"Dangerous Creole Liaisons" by Creole Folk Artist Andrew LaMar Hopkins

"Dangerous Creole Liaisons" 16 x 12 Available by Creole Folk Artist Andrew LaMar Hopkins 

"Pierre de Pontalba surrounded by his ancestors at le château de Mont l'Évêque" by Andrew LaMar Hopkins

My latest Masterpiece titled "Pierre de Pontalba surrounded by his ancestors at le château de Mont l'Évêque" by Andrew LaMar Hopkins, 8 x 10. Not for sale. In the collection of the Artist! 

"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. 

"Micaela Almonester de Pontalba visits Creole New Orleans in 1830"

"Micaela Almonester de Pontalba visits Creole New Orleans in 1830"

My latest Masterpiece is tilted "Micaela Almonester de Pontalba visits Creole New Orleans in 1830". It depicts Micaela Leonarda Antonia Almonester y Rojas, Baroness de Pontalba (November 6, 1795- April 20, 1874) a wealthy New Orleans-born Creole aristocrat, businesswoman, and real estate developer, and one of the most dynamic personalities of that city's history. Micaela is depicted in the latest fashion from Paris, walking down the flagstone sidewalk in front of a New Orleans Greek Revival house of a New Orleans mix race couple and child. On the flagstone sidewalk is a small a French Olive jar next to a miniature banana tree. And a Neoclassical wrought iron gated carriage passage known as a porte-cochère in New Orleans, connected the street to a rear courtyard. Over her head on a Neoclassical cast iron balcony, a white Creole father holding a Times-Picayune newspaper next to his mix race son with potted lemon and orange trees on the balcony. Below the Free woman of color mother looks out a open window holding a palm fan. 

Micaela Almonester de Pontalba visited New Orleans two times after her arranged marriage in 1811 to her 20-year-old cousin, Xavier Célestin Delfau de Pontalba, known as Celestin or "Tin Tin". Micaela was 15 at the time of her marriage. She traveled to New Orleans in 1830 and 1848, both years of Revolutions in France as well as with her husband family with a series of lawsuits against her.  In 1830, without her husband's permission, she went to New Orleans for an extended visit, taking the opportunity to travel around other parts of the United States. She stopped in Washington DC where President Andrew Jackson sent his own carriage and secretary of state Martin Van Buren to bring her to the White House as his guest. The celebrated Battle of New Orleans in which Jackson had defeated the invading British on 8 January 1815 had been fought on the grounds of the Chalmette Plantation belonging to her uncle and aunt. Upon her return to France the baron accused her of deserting Célestin; as a result she became a "virtual prisoner" of the de Pontalbas. In frustration, she took her children and transferred back to Paris where she began a series of lawsuits to obtain a separation from Célestin, but lost them due to the strict French marriage laws.

Micaela Baroness de Pontalba was perhaps the most interesting historical woman from New Orleans and one of the most dynamic personalities of that city's history. My association with the Micaela Baroness de Pontalba is I worked in the 1850 House Museum on Jackson Square. Two Summers ago I visited Mont-l'Évêque the moated, medieval de Pontalba chateau outside Senlis which was about 50 miles from Paris, still lived in by the Pontalba family. Micaela was born in New Orleans in November 6, 1795. Her mother a French Creole was Louise Denis de la Ronde a member of one of the most illustrious Creole families in Louisiana.. Her Spanish father, Andrés Almonester y Rojas was a Spanish civil servant of New Orleans.

 "an office rich in salary, perquisites, and business opportunities. He soon acquired wealth in it, or through it." Among his investments was a large tract of land downtown, purchased from Governor O'Reilly on perpetual lease. Upon the death of her Spanish father, Andrés Almonester y Rojas in 1798, Micaela, as his only surviving child, inherited a considerable fortune; although the estate was controlled by her mother, Louise Denis de la Ronde. Being the sole heiress to a considerable fortune, Micaela was likely the richest girl in the city of New Orleans if not the state of Louisiana. Following her marriage in 1811 to her French cousin, Xavier Célestin Delfau de Pontalba, she moved to France. The marriage was not successful and she became a virtual prisoner at the de Pontalba chateau near Senlis. 

