Sunday, June 26, 2016

Today's purchases

18th c. Paris porcelain Duc D'Angouleme Factory Rue de Bondy double Wine-bottle cooler (seau à bouteille). Dating from the 1780's. 


Last week I was very bad on ebay. So many wonderful rare things were popping up on the site. My favorate was a late 18th century Paris porcelain double bottle cooler made by the Duc D'Angouleme Factory in Paris.  It is very hard to find a complete set of 18th century French porcelain dinner service. When one does show up it is extremely costly. Over the years I have been piecing together a 18th century French dinner service in the cornflower pattern, one of French Queen Marie Antoinette's favorate flowers. This piece is not in the best of condition and needs repair but because of the age and rarity of the piece I paid more than I like to but still happy I got it. I will have it professionally restored by a local porcelain restorer here in New Orleans. The bottle cooler is decorated in the cornflower pattern with central roundel in the style of Sevres, the undulating sides above two shell-molded handles, the white ground body with extensive gilding and cornflower spring patterns to the sides. Inscribed to underside with the mark of Duc D'Angouleme Factory Rue de Bondy this rare piece was  made for high French aristocracy. Lavish scrolling gilt and swags of tiny gold leaves complete the decoration. This bottle cooler is the epitome of late 18th century French Louis XVI  neoclassical style.

 A NeoClassical Louis XVI roundel with pearl decoration.  


Showing the two side for Wine/Champagne bottles  

The petition in between the cooler is decorative, pierced and trimmed with gold. 




The acanthus leaf handles has lavish scrolling gilt 

The underside showing the Duc D'Angouleme Factory Rue de Bondy mark in iron red. 


18th c. Paris porcelain Duc D'Angouleme Factory Rue de Bondy double Wine-bottle cooler (seau à bouteille). Dating from the 1780's. 


"Créole Soirée"

 "Créole Soirée" in a collection in New Orleans, louisiana. 

My last 4 paintings have sold within 24 hours after being completed. I finished one of my latest masterpieces over a week ago. It is titled "Créole Soirée" it was finished and sold to a first time local person in New Orleans. The painting shows a nighttime "Créole Soirée" or house party. Two Creoles of color dance in a parlor as a Creole Violinist plays a violin. The scene is from the early 19th century shortly after the American purchase of Louisiana in 1803.




The Catholic Creoles had great love for fun & entertainment like, balls, parties and Soirées, unlike the new Protestant American flooding into the Louisiana territory driven by hard work and money. The room is fashionably furnished with local made Creole furniture like the French style ladder back chair that the Violinist it sitting on and the Cabriole leg table to the right of the mantel the blue and white Chinese export porcelain punch bowl sits on.




 English Regency Verre Eglomise Mirror, circa 1800. Verre églomisé, from the French term meaning gilded glass, is a decorative technique in which the backside of glass is gilded with gold or metal leaf. 



Early 19th century Creole Cabriole leg table 


The rest of the furnishings are luxury goods imported into Louisiana that would have been available during the early 19th century like the East Coast made Cabriole style sofa in the English style. Over the sofa is a English Regency Giltwood Convex Mirror, incorporating a spread-winged eagle, above laurel swags and candlearms; the apron carved with tied ropes and acanthus leaves. and over the Creole mantel is another English Regency Verre Eglomise Mirror, circa 1800. Verre églomisé, from the French term meaning gilded glass, is a decorative technique in which the backside of glass is gilded with gold or metal leaf. 










Regency Giltwood Convex Mirror, incorporating a spread-winged eagle, above laurel swags and candlearms; the apron carved with tied ropes and acanthus leaves.

On the mantel is a pair of French NeoClassical Agateware Pottery Urns and in the center of the mantel a Louis XVI ormolu clock. The early 19th century NeoClassical wall to wall carpet is a English Brussels carpet. In North America these carpets were commonly called Ingrain Carpet. During the Regency (in the U.S. the Federal period) Brussels carpets were the height of luxury for all but the wealthiest homeowners. To the right of the mantel is a late 18th century portrait of a Free woman of color. She is wearing a tignon. a type of head covering.




18th century Creole French style ladder back chair



A large piece of material tied or wrapped around the head to form a kind of turban that somewhat resembles the West African Gele. It was worn by Creole women of African descent in Louisiana beginning in the Spanish colonial period, and continuing to a lesser extent to the present day.This headdress was the result of sumptuary laws passed in 1786 under the administration of Governor Esteban Rodriguez Miró. Called the tignon laws, they prescribed and enforced appropriate public dress for female gens de couleur in colonial society. 


