to Sarah, from Oscar

,
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two of my favorites together again.
& here

Ann Getty, Degas, the Divine Sarah & A TREE

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the prettiest tree-has to be in Ann Getty's  Music Room-
the prettiest book under the tree this year-Ann Getty Interior Style.

the Christmas tree in the Getty Music Room is filled with thirty years of ornaments collected and made reflecting the Getty's love for the opera

The beauty of what's inside the book is No Surprise. I've long followed the style and design elegance of Ann Getty. Her passion for Art-Design-& her Work is evident in the book's pages. Accompanying Getty on her opulent design journey is writer-Diane Dorrans Saeks- purveyor of all things beautiful-and beautifully distinctive to the West Coast and of far flung places beyond.

The book is a sliver of perfection-a exotic taste of  Getty Opulence. Attention to detail and understanding of Getty's style and her pursuits are handled by author Diane Dorrans Saeks with finesse.Both women know themselves and each other-that is what makes the book one of those you will want to reach for time and again. Saeks moves through the homes of the Gettys with golden tales of history-art and design-in a language that reflects the mood created by Ann Getty's assemblage of lavish textiles and furnishings.

The Getty home in San Francisco is inhabited by the great-Artists, as well as the famous names of their day:

tiered ormolu chandelier originally owned by the famed fashion maverick Daisy Fellowes

Read more: Dining Room Chinoiserie Panels - Pictures from Ann Getty's San Francisco Home - Harper's BAZAAR

tiered ormolu chandelier originally owned by the famed fashion maverick Daisy Fellowes

Read more: Dining Room Chinoiserie Panels - Pictures from Ann Getty's San Francisco Home - Harper's BAZAAR

Degas and Matisse paintings in the Getty Living Room

Moreau, Renoir & Pissaro make appearances here as well

A Chandelier in the Dining Room belonged to Daisy Fellowes
Chinoiserie Panels were designed for the King of Poland

the Dining Room table set for the Holidays

Ann Getty poses for Harper's Bazaar in her Russian inspired Music Room

(the color and textiles Getty used in this room are amongst my personal favorites)

Curtains in Patchwork are from Nureyev's Paris Apartment

Caneletto and his pupil's work hang on a raspberry damask wall

(another of my favorite things- Patchwork)

Jacques Emile Blanche paints Nijinsky, the painting hangs in the Living Room

(I adore the works of Blanche)

Getty's signature colors are reprised in Peter Getty's Music Room  

(the finish and walls in this room echo some of my own in a previous home)

A Lepage portrait of the Divine Sarah Bernhardt hangs in the peacock blue Living Room of the Getty's Temple of Wings estate

 ( Sarah Bernhardt and I share a birthday)

 The Temple of Wings is dedicated to the Aesthetic Movement Collection amassed by the Gettys

(another favorite of my own is the Aesthetic Movement)

 Frederick Leighton paintings hang in Temple Study

 & what's equally revealing and another thing I like is Getty's easy going style-it's obvious she is at home in her formal surroundings dressing simply & with ease.

I believe it's as easy to relax in a formal room as it is in any.

Ann Getty 

Personal Style

to Note: Getty in jeans-a white shirt-and could it be Minnetonka moccasins?
& the decrepit tufting on the cut crystal chair-(another of my favorite things "If...don't fix it.")


once again-I say-get this book-destined to be a page worn Classic.

The Style Saloniste-Diane Dorrans Saeks wonderful blog- HERE. Diane has her top ten book selections for the season published this week too.

Anne Getty Associates HERE

(thank you to Rizzoli for the beautiful collection of photographs given by permission to use- with principal photographs by Lisa Romerien)

going with the grain

I always prefer hardwood floors, always let the woods show a good bit around the room if you have rugs or must have them.

whether - rough hewn- warped- sleek- polished- painted or stained the rich textured grain goes best.

Rose Cumming was a great advocate of bare hardwood floors-and was known to polish them herself. Mark Hampton writes in his Legendary Decorators of the Twentieth Century- 'The floors were bare and rather highly polished, surprisingly enough. She adored the effect of French chairs standing around at odd angles on bare floors."


This creation from CELINE is hard to resist-

I do like rugs too- but polished bare rich woods are for me, not to mention a hand polished Ruhlmann inspired table.

This one -from QUATRAIN,

"To create something that lasts, the first thing is to want to create something that lasts forever"

E.J.RUHLMANN

Ruhlmann Pavilion at 1925 Paris Exposition 

Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes

add to that touches of natural luggage color leather-again from CELINE.

& another Ruhlmann inspiration-this time a QUATRAIN chair.

So what about my design alter ego?


QUATRAIN describes this chair as  Danish Neoclassical.
- so like Hamlet- Shakespeare's Dane.