Having failed to gain possession of her entire inheritance, her father-in-law, Baron de Pontalba shot her four times at point-blank range with a pair of dueling pistols and then committed suicide. She survived the attack, although her left breast and two of her fingers were mutilated by gunfire. Her husband, Cèlestin succeeded his father as baron, and Micaela was henceforth styled Baroness de Pontalba. She eventually obtained a legal separation from him. Micaela was responsible for the design and construction of the famous Pontalba Buildings in Jackson Square, in the heart of the French Quarter. In 1855, she built the Hôtel de Pontalba in Paris, where she lived until her death in 1874. Her life was worthy of an operatic plot, and eventually became one: Pontalba: a Louisiana Legacy, composed by Thea Musgrave. A play by Diana E.H. Shortes entitled The Baroness Undressed, and several novels, are also based on her dramatic life.

 14 x 18 Available  https://squareup.com/store/andrew-hopkins/item/micaela-almonester-de-pontalba-visits-creole-new-orleans-in

"The French Colonial Habitation" by Andrew LaMar Hopkins.

"The French Colonial Habitation" by Andrew LaMar Hopkins. 24 x 18 Available. 

Louis Moreau Gottschalk - La Nuit des Tropiques / A Night in the Tropics

My latest Masterpiece is called "The French Colonial Habitation". I have worked on this painting since I have returned from France 3 weeks ago. It shows a late 18th century Creole scene in front of a Louisiana, Creole French Colonial plantation house framed by two large live oak trees. The main level of the house is elevated with tall French doors that open directly onto the galleries on both levels.

Most Louisiana Creole homes have exterior staircases within the galleries like this house. The steep hipped roof with three dormers extends up to 12 feet to form the gallery. The deep galleries shade the walls from sun and protect the walls from rain. Creole aristocrats are fashionably dressed are posed on a cobblestone walkway. Under the gallery are French Olive jars. Behind the aristocrats is a French style Parterre garden in the shape of fleur-de-lis, a stylized lily.

Since France was once a Catholic nation, the Fleur de lis became commonly used "at one and the same time, religious, political, dynastic, artistic, emblematic, and symbolic", especially in French heraldry. Next to the gentleman on the left is a Louisiana Catahoula Dog. The Catahoula is the result of Native Americans having bred their own dogs with molossers and greyhounds brought to Louisiana by Hernando de Soto in the 16th century. 18 x 24. Acrylic on canvas board.Available, Price upon request.

"The French Colonial Habitation" by Andrew LaMar Hopkins. 

If you would like to see more of my Art works you can visit my site here.

https://squareup.com/store/andrew-hopkins 

My latest painting, titled "Antoine James de Marigny"

My latest painting is titled "Antoine James de Marigny" 11 x 14 Available.

My latest painting is titled "Antoine James de Marigny". It is apart of a ongoing series of painting of "Creoles in doorways" it depicts the son of famous Bernard de Marigny de Mandeville and Anna Mathilde Morales. Antoine James de Marigny is in his French officer’s uniform. He is standing in his parents lavishly furnished Marigny plantation house at the foot of Elysian Fields Avenue, named after the Champs-Élysées in Paris. The room has gray and white marble floors, The baseboards are painted to look like Egyptian gold vein marble. A eagle Card table by Deming and Bulkley, New York City, ca. 1825. Rosewood. 

A Duncan Phyfe & Son Restoration style armchair. A Regency Part-ebonized giltwood octagonal convex mirror circa 1810. And a portrait of Lafayette as a lieutenant general, in 1791.by Joseph-Désiré Court. Antoine James de Marigny was a planter, merchant, military officer, and U.S. Marshal for eastern Louisiana. As a young man, he attended the Academy of St. Cyr and the Royal Cavalry School at Saumur in the 1830s in France, before serving two to three years as a lieutenant in the French Cavalry. In New Orleans, he married Sophronie Louise Claiborne. Daughter of William C. C. Claiborne, the first Governor of Louisiana after statehood. The couple had three or four daughters. 11 x 14 Available.

My latest painting, titled "Two sisters visiting"

"Two sisters visiting" in a collection in Winterthur, Delaware. 

This morning I finished my latest painting and by lunch it was sold to one of my collectors of art that owns over 10 of my paintings. It is titled "Two sisters visiting" It shows two Creole bourgeoisie sisters visiting in a Creole interior of the 1830's period. They are dressed in the latest fashion from Paris of the 1830's. The 1830's was a booming period in New Orleans history. Lots of money was being made. Most of the money made had something to do with slavery. 