French Louis XVI clock. 



At this time in Louisiana history, women of African descent vied with white women in beauty, dress and manners. Many of them had become the placées (openly kept mistresses) of white, French, and Spanish Creole men. This incurred the jealousy and anger of their wives, mothers, sisters, daughters and fiancées. One complaint was that white men pursuing flirtations or liaisons sometimes mistook upper-class white women for light-skinned women of African descent and accosted them in an improper manner.

East Coast made Cabriole style sofa in the English style circa 1790-1810. 






o prevent this, Governor Miró decreed that women of African descent, slave or free, should cover their hair and heads with a knotted headdress and refrain from "excessive attention to dress" to maintain class distinctions. Historian Virginia M. Gould notes that Miró hoped the law would control women “who had become too light skinned or who dressed too elegantly, or who, in reality, competed too freely with white women for status and thus threatened the social order.” Miró's intent of having the tignon mark inferiority had a somewhat different effect, according to historian Carolyn Long who noted: "Instead of being considered a badge of dishonor, the tignon…became a fashion statement. The bright reds, blues, and yellows of the scarves, and the imaginative wrapping techniques employed by their wearers, are said to have enhanced the beauty of the women of color."


The women who were targets of this decree were inventive and imaginative. They decorated tignons with their jewels and ribbons, and used the finest available materials to wrap their hair. In other words, "[t]hey effectively re-interpreted the law without technically breaking the law"—and they continued to be pursued by men.


When Claiborne the first American Governor of Louisiana made English the official language of the territory, the French Creoles in New Orleans were outraged, and reportedly paraded in protest in the streets. They rejected the Americans' effort to transform them overnight. In addition, upper-class French Creoles thought many of the arriving Americans were uncouth, especially the rough Kentucky boatmen (Kaintucks) who regularly visited the city, having maneuvered flatboats down the Mississippi River filled with goods for market.


Realizing that he needed local support, Claiborne restored French as an official language. In all forms of government, public forums, and in the Catholic Church, French continued to be used. Most importantly, Louisiana French and Louisiana Creole remained the languages of the majority of the population of the state, leaving English and Spanish as minority languages.



Colonists referred to themselves and enslaved blacks who were native-born as creole, to distinguish them from new arrivals from France and Spain as well as Africa. Over time, white Creoles, mixed-raced Creoles, and Africans created a French, Spanish, and West African hybrid language called Louisiana Creole or Louisiana Creole French. American Indians, such as the Creek people, intermixed with Creoles also, making three races present in the ethnic group.



18th century portrait of a Free woman of color. 

In some circumstances, Creole French was used by slaves, planters and free people of color alike, though many utilized French, and in some cases, Spanish (Louisiana Creole French is not commonly spoken, but used in singular situations). However, It is still spoken by Louisiana Creoles in Texas and Louisiana. It can primarily be heard in Zydeco music, at Creole Rodeos and among Creole and some Cajun neighborhoods. Louisiana Creole is typically not spoken in New Orleans in modernity, but certain words and phrases are still used.


 "Créole Soirée" in a collection in New Orleans, louisiana. 

Tuesday, June 21, 2016

James Northcote (1746-1831). Adonis, oil on canvas

James Northcote (1746-1831). Adonis, oil on canvas

Saturday, June 18, 2016

4 of my paintings sold at le château de Hopkins today.

4 of my paintings sold at le château de Hopkins today.

A verre églomisé profile miniature (c. 1800), National Museum in Warsaw

A verre églomisé profile miniature (c. 1800), National Museum in Warsaw

Verre églomisé, from the French term meaning gilded glass, is a decorative technique in which the backside of glass is gilded with gold or metal leaf.

Wednesday, June 15, 2016

Lunch at le château de Hopkins.

The Lunch table at le château de Hopkins set up for the first course. 

Last Saturday I had a light Summer lunch for a friend I had just met. We had been friends on facebook for a year because of our common interest in 18th century France, art, antiques and decorative art. I had the chance to meet him last week when he came down to New Orleans to give a lecture titled "Luxuries in Louisiana: Creating (and Buying) Respectability in the Colonial Gulf Coast South, 1699–1803" He is a graduate of the College of William and Mary and the Winterthur Program in American Material Culture, was a curator at the prestagest Getty Museum. He is now a PhD student in the Department of the History of Art at Yale University. 

