An Ideal Man, A House Beautiful

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Imagine the ideal man, a Renaissance man.
Imagine reading about that man in his home-as inventor, designer, writer, collector, musician-a man who lived beautifully. Thomas Jefferson grasped the Art of Living~oh yes, he had his flaws-failures even, but no man is perfect.
For me Jefferson comes close.

Rembrandt Peale's 1805 portrait of Thomas Jefferson during his second term as President

I knew when I opened November's House Beautiful-with friend Charlotte Moss as its Guest Editor-there would be something special-something nowhere else to be found. To my pleasure- there are several somethings-but this- THE JEFFERSONIAN IDEAL was beyond. Pairing  Pulitzer-prize winning author of Thomas Jefferson The Art of Power, Jon Meacham, and House Beautiful is a match made in the lofty halls of an ideal place like- well, Jefferson's beloved Monticello-indeed it was-and the result is rare-not to mention grand. 
Leave it to Charlotte Moss to shape the issue into a memorable one to be savored, and saved.

Naturalist & Native, in the Entry of Monticello, Jefferson's Eclecticism On View

Jefferson wrote in 1819,

 " I feel a much greater interest in knowing what has passed two or three thousand years ago, than in what is now passing... 

I read nothing, therefore, but of the heroes of Troy...of Pompey and Caesar, and of Augustus too..."

The photographs of Jonny Valiant accompany Meacham's Jefferson portrait. Not to put too fine a point on it-Meacham's account of Jefferson is poetry-or perhaps more lyrically put-words awaiting the strains of Jefferson's violin.
Too much?
If you think so-You have not read Mr. Meacham on Mr. Jefferson in House Beautiful, and I suggest, for the sake of history-knowledge-and for pure pleasure-You do so.

Monticello-a Reflection of Jefferson

Classic by Nature

Feeding the Soul, and Man, In the Garden and At Table

Charlotte Moss, a trustee of  The Thomas Jefferson Foundation, sets a table worthy of Jefferson in the "greenhouse," a loggia connected to his private rooms at Monticello.  With her eye for what is of the moment and of history, Charlotte uses Elsa Peretti, Tiffany and Co., Padova flatware, with sterling reproduction gold washed Jefferson cups from the Shop at Monticello.

Charlotte sent this collage of photographs from her Jefferson table setting-beautiful in its Classic simplicity.

Vladimir Kanevsky porcelain graces the table's center, set off by a ciel bleu Muriel Grateau tablecloth.

Charlotte writes of Jefferson's style & appetites, "Everything Jefferson did was simple, spare, and elegant. For him, the most important thing was the feeding of family and friends. I'd like to think he would have enjoyed dinner here himself."

I think Jefferson would have enjoyed it all. Today, his beloved Monticello feeds our Soul-and our desire for what is everlasting-and our quest for the Art of Living.



LINKS of Importance:

House Beautiful here
Charlotte Moss here
Jon Meacham here
read more about Muriel Grateau here 

10 Portraits

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A recent post by Mark Ruffner writing the blog All Things Ruffnerian-prompted me to take up this challenge to cull through countless Portraits of Women & fantasize - If I could own 10 ?, which would I choose? Mark followed suit after Yvette of In So Many Words-did the same. You can see where this is going... While I still stretch my imagination on where to hang them & worry about negotiating with the Met, the Hermitage and likewise-I found narrowing down my choices difficult. No portrait-its value-its obscurity or its notoriety has been excluded. A few were easy-sorting and narrowing it to a mere 10 virtually impossible.

Pure fantasy-but doesn't it exercise the eye? Force us to edit-in a world where pinning, tumbling,blogging,linking-blinking tweeting-etc etc. allow us to gluttonous Excess?. Of course seeing Mark's picks and Yvette's IT is Temptation to say-"oh  yes, That one," but that would have been too easy. I must say it shocked me that some of my favorite portrait painters-Boldini, Whistler, Helleu did not make My List-nor did Zubaran-I immediately excluded his paintings of Saints-choosing just ONE would be treasonous-and choosing 10-unfair.


(The 10-in no particular order & linked in the text with insights about the work)

Petrus Christus, Portrait of a Young Girl

 c 1470.

what can I say? it might be my favorite of them all. It fits the Bacon quote at the heading of this experiment like no other.

El Greco's Lady in a Fur Wrap

c.1580

El Greco? Yes, one of his mysterious paintings of women-there are few. Uncharacteristic,yet his brush is evident-and while there are disputes about that-it's all the more reason to want it.