In the painting next to the Creole mantel we see a enslaved woman sewing. Although many city slaves were skilled workers, most were domestic servants. They cared for their masters' homes, families, gardens, and animals, shopped and sewed for the household, and ran numerous errands. The number and appearance of one's servants indicated the urban resident's wealth and social standing. Thus, many prominent whites and free blacks in New Orleans and Baton Rouge outfitted their domestics in great finery when making public appearances. 

The bourgeoisie Creole interior includes a mix of Classical fancy goods and furniture available in New Orleans during this period.  After the 1803 Louisiana purchase Creole interiors included more furnishings and decorative arts from the East Coast of America with trade, like the 1830's New York city couch by Duncan Phyfe. One of the sisters sits in a French Restoration gilt wood swan chair. The decorative arts in the room include a American classical carved gilt wood mirror over the couch. On the mantel a pair of bronze English Regency Argand Lamps. A pair of French Old Paris porcelain NeoClassical vases and a American East Coast Lighthouse Clock.

The 1830's French print source for my painting. 

Over the mantel a ancestral portrait painted in the French NeoClassical style. During this period wealthy Creoles had  wall-to-wall floorcovering. The carpet looms of this period produced narrow width strips, usually 27” wide that were then hand-sewn together, laid upon the floor and tacked down. Costly carpets like the classical one in the painting were usually only placed down during the winter months and taken up and stored during the Summer months, replaced with cooler straw mats. During the 1830's a few prominent French Artist traveled from France to New Orleans to paint portraits of the local Creoles. Over the enslaved woman is a Charles X gilt wood baromètre.  A barometer is a scientific instrument used in meteorology to measure atmospheric pressure. Pressure tendency can forecast short term changes in the weather.  

Servant of the Douglas Family c. 1850

Individual portraits of domestic servants, like this one of a Douglas family servant, are extremely rare.

Gift of the Douglas Family

Dwarfing in population the other cities in the antebellum South, New Orleans had the largest slave market in the domestic slave trade, which expanded after the United States' ending of the international trade in 1808. Two-thirds of the more than one million slaves brought to the Deep South arrived via the forced migration of the domestic slave trade. The money generated by the sale of slaves in the Upper South has been estimated at 15 percent of the value of the staple crop economy.

I'm working in a 1830's Creole cottage in the French Quarter helping with antiques. This Creole mantel is the source for the one I used in my painting. 

1830's New York city couch by Duncan Phyfe.

American classical carved gilt wood mirror

The slaves represented half a billion dollars in property. An ancillary economy grew up around the trade in slaves—for transportation, housing and clothing, fees, etc., estimated at 13.5 percent of the price per person. All of this amounted to tens of billions of dollars (2005 dollars, adjusted for inflation) during the antebellum period, with New Orleans as a prime beneficiary. Antebellum New Orleans was the commercial heart of the Deep South, with cotton comprising fully half of the estimated $156,000,000 (in 1857 dollars) exports, followed by tobacco and sugar. 

French Old Paris porcelain NeoClassical vase

 American East Coast Federal style Lighthouse Clock

Over half of all the cotton grown in the U.S. passed through the port of New Orleans (1.4 million bales), fully three times more than at the second-leading port of Mobile, Alabama. During the 1830's A great deal of architecture was built in the French Quarter and other homes were remodeled during this period. Being that New Orleans was owned by many, including the French, Spanish and now America, "Creole society coalesced as Islanders, West Africans, slaves, free people of color and indentured servants poured into the city along with a mix of French and Spanish aristocrats, merchants, farmers, soldiers, freed prisoners and nuns". The society of New Orleans was unlike any other from its mix of inhabitants including Africans, the French, Spanish, Caribbeans, Germans, Irish Sicilians etc. The five decades preceding the Civil War are referred to as “the golden years” of New Orleans or “flush times,” “the glamour period” and “la belle epoch”. 

bronze English Regency Argand Lamp

New Orleans was referred to as a place for prosperity.  At this time, New Orleans had already won the title of being a Primate City where business was booming.  It lacked in manufacturing businesses but had many commercial businesses in the area and “was pulsating with commerce, business, change, and expansion”.  After the first bank opened in 1805, four more decided to open in 1827. 