Philippe has a great love for 18th century France and my favorate French Queen Marie Antoinette. I invited him over to le château to see my French Royal collection of memorabilia, 18th century French furniture, portraits and decorative art over a light summer lunch. We both were invited for dinner in his honor later that evening. I wanted lunch to be light, because I did not know how heavy dinner would be later that evening. The first course I made Creole fried green tomatoes that I had bought at a local farmer's market the same morning. Second course was Creole Shrimp salad à la Hopkins. Made with local fresh Gulf shrimp also bought at the farmers market. 

And last the third course was dessert, Pistachio Almond ice cream. In the 18th and first part of the 19th century the dessert course was always served on a table top with the tablecloth removed. This course was sometime called "bare mahogany" because it was served right on the wood top of the table. The most wanted item to see in my collection by Philippe to see is a rare 18th century Louisiana cabriole leg table that we were eating off of, but covered with linen tablecloth.  In the 19th century people sat at the table as servants removed everything on top of the table and rolled the tablecloth up and then placed the desert setting on the wood table top. At le château de Hopkins there are no servants just me. 



The Lunch table at le château de Hopkins set up for the first course. The 1830's Louis Philippe salad plate, one of 6, I purchased when I was a teenager in a shop in the French Quarter. The pattern looks like transferware but is all handpainted.  



I bought some wonderful hydrangeas at my local farmer's market. They are displayed in a period Empire Classical urn. 

The small fork is in the fiddle and thread pattern and is Mobile, Alabama made coin silver made for a Creole family. The dinner fork is American coin silver. The dessert spoon over the plate is French. The ivory handle knife is French 1820's. 



Glassware from the Left is a American/English water glass circa 1870. In the middle English Regency barrel shape wine glass circa 1820 and a 1820's American Pittsburgh cordial glass. 


The centerpiece of the table was a Old Paris porcelain vase painted with a scene of  Cupid (Latin Cupido, meaning "desire") is the god of desire, erotic love, attraction and affection, sitting on his mother's lap love goddess Venus as they float on a cloud. He is enjoying a glass of Ambrosia, Nectar of the gods, his mother Venus just poured for him. 


While preparing lunch I heard a New Orleans Jazz funeral

Jazz funeral is a common name for a funeral tradition with music which developed in New Orleans, Louisiana.

The tradition blends strong European and African cultural influences. Louisiana's colonial past gave it a tradition of military style brass bands which were called on for many occasions, including playing funeral processions. This was combined with African spiritual practices, specifically the Yoruba tribe of Nigeria and other parts of West Africa.

Jazz funerals are also heavily influenced by early twentieth century African American Protestant and Catholic churches, black brass bands, and the Haitian Voudoo's idea of celebrating after death in order to please the spirits who protect the dead. Another group that has had an impact on jazz funerals is the Mardi Gras Indians.

Plate setting for the Second course.



French Louis XVI period antique 18th century Old Paris porcelain ribbed plates, dishes from the Boissettes porcelain factory located outside of Paris in operation from ca. 1778-ca. 1785. The plates are decorated with handpainted garden flowers and gilt dentil border.



For dessert I used plates used by American dignitaries & Emperor Napoleon lll in the late 1840's. 

Paris porcelain plates with shield of America/American eagle with Emperor Napoleon lll eagle on each plate. The American eagle with a red, white, and blue banner reading "E Pluribus Unum", the national motto. I purchased the plates in Paris market of Les Puces de Saint-Ouen, also known as Clignancourt.  I was told by the Clingnancourt dealer that the plates were used at a dinner in Paris in the late 1840's with American dignitaries & French Emperor Napoleon lll.

I placed the shell shape gilt rim French Baccarat dish over the Old Paris porcelain plate. 





Third course table setting. 


First course, Creole fried green tomatoes!



Second course was Creole Shrimp salad à la Hopkins. 


Third course was dessert, Pistachio Almond ice cream served on the wood table top. 

This is the table we eat off of. It is a Extremely rare Early Louisiana 18th century cabriole leg table. It is one of the most elaborate found of theses types of tables. The cabriole legs ending in the rare 'pied-de-biche' feet which are carved to resemble a deer's cloven hoof. It has one of the most beautiful and sophisticated skirts on this type of table. It's overall grace, style & size makes it a fine example of the best Louisiana 18th century cabriole leg tables. Less than 10 of theses beautiful and rare quality tables are known to exist today.



Third course was dessert, Pistachio Almond ice cream.