But, look, the morn, in russet mantle clad,

Walks o'er the dew of yon high eastern hill.

Shakespeare's HAMLET

Bernhardt depicted by Alphonso Mucha as Hamlet.

the chair, the play, the room.
& The room?
It's one of those rooms. There are always those rooms-something unforgettable. I can't put my finger on it. The warmth of the fire on a sunny day? The warmth of leather ? The warmth of the frayed grey curtains?

 

Interior Design by Michael Lee, image from AD here

Is it the practical side of Luxury? The fact that leather endures-whether the sole of a shoe trodding the sidewalk? the boards? stalking the moors?
Now we're getting somewhere.
Whether it's the brooding Dane or the brooding Rom-
It's Classic-like the novel, the play right?
The play's the thing.

Mucha sketches of costumes for Hamlet

Regardless of what you favor-
Bronte? Shakespeare?
Art Deco? Neoclassic?
when Rich in detail-it is Enduring- Addicting.
even Practical,
but don't tell anyone that.

clutch bag by CELINE

1st image by Fritz Eichenberg, Heathcliff Under the Tree, from Wuthering Heights, 1943, wood engraving
Ruhlmann here

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tete a tete: sarah and oscar

.

oh Oscar!

Oscar Wilde: 'Do you mind if I smoke?' 

Sarah Bernhardt: 'I don't care if you burn.'

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Curtain Call

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“Heaven's ebon vault, studded with stars unutterably bright, through which the moon's unclouded grandeur rolls, 
seems like a canopy which love has spread to curtain her sleeping world” Percy Bysshe Shelley

Stage set for "Robert le Diable",opera by Meyerbeer Paris,1831.before the move to the Palais Garnier

Stage sets by Charles Sechan,inspired by the cloisters of St.Trophime in Arles.from here

"He greatly valued his possessions, chiefly because they were his, 

and derived genuine pleasure from contemplating a painting, 

a statuette, 

a rare lace curtain - 

no matter what -

after he had bought it and placed it among his household gods." Kate Chopin

 

 Pavlova by Zinaida Serebriakova,1923.

"An opera begins long before the curtain goes up and ends long after it has come down. 

It starts in my imagination, 

it becomes my life, 

and it stays part of my life long after I've left the opera house." 
Maria Callas

Her Garden by Catrin Welz-Stein

"Once the curtain is raised, the actor is ceases to belong to himself. 

He belongs to his character, 

to his author, 

to his public. 

He must do the impossible to identify himself with the first,

not to betray the second, 

and not to disappoint the third."  

Sarah Bernhardt

 

Cate Blanchett, by Annie Leibowitz

 "Twilight drops her curtain down, and pins it with a star."

Lucy Maud Montgomery

 

 

.

 

black

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early the Ice, coated all round

early the Ice, kept me a' ground*

"Fair is foul, and foul is fair."

* I missed my day trip due to a coating of black ice this morning.
photograph of Sarah Bernhardt, with whom I share a birthday. here- in Macbeth
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who do you love?

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The Divine Sarah

there must  be someone, or like ME, somehundred, in a historical context that is-

that You love.

I'd Love to Know.

Tell.

Tell All- unless it is somehundred -limit it to someten.

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at 6's & 7's

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the LOVE BLOG AWARDS

or 

MRS TREFUSIS TAKES A TAXI wonderful blog and truly BEAUTIFULLY written, dropped this little box on me  and I offer her my humble thanks. She tells me- This award," like all good inheritances, comes entailed with conditions" - pass the award onto 6 other bloggers & reveal 7  things about yourself.

6

BEAUTYSLEUTH for BEAUTY

SAVOIR FAIRE for STYLE

GATHER for COMFORT

BOOKTRYST for KNOWLEDGE

CAPITOL BLOG for FASHION

&

 SMILLA4BLOGS for THE SOUL

(go see them all by clicking on the blog title)

7

 random things about me

 I love Myrna Loy-in any movie, especially and for always the THIN MAN'S Nora Charles 

or here as Mrs. Blandings:

Sarah Bernhardt and I share the same birthday- make of it what you will. I am thrilled.

I insist that I am a woman, though I still get occasional emails asking, I am amused-still.

4th grade photo offered as proof

Turtles are my talisman- ok, So I have blogged about this once, 

but it gives me an opportunity to offer this blog post  you may not have read.

"tortoise or hare?"

 I love the music of Mother Maybelle, this started at an early age- It just comes over me, I have to hear some Mother Maybelle.

I would easily select Oscar Wilde as my dinner partner-if asked to choose from the famous & drink in his witticisms and feast on his erudition.

I am a bit superstitious, why risk it? What about you? Tell me something I don't know about You, dear reader.


drawing by YSL from book LOVE by Yves Saint Laurent
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