On Austria, Assimilation and Art - The Hare With The Amber Eyes

The Hare With The Amber Eyes: A Family's Century Of Art And Loss

I have been super busy these last few days, as I'm sure that you gathered from my lack of posting and commenting on all of your blogs. 
It is the season, after all, and the Christmas crunch is on.

Marie Antoinette - The Journey

Do you read only one book at a time or do you have several books going simultaneously?
I generally have 3 entirely different types of books going at the same time; a downloaded audio book on my iPod, a downloaded book on my nook (like a kindle) and an actual physical book.

Last week while finishing 'The Hare with the Amber Eyes' on my nook and 'Marie Antoinette' on my iPod, I was struck with the similar theme that runs through both books, the concept of being 'The Other'. 

No matter how Francais the Austrian born Marie Antoinette became, including bearing the dauphin, she was never truly accepted as the Queen of France.  She was libeled and maligned in print in Paris.  She was accused of cuckolding the King and of having numerous lovers.  She was blamed for adding to the national debt, for hoarding wheat during the low harvest and for virtually everything else that was wrong in France.  No matter what she did  for France, she remained 'The Other', an easy target and scapegoat for all that was wrong.

Stepping into the next century we have the flourishing of the Ephrussi family, a highly successful Russian Jewish Family that expanded their grain trading business in Odessa into a European banking powerhouse that rivaled the Rothchilde's. With branches of the family in London, Paris, Lucerne and Vienna, the great wealth enabled the family to become patrons of the arts and of the cultures of their respective cities.

Note the man in the top hat in Renoir's The Boating Party.  That was Charles Ephrussi, art historian, owner of the Parisian art journal La Gazette and patron of the Impressionists. 
He was also the model of Proust's character Charles Swann of 'Rememberance of Things Past'.

Amongst his vast art collection was a group of 264 netsuke which he purchased at the onset of the French fascination with all things Japonnais in 19th Century Paris.
'The Hare With The Amber Eyes' traces the journey of these netsuke from Charles'  elegantly art filled Palais Ephrussi to his nephew and niece at the Ephrussi Palais on the Ringstrasse in Vienna, to post WW2 Japan and finally to the author, British artist and Eprhussi descendant, Edmund de Waal.


As with the great nouveau riche families of 19th Century Europe, the Viennese branch of the Ephrussi were highly educated. Vicktor read history as he reluctantly took over as the head of the bank.  His daughter Elisabeth Ephrussi was the first woman to graduate with a degree in Law from the University of Vienna. All members of the family spoke Russian, French, English and German fluently.  They were full citizens of the Hapsburg Empire and loyal supporters of the Emperor.  They were titled. 
They were completely assimilated.
Or so they though.


All this of course changed with Kristallnacht.
They were 'The Other'.
But unlike Marie Antoinette, they were able to leave everything behind and survive.

This week I've been thinking about Thanksgiving, and about all of the things that I am thankful for...and there many. On this most American of holidays, I am indeed thankful that America is perhaps the only country where immigrants can indeed assimilate and become truly American. 

'The Hare With The Amber Eyes' is the best book that I have read all year and if you like History and Art History I encourage you to read it.

Around Town - Renoir versus American Stories at LACMA

Another week started with total craziness...goods going here and there and now the need to gear up for the Antique and Estate Jewelry Show in Las Vegas which is coming up in a couple of weeks.

At least I had the perfect Mother's Day: two art exhibits, an exquisite afternoon in the sun and an early dinner with the kids.

Happily, I made it to the last day of the Renoir in the 20th Century exhibit at LACMA.

With the entire 2nd floor of the Broad building filled with Renoir, I can say that a huge effort was made to, as the LA Times review states, overturn the conventional wisdom. that late Renoir was bad art.

Here's the contested rap on Pierre-Auguste Renoir: Following success at the first Impressionist exhibition in 1874, when he was 33, plus another decade's worth of heady achievement, his paintings went steadily downhill. After his death in 1919, conventional wisdom began to solidify: Late Renoir is bad Renoir.

After seeing this show my opinion remains conventional, Renoir's late works were pretty bad except perhaps for the influence that they had on other artists such as Bonnard and Maillol.

Bathing Girl by Renoir

Don't get me wrong, I loved the early work by Renoir, all lightness and froth and luminosity, but the late work of fleshy females and wanna be Titianesque classicism I found to be trite. Furthermore, I particularly disliked the way that Renoir, who had earlier created portraiture with specific character definition in the faces of his subjects, reverted to a style where the faces of many of his females were undefined and childlike and totally without individualization.