 Ingres' Mademoiselle Rivière

 c.1805

Ingres, for me the Master portrait painter-this is one of two Ingres paintings I've included. Can you deny it?

 Liotard's Portrait of Marie Fargues, his wife

 c. 1749

This portrait satisfies all things- sitter, dress, complexity of patterns, book, flowers and mirror. The 18th century was a period where women like Mary Wortley Montague were forging paths of individualism and leaving brilliant trails of their lives in memoirs and letters. Liotard painted many women of the period in Eastern dress. Almost any of Liotard's paintings would suffice-I would be content with 10 of them.

Sir Joshua Reynold's Mrs. Baldwin

c. 1782

Another painter I would not leave off any list-Reynolds and again it  is the 18th century with its certain brand of  Beauty and its allure of Exoticism.

Ingres' The Comtesse D'Haussonville, née Louise de Broglie

c.1845

It's charms are evident.the Comtesse d' Haussonville, grand-daughter of Madame de Stael- one of the most fascinating women in Europe," was also a remarkable person in her own right.
(I've written about her here & Ingres here)

Sargent's Madame X,  Virginie Gautreau

 

c.1884

Sargent. This portrait- his most memorable and he considered his best- was also his most controversial. Of course I would pick this one.Virginie Gautreau was not happy with the portrait-it revealed too much-much too much. Eager to paint her Sargent wrote a friend, "I have a great desire to paint her portrait and have reason to think she would allow it and is waiting for someone to propose this homage to her beauty. If you are 'bien avec elle' and will see her in Paris, you might tell her I am a man of prodigious talent." Books have been written about the painting. Sargent is another great favorite and I've devoted many posts to my intrigue with Sargent in a series called seeking Sargent -where images today remind me of his work, here.

I have a lithograph of Sargent by William Rothenstein  I love.

Portrait of Emilie Flöge, by Gustav Klimt

c. 1902

Model, muse and partner-Floge and Klimt were priest and priestess in turn of the century Vienna when everything was wonderful and art was everything.

 Balthus' "Japanese woman with red table," Countess Setzuko Klossowska de Rola,the artist's wife.

 c. 1967

This painting until recently was owned by Helene Rochas and sold at auction this fall. I wrote about it here.

Picasso's Nusch Éluard 

c. 1938

Picasso painted Nusch Elard numerous times-muse to the Surrealists, artist in her own right. The great painter painting a painter with a personal story as intriguing as the great one himself- no wonder he adored her. Picasso is the great painter of all time-here-Barbara of It's About Time shows you why-and would have me tossing out this entire list to have 10 portraits on scraps of paper with "Picasso" signed in the corner.

& No list is worth listing- without adding 1 to-

Lady with an Ermine (Cecilia Gallerani) - Leonardo da Vinci

c.1490

 

If it couldn't be a Lady with dog-a Renaissance ermine will do.

& as dual portraits go...

who could resist

 this portrait of  Monsieur & Mademoiselle?

Liotard's "Monsieur Levett and Mademoiselle Glavani in Turkish costume

or 
Sargent's Mr. and Mrs. I. N. Phelps Stokes, 1897
it is another favorite Sargent- with two fascinating subjects

I've written about Edith here

 & Yes, I fantasize about 10 Men too-

alas,Correggio's fetching Portrait of a Young Man did not make the cut.

Now-what about you? Do you have a favorite from my 10? your own?




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if only...

"One must adapt to, even re-create,
an art de vivre for our times.
By that I mean that one prepares dinner
and serves it by oneself,
but on beautiful objects"

muriel grateau

if only I had

a glorious "built in" for all good things. I certainly have the goods for it. Overflowing is Aunt Bettie's cupboard, along with the Kitchen cabinets and corner built in.

I have a pattern I never tire of- Marie Antoinette by Raynaud. I also bought another old white and gold pattern very similar to this one by Haviland to mix in. Remus-The cat- loves the little dessert plates.

One of the prettiest pieces of Marie Antoinette is the rimmed soup.

Wouldn't it be Good to have a built in FULL of white china?

The glorious concealed closet in this Living Room is the inspired design of MURIEL GRATEAU, fashion designer and owner of a boutique of the same name in Paris.

The shop stocks linens, glass, porcelains and her extraordinary jewelry.

Her house is perfection.

I would settle for the closet.




Grateau photograph from HG '97, by Alexandre Bailhache