"Tonton de Blanc the Marie Antoinette of Louisiana" by Andrew LaMar Hopkins

"Tonton de Blanc the Marie Antoinette of Louisiana" by Andrew LaMar Hopkins 

My latest masterpiece is titled "Tonton de Blanc the Marie Antoinette of Louisiana" 11 x 14, Available. At a Christmas party I met a ancestor of the fabulous Tonton de Blanc who told me her fascinating story of this amazing lady. I thought at that time I needed to paint her. Tonton de Blanc was the Queen of beauty and fashion of late 18th century Saint Martinville, Louisiana. In my painting Tonton is standing in her Saint Martinville home holding a basket of fruit. The room is furnished with Louisiana made Creole furniture, like the Mahogany Cabriole Leg Armoire to the right and the Louisiana mahogany one drawer side table to the left. On the Creole table is a 18th century cobalt and ormolu Sèvres porcelain vase of garden flowers. 

Over the table is a oil portrait French Queen Marie Antoinette by court painter Elisabeth Vigee-Lebrun. While in France Tonton de Blanc was in the Court of Marie Antoinette and Louis XVI. On top pf the armoire are wallpaper hat boxes. The French doors have a Toile de Jouy and lace drapery treatment. Tonton stands on a imported marble floors that includes yellow Royal Siena marble. Tonton de Blanc had one of the prettiest complexions in the world, all lily and rose, and what care she took of it ! She never went into the yard or the garden without a sunbonnet and a thick veil. 

Yet for all that her jealous critics said she was good and sensible, and would forget everything, even her dressing to help anyone in trouble. Tonton de Blanc was Louisiana Aristocracy and the Queen bee of fashion of 18th century Saint Martin. She designed fashionable hats made by milliners using local materials like split palmetto finished off with silk flowers and ribbons. After Tonton debut her fashions in the saint Marin church ,The next Sunday you could see as many hats as the milliner had time to make, and before the end of the month all the women of Saint Martinville were wearing palmetto hats furnished at a high 18th century cost of $25.00 each! You can read more about Tonton de Blanc in "Strange True Stories of Louisiana" by George Washington Cable. 

Pitot House museum, A 18th-century Creole colonial country house 1799.

This is a modern day copy of one of the finest Neoclassical Louis XVI styled carved and painted cypress New Orleans made Creole mantel and overmantel circa 1795 removed from the Bosque House in the French Quarter. The original is in the New Orleans Museum of Art.  

The Pitot House is a historic landmark in New Orleans, Louisiana, and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

The James Pitot House

The Pitot House is an 18th-century Creole colonial country home located at 1440 Moss Street in New Orleans, Louisiana. The Pitot House is currently owned by the Louisiana Landmark Society, which uses the building as its headquarters. The house is situated on Bayou St. John and was moved several blocks from its original site in order to prevent its demolition.

The Pitot House was initially constructed in 1799 by Don Bartólome Bosque as a country retreat along Bayou St. John. It is speculated that Bosque's house was a raised cottage on brick pillars. Bosque was a Spanish colonial official, whose daughter Suzette married Louisiana Governor William C.C. Claiborne.

It is also believed that during the ownership of Madame Rillieux (1805–1810), Edgar Degas' great-grandmother, the ground floor was enclosed with masonry walls of soft brick. Rillieux was also responsible for adding the southern gallery and several outbuildings, which are no longer extant.

The house is named for James Pitot, the fourth owner of the house who resided there from 1810 to 1819. Pitot is considered to be the first "American" mayor of New Orleans (1804–1805); for although he was a native of France, he became a naturalized American citizen before arriving in New Orleans in 1796. Inside are American and Louisiana antiques from the early 19th century, but the antiques are not original to the home. A portrait of Sophie Gabrielle, James Pitot's daughter, is the only artifact owned by any past resident of the house.

Other notable owners of the house include Felix Ducayet and Mother Cabrini, America's first named saint.

The home is within yards of the site of the "bayou bridge" which Governor Claiborne ordered the military "to permit no Negroes to pass or repass the same" during the events known as the 1811 German Coast Uprising. This event, said by some historians to be the largest slave uprising on American soil (a theory not recognized by all) caused white families living upriver in January 1811 to stream into New Orleans along Metairie Road. That road was the "highland" road which crossed the bridge at Bayou St. John, providing access to the traditional "back of town" entrance along Bayou Road into the city.

The house was saved from destruction by the Louisiana Landmarks Society in 1964 and restored to its original splendor, showing the double-pitched hipped roof, and the plaster-covered brick-between-post (briquette-entre-poteaux) construction. The wooden posts act as structural support, the brick offers thermal insulation, and the plaster protects this medley from dampness and rot.