Where others might have looked at the expressions on the faces of the females and found them contemplative or perhaps seen a intimate glimpse of girls caught in their own dream world, I found the expressions to be unaware to the point of being catatonic.

So for me the late Renoir paintings just became a bevy of interchangeable buxom, big bottomed, babes...in pretty soft pastel colors....kind of like soft core porn early 20th Century style...talk about the objectification of women!

The Serenade by Renoir

Much more exciting to see was American Stories: Paintings of Everyday Life 1765-1915 featuring works from Peele, Copley, Sargent, Chase, Homer, Eakins, Cassatt and many more. The exhibit featured a small but astounding group of American masterpieces, including five great paintings by Homer, which the LA Times review describes as almost worth the cost of the ticket alone.

But I was particularly impressed with this portrait.

Portrait of Paul Revere by John Singleton Copley

From the Times review an excellent description:

A few portraits also make an appearance. They include Copley's classic 1768 depiction of Paul Revere, silversmith and Revolutionary War hero, in shirtsleeves. His chin is contemplatively held in his right hand, a handsomely crafted silver teapot cradled in his left.

The teapot of course nods toward the critical role of tea in the New World's economy. A year before, Britain's Parliament fiddled with the tea tax; results were devastating for colonists. (Witness Revere's grim, shadowed face.) The subsequent Boston Tea Party was an insurrection against a corporate stranglehold on trade, held by the British East India Company working with George III. Copley's brilliant image fuses head and hand as tools for thought, labor and moral action. The portrait describes a person, but it places him in the context of an epic story.

The painting -- as sleek and elegantly crafted as Revere's light-reflective silver -- puts artists in that developing story too. Copley is as much an agent of thought, labor and action as Revere is, and his work speaks to the present as much as to history.

Boys in a Pasture by Winslow Homer

And then there were the Homers, the famous ones including the carefree Breezing Up and the menacing Gulf Stream. I think that my favorite was Eagle Head, Manchester, Massachusetts (High Tide) which depicted three young women drying their long bathing dresses on the beach after swimming. It was certainly not one of Homer's best, but it had the promise of a story not yet told of the activities of women during the 1870s.

The American Stories show will be at LACMA through May 23rd and I highly recommend that you see it.

Georgian London Through The Art of Paul Sanby

If, like me, you have an interest in 18th and 19th Century history and art, check out the podcast on the Georgian London blog about 18th Century water colorist Paul Sanby at the Royal Academy

Jewelry Biz - A Momento Mori for Martha

One of the many reasons why I love estate jewelry is that each piece has a story behind it. And most often, a love story.

Admittedly sometimes you know the story and sometimes you don't, but even not knowing the exact provenance of a piece of jewelry there is a sense that you are holding something meaningful.

Historically, jewelry was not commissioned or purchased in a casual way. There was almost always a specific reason that jewelry was created, gifted and worn.

With the exception of engagement or wedding rings, jewelry today has become primarily a fashion item. Prior to the 20th Century most jewelry while a form of adornment, had some specific significance such as a signet ring with a family crest or a tiara or practical purpose such as a fibula or chatelaine.

On occasion we can still see signet rings and tiaras...especially if we accustomed to attending formal events with European Royalty. But today one never sees a category of jewelry that was so commonly worn during the Georgian and Victorian periods, Mourning and Momento Mori jewelry, typically a locket or brooch often with a lock of hair, worn in memory of of a loved one.

Which brings me to this:

Christie's to auction Thomas Jefferson's watch key

New York--Christie's upcoming Americana Week 2010 sale in New York will feature a rare keepsake owned by much-revered American president Thomas Jefferson--a watch key that contains a lock of hair belonging to his wife, who died at the age of 33.

Conceived as a "memento mori," the engraved gold watch key contains a braided lock of hair from Jefferson's wife, Martha Wayles Jefferson, who failed to recover from illness after giving birth to the couple's sixth child and died on Sept. 6, 1782, according to a Christie's press release.

It is believed that Jefferson, who never remarried, likely commissioned the watch key as a poignant reminder of his young wife in the years following her death. Two months after she passed away, Jefferson's grief is documented in a letter to the Marquis de Chastellux in which he described how he was "emerging from the stupor of mind which had rendered me as dead to the world as [she] was whose loss occasioned it."