View of recently installed brown and gold bedroom room at Millford. In the foreground is an original French bedstead by Duncan Phyfe & Son and one of the four original marble-topped basin stands. In the back left corner is one of the original cheval glasses made for Millford. The June 2, 1841 bill of lading for furniture sent to Millford by Duncan Phyfe & Son includes two “swing glasses,” named as such because the large looking glass frame “swings” or pivots between the two columns that flank it. This handsome mahogany cheval glass is the recent gift of Marika and Thomas Smith. 

Inspiration for the period wall to wall carpet in my painting 

The city was one of the richest, most dazzling of all places full of Parisian couture, society, fancy restaurants and shops that imported luxury goods for the new found wealth.  Royal Street became the main commercial artery while Bourbon Street was a place for the Creole elite and their fine residences. In the 18th century Bourbon street was named after the French Royal family. Because of this it was the most fashionable address to live on in New Orleans.

Charles X gilt wood baromètre.

1830's French Neoclassical oil portrait of a gentleman in it's original Louis Philippe gilt wood frame. 

Southern cotton was becoming heavy in trade that a new type of transportation needed to become available to transport the bulky materials.  Steamboats became the main source of transportation of materials by 1823.  There was an astronomical amount of 50 steamboats that aided in the commerce of the city.

Hundreds of gas streetlights were put onto the streets along with the first sycamore trees that were planted in Congo Square.  The population of New Orleans doubled in the 1830’s and by the 1840’s the population was approximately 350,000, almost half of which were Creoles of color or slaves, making it the fourth largest city in the United States at the time.  If they had kept with these increases in population, New Orleans would have easily become the second largest city in America. 

"Two sisters visiting" in a collection in Winterthur, Delaware. 

If you would like to  check out more of my art you can go to my website here.

https://squareup.com/store/andrew-hopkins

My latest painting titled "Cast iron gallery Belle"

My latest painting titled "Cast iron gallery Belle", Available. 

This morning I completed my latest painting titled "Cast iron gallery Belle". This painting was started in Dec of 2010 when I was living in Baltimore, Maryland. I was confident I would complete the painting at that time that I dated it. Finally 6 years latter It was completed this morning May 25th 2016 in New Orleans, Louisiana. This painting was a part of about 40 unfinished canvases I have started over the years, that are in various stages of unfinishedness. 

The painting Shows a Southern Belle holding a fan in blue dress standing on a ornate cast iron gallery.  On the gallery is a terracotta potted orange tree. A open guillotine window shows a cut crystal gasolier chandelier in a upstairs room. The building is salmon colored stucco walls. A French Quarter balcony can be small or stretch the length of the building. You see most the balconies in the French Quarter of New Orleans. You will also see a number of cast iron galleries. A Gallery is generally wider than a balcony as it is supported to the ground by posts or columns often the width of a sidewalk.   

Ironwork is so associated with Old New Orleans that it may come as a surprise to some that wrought iron (worked by hand) and later cast iron are Victorian additions and not original to the oldest French Colonial masonry townhouses. Balconies and porches were bounded by tall wooden columns. Decorative ironwork, derived from Spanish architecture, mimicked another famous Spanish product: lace, and offered an ornate visual contrast to otherwise sober, handsome fronts. Wrought iron was popular in New Orleans during the Spanish colonial period 1760's to 1803. Hand made wrought iron was still used after 1803 when New Orleans became American up until the mid 19th century. During the mid 19th century the more ornate cast iron work is often floral or leafy, adorned with French fleur-de-lis and coquilles, or shells (associated with Saint Jacques and religious pilgrims), also abound.

New Orleans Creole Micaela Leonarda Antonia Almonester, Baroness de Pontalba use of visually appealing lacy decorative cast iron railings on buildings she was building on Jackson square between 1848-1850, set the style for balconies throughout the French Quarter on older and new buildings. Famously, the railings on the Baroness buildings feature the intertwined letters “A” and “P” signifying the two families, Almonester and Pontalba, who were so responsible for the architectural  face New Orleans presents to the world.

A cut crystal gasolier chandelier can be seen thru the guillotine window.

The architecture of the building is Italianate in style. 

Italianate style Features, Balanced, symmetrical rectangular shape. all, narrow, double-paned  Arch-headed windows with hood moldings, brackets and cornices. Balconies with wrought-iron railings, or Renaissance balustrading, Carved decorative keystones. 

My latest painting titled "Cast iron gallery Belle", Available. 

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