The style of the Pitot House is ensuite—with no hallways and an outdoor stairway. The house was designed with hot summers and insects in mind. The doors were positioned across from each other to keep cool air moving. The extended galleries on both the bottom and top levels of the house keep the sun off the walls and offer outdoor breezeways.

The Pitot House was also designed to withstand floods and was able to survive the floods of Hurricane Katrina due to brick floors on the bottom level of the house which would have originally been caulked with a dry mix of sand and lime, allowing flood waters to drain through. The gallery, back loggia, and sleeping porch were used for outdoor entertaining, dining, and sleeping; they were fitted with shutters to provide relief from the intense Louisiana sun.

The garden at the Pitot House grows plants traditional to the time period when the Pitot House was built. These plants include indigenous flowers, citrus trees, perennials, bulbs, antique roses, camellias, herbs, and vegetables. The garden is a traditional parterre garden, designed to be viewed from the above gallery, with the boxwood hedges recently restored.

A native plants garden showcases Louisiana wildflowers and shrubs along the perimeter of the parterre. Next to the house is a 10,000-square-foot (930 m2) yard, where parties and events are held.

The back loggia

The back loggia, and sleeping porch were used for outdoor entertaining, dining, and sleeping; they were fitted with shutters to provide relief from the intense Louisiana sun.

The parlor 

The parlor 

The bedroom 

Detail of the Creole mantel 

The parlor 

The gallery, back loggia, and sleeping porch were used for outdoor entertaining, dining, and sleeping; they were fitted with shutters to provide relief from the intense Louisiana sun.

The garden is a traditional parterre garden, designed to be viewed from the above gallery, with the boxwood hedges recently restored.

The house was designed with hot summers and insects in mind. The doors were positioned across from each other to keep cool air moving. 

The extended galleries on both the bottom and top levels of the house keep the sun off the walls and offer outdoor breezeways.

Bayou St. John (French: Bayou Saint-Jean) is a bayou within the city of New Orleans, Louisiana.

The grand Bayou St. John in 1728.

The Bayou as a natural feature drained the swampy land of a good portion of what was to become New Orleans, into Lake Pontchartrain. In its natural state, it extended much farther than today; 18th- and early 19th-century maps show it had tributaries or branches (at least seasonally) reaching into what are now the Broadmoor neighborhood, the New Orleans Central Business District just back from St. Charles Avenue above Lee Circle, the Carrollton neighborhood, the Treme neighborhood, and a branch connecting to Bayou Gentilly.

"Creole First Step in Life" Creole Folk art by Andrew LaMar Hopkins

"Creole First Step in Life" Available 8 x 10.

"Creole First Step in Life" depicts a moment when a child takes his first steps surrounded by his mix race Creole Antebellum family of the early 19th century in a Creole Federal interior. The interior has Louisiana made Creole furniture like the Inlaid Figured Mahogany Creole armoire, Cabriole leg table  and Louisiana made mahogany and red leather Campeche chair. The Campeche chair, also known as a "plantation chair," is a type of lounge chair popular in Latin America, the Caribbean, and the American South. Its name comes from the Campeche region of Mexico's Yucatán Peninsula, which manufactured and exported the chairs in the 18th and 19th centuries. The family is standing on a ingrain carpet or Kidderminster Carpet. A reversible flat weave carpet popular from the 18th century to the early 19th century. This form of carpeting has no pile and the pattern is shown in opposing colors on both faces, making it possible to turn the carpet over when one side was worn or soiled. 

Over the Campeche chair is a portrait of a ancestor in carved gilt-wood frame. Creoles were very proud of family portraits and prominently hung them for display. The room has wainscoting embellished with molding. The drapery treatment is French from Meubles et Objets de Goût by Pierre de La Mésangère. La Mesangere, a symbol of a certain elegance of the ancien regime, became a famous figure in the Parisian landscape. His magazine was the goal of his life; He wrote all the articles, accumulating notes for a Dictionary of luxury, He was especially an excellent newspaper editor, literary columnist and well-informed socialite, knowing how to manage his stock of engravings, which were very popular in Federal America for furniture and drapery design. Decorative arts in the room on Cabriole Leg Table include a Early 19th century Federal Lighthouse clock. 

A French Empire silver coffee pot. A pair of Paris porcelain coffee cans and A gold Old Paris vase. Most Creole homes are modest buildings from the outside. Creole did not like to show off with the exteriors of their buildings like the Americans flooding into Louisiana at this time. But it was said that many Creole homes were furnished and decorated rich and elegant inside like this interior. Louisiana’s eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Creoles were a permissive, fun-loving, and status-conscious people with a fondness for European courtly customs. These included good manners, lavish hospitality, close family ties, dancing, and gambling. Creoles also practiced the widespread European custom of dueling—over both important and trivial matters. In addition, they sanctioned a double moral standard which placed women on pedestals but encouraged young men to sow their wild oats. 

Available 8 x 10.

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