The front of the key is engraved with Martha Jefferson's birth and death dates, and the reverse bears a clear case through which the braided lock of hair is visible. Made in England or France, this watch key could have been acquired abroad, when Jefferson served as commissioner and minister in Paris from 1784 to 1789, or from an American retailer who imported European watches.

The watch key is estimated to sell for somewhere between $40,000 and $80,000 at the auction, which is slated for Jan. 21, 22 and 25 at Christie's in New York.

Today it is difficult to think of Thomas Jefferson without thinking of his complicated personal life and his extended family. But this watch key, like so many pieces of antique jewelry, has a story of deep devotion behind it.

Romantic isn't it?

NY Recap - The Morgan Library & Museum

Fortunately NY wasn't all about business. I managed to fit in a little culture, fine dining, a film and some shopping.

For some reason I had never before visited the Morgan Library & Museum. Whenever I had tried in the past, it always seemed out of the way or my plans always got changed, so finally on this trip I made it to the Morgan.

I love small museums like the Frick in New York and the Jacquemart-André in Paris because they don't overwhelm like the Met and the Louvre. Also being created in private residences from private collections, these museums give you an incredible view into the architecture, interior design and lifestyle of a significant family within their historical period.



And the Morgan Library certainly did not disappoint with its elegant Italianate portico

and over the top library designed by Charles Mckim

and the juxtaposition of the open and airy steel and glass structure connecting the original building and the annex by Renzo Piano
very cool.

While the architecture alone was worth the trip, I also enjoyed viewing two of the current exhibitions

Rococo and Revolution: Eighteenth-Century French Drawings

and

William Blake's World: "A New Heaven Is Begun"

The dix-huitième drawings by Watteau, Boucher, Fragonard, Prud'hon were beautiful and I'm sorry that I will miss this week's lecture Glamour and Guillotine: Fashion, Theater and Decorative Arts in Eighteenth-Century France

The Blake works were incredible too. Does anyone else find all those floating figures in Blake to be an artistic precursor to those by later artists such as Chagall and Matisse?

The exhibit that I missed at the Morgan was A Woman's Wit: Jane Austin's Life and Legacy.

Miss Cavendish, if you have an upcoming trip to NY, it will be on display through March 14th.

Things To Do In New York In The Fall

On my list of things to do in New York this fall
(besides meeting the infamous Wendy B)
The Watteau exhibit at the Met


Watteau, Music, and Theater
September 22, 2009–November 29, 2009
The exhibition will explore the place of music and theater in the work of the great early eighteenth-century French painter and draftsman Jean-Antoine Watteau (1684–1721), comparing an imagery of power, associated with the court of the Sun King, Louis XIV, with a more optimistic and mildly subversive imagery of pleasure, developed in contemporary opera-ballet and theater.
It will show that the painter’s utopian vision was directly influenced by these sister arts and will shed light on the subjects of a number of Watteau’s images. In addition to material drawn from various departments of the Museum, including musical instruments, porcelains, and prints, there will be a number of major loans of paintings and drawings by Watteau and his contemporaries from other collections in the United States and Europe.

Especially because I loved this movie
Ce que mes yeux ont vu
An art history drama/thriller
Here's the trailer

Around Town - A Day At The Musée Granet

On my many trips to France over the last 30 or so years, I've always preferred wandering to shopping. I can find plenty of cute boutiques here in the States, but what I can't find is charming buildings like this and ivy draped gardens like this

But it was really too hot to do much wandering so I stopped into the Musée Granet

to see the Picasso Cezanne exhibit

which I didn't enjoy because I'm not a fan of Picasso.

OK, I think that he was a brilliant artist in terms of his technique

but overcome by his own ego and desire for crass commercialization.

Don't judge me.

So after all that Picasso nonsense I walked through the permanent painting collection.

Lot's of lovely landscapes and powerful portraits

and then I saw this

I hadn't realized that Mannerist masterpiece, Jupiter and Thetis

painted by Ingres when he was only 30 years old

is HUGE.

The canvas takes up an entire wall.

From William Feaver's article Why All Ingres Is Erotic in Art News

Bare-chested, his pink robe draped to one side like a furled curtain, the great big god sits with high, thick clouds wreathing his throne and cushioning his left elbow. He’s in one of his moods. How to arouse him? Thetis the sea nymph is sure she can manage it. Bare-breasted, her sage-green gown elegantly draped around buttock and thigh, she molds herself against the mighty knee and reaches up to twiddle his beard.

