting are 1 room wide by 2 rooms deep, with only one door and a window or two French doors (a “2‐bay cottage”) also occur, although less frequently. The façade of this Creole Cottage is symmetrical and the building is topped by a steeply pitched side gabled roof. 

"The pride of a Free woman of color" by Andrew LaMar Hopkins

"The pride of a Free woman of color" by Andrew LaMar Hopkins