I didn't find it particularly erotic, but I did find it absolutely stunning.

Love In The Ancien Régime - Fragonard Frou Frou At The Frick

The Pursuit


Fragonard's Progress Of Love Panels At the Frick

So how did the famous Progress Of Love panels, originally commissioned for Madame du Barry's chateau in Louveciennes, end up in the Frick?

You can read about it in Howard Kissel's WSJ article

Ode to a Lost World
Jean-Honoré Fragonard's 'The Progress of Love' cycle

About a decade ago I was invited to a private dinner party at this little house. The house was in the process of being restored...I can only imagine what it had looked like with Fragonards or Bouchers hanging on the walls.

Around Town - Ancient Gems At The Getty Villa

Vintage Antique Victorian Bacchante Cameo From Beladora.com

Carvers and Collectors:The Lasting Allure of Ancient Gems
At the J. Paul Getty Museum at the Getty Villa March 19 – September 7, 2009



“For a great many people, a single gemstone alone is enough to provide the highest and most perfect aesthetic experience of the wonders of Nature.”-- Pliny the Elder, Natural History 37.1 d. A.D. 79



LOS ANGELES—Carved gemstones have captivated connoisseurs and collectors of every age, from antiquity to the present. Carvers and Collectors: The Lasting Allure of Ancient Gems, on view from March 19 – September 7, 2009, at the J. Paul Getty Museum at the Getty Villa, brings together remarkable intaglios and cameos carved by ancient master engravers along with outstanding works by modern carvers they have inspired.



The exhibition will display ancient gems together with items from later periods that illustrate the importance of gems through the ages. Illuminated manuscripts, rare engravings from early catalogues, and cabinets designed to house collections of gems as well as other works of art in diverse media will also be included.



“Greek rulers, Roman emperors, medieval and Renaissance popes and potentates, and 17th–19th-century monarchs and aristocrats all sought to possess these precious markers of culture, taste, and status,” said Kenneth Lapatin, associate curator of antiquities. “This exhibition truly illustrates the lasting allure of these masterpieces in miniature.”



Semi-precious hard stones, like carnelian, chalcedony, amethyst, and agate, have long been carved with decorative patterns and figural designs. Skilled craftsmen in ancient Mesopotamia and Egypt as well as Greece, Rome, and Etruria used hand-powered drills and lathes to cut images into stone to create exquisitely carved gems.



Ancient gem forms called intaglios––from the Italian “to cut in”–– were produced through a technique that used negatives to create positive reliefs, or impressions, when pressed into a soft material, such as wax or clay.



Around 400 B.C., a new technique developed alongside intaglios––the making of cameos. Carvers created relief images that were produced by cutting away the stone surrounding the figure. By exploiting the different colors of banded stones, which could be artificially enhanced, artisans created the illusion of depth with multi-colored compositions.



Engraved gems have been valued not only for their distinctive carving, but also for the intrinsic qualities of their stones. In the Middle Ages and early modern period, ancient intaglios and cameos were reused not only as rings and pendants, but also were mounted in reliquaries, book-bindings, and altar pieces. Rulers, noblemen, and wealthy merchants sought and traded gems, and modern carvers produced replicas and forgeries.



Ancient gem carvers occasionally signed their works, but very few are recorded in ancient literature. However, unsigned intaglios and cameos have in many cases been attributed to known masters through their shared characteristics.



Master carvers on display in this exhibition include Solon, active about 70–20 BC, who worked in Roman imperial circles. Recently, one of his signed gems was found in excavations at Pompeii. His carvings gained great popularity in the 18th century due to the exceptional quality and design of his “Strozzi Medusa” gem, which appears in the exhibition.



Also included are gems attributed to Dioskourides, a Greek master from Aigeai, mentioned by several Roman authors as the carver of the Emperor Augustus’ personal seal.

Fashion Blast From The Past

Every so often I just have to check out what Todd is up to at The Fashioniste because I love the way that he shows the influence of the past, through iconic images, on today's style.
No less than brilliant.
Example, Hedy Lamarr to Tori Amos.
If you enjoy film, fashion and art history you should take a look at his blog.
Also, you can become a fan of The Fashioniste on Facebook.