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Marie Antoinette inspired fripperies

10 Feb

I know that I probably come across as a bit of a goth, but I also have a secret love for kitschy floral patterned stuff too. Therefore, I was pretty thrilled when Palmers Department Store offered me this gorgeous Cath Kidston Antique Rose bedding set. It’s so beautiful and romantic and crisp – I love it! It’s also equally perfect for this time of year when you want to snuggle down under a duvet (having a pretty print makes me feel much less slobbish about dragging the duvet down to the sitting room) and summer, when you want something light and pretty.

It’s very Marie Antoinette, I think, and has inspired me to have a look for some other pretty bits and pieces that would perhaps be perfect for Valentine’s Day or just, you know, rolling around and being decadent on your own.

I Love You This Much card by Pretty Girl Postcards. I swear, I’m going to head there when I’m not so vilely skint and stock up on gorgeous cards for all sorts of occasions!

I have a secret passion for Russian dolls (a set of Russian President ones are amongst my most loved possessions) and these by Bobobabushka are particularly sweet. They have Henry VIII and his wives as well! Oh and a set of Blackadder characters too!

A blissfully romantic print from Cafe Baudelaire.

Don’t judge me. I love this sort of thing from Welcome to the Dog House and it’s very far removed from the Dogs Playing Cards type prints we are all familiar with. Just look at their sweet doggy faces!

A super sweet Marie Antoinette styled gift tag from Mulberry Muse.

I would look a bit silly in a dress like this, but that doesn’t stop me admiring the gorgeous flouncy sugar almond coloured dresses by River of Romansk.

Cupcake toppers and wraps by Paper Scissors Cake. My husband and I are planning to have a vow renewal at some point and I’m bookmarking things like this for it! It looks like it’s going to be an extravaganza of dark Victorian and Marie Antoinette styled excess at the moment. I’ll probably have to tone it down a bit…

A set of notecards by Painted by Renee. I love the whimsical little Marie Antoinette styled bits and bobs that are popping up everywhere at the moment!

Lovely, romantic yet understated pendant by Mymbles Daughter, who do all manner of magical trinkets.

Yellow Flower soap by Tokyo Milk, who do all sorts of Marie Antoinette goodies. I still love them even if they NEVER REPLY TO EMAILS FROM PEOPLE WHO WANT TO BUY LOTS OF PRETTY STUFF FROM THEM BUT DON’T LIVE IN THE US.

Gorgeous Marie Antoinette print by Lisa Falzon.

Well, I don’t know about you but I thoroughly enjoyed looking all of those lovely pastel colours on such a gloomy winter’s day!

Valentine’s Day ideas for those of a gloomy disposition

3 Feb

Is it too soon to be thinking about Valentine’s Day? I’m vaguely thinking about it at the moment because I am chronically disorganised and need a good fortnight’s advance notice if I am going to be required to produce presents and a card for an occasion. I like to think of myself as being spontaneous but actually I’m just a bit lazy with a very tenuous grasp on sense of occasion.

My husband puts me to shame though – he likes to PRETEND that he’s above all that sort of nonsense, but he’s extremely thoughtful and a bit romantic when it comes to present giving so I’ve had to step my game up a bit to compete. All of my exes were RUBBISH at special occasions (high points were an inflatable hammer WITH A HOLE IN IT for my eighteenth birthday; a Playstation 2 when actually I wanted A BLOODY TIARA WITH SPIDERS ON and hate games consoles one Christmas and a Blood Bowl team (unpainted) when I hate all that Games Workshop nonsense but, hey, he got it free because he worked for them so THAT’S okay for my twentieth birthday) so I got away with being rubbish too – well NO MORE. Those days are OVER. Those days are GONE.

You all seemed a bit keen on my Dark Victorian guide to Christmas present giving, so let’s have a bit more of That Sort Of Thing for a Valentine’s Day with a difference shall we?

Ah, I love cards like this one from Pretty Girl Postcards. Also check out Tokyo Milk’s selection of cards, like the one at the top of this post.

I also love this Madame de Pompadour envelope and paper from Evolution Handmade. It’s perfect for scrawling romantic nonsenses…

A Victorian styled pearl and hematite necklace by the House of D. Perfect for adding a bit of glamour to whatever your idea of a seductive ensemble might be.

A Steampunk styled 1888 print by BiloxHousewife.

A Jack the Ripper Victorian penny pendant from Hoolala. I’m on the constant lookout for one of these with an 1888 penny.

Suffrage pour les femmes – a fab pendant from Ms Mutiny. This made me think of SO MANY people!

Marie Antoinette print by Once Tattered. I love this sort of thing – it’s so quirky and yet pretty.

Brewing Stars with Little Bear by Lisa Falzon, who designed the beautiful cover for my latest book, Before the Storm.

Lady Luck print from Madame Talbot’s Victorian and Gothic Lowbrow. I have the amazing Jack the Ripper print from this store and am planning to buy several more as I think they are amazing pieces.

Too good not to be featured twice – brothel tokens from The Hand of Fatima. I LOVE these. Oh so much.

Bearded Lady pendant by The Mymble’s Daughter, who do fabulous Victorian styled pieces inspired by Alice in Wonderland, freak shows and fairytales.

Tainted Love perfume by Tokyo Milk. One day, when I am rich, I am going to make an IMMENSE order to Tokyo Milk for all sorts of things.

Count and Countess mugs from Burke and Hare, who have an amazing store full of weird and wonderful curios. I was hoping to feature the similar Wishing Thorn store too but they are down at the moment, which is a shame.

Oh it’s almost Mother’s Day too isn’t it? Here in the UK anyway. I think I may be getting one of these Lizzie Borden cards for my mother (don’t worry, she’ll definitely appreciate the tenuous dark humour behind it – she’s a social worker, after all…)

Lizzie Borden Mother’s Day card from Pixxxie Pie and Posie.

I hope you like the various trinkets I have picked out but ultimately I really hope this serves as an inspiration to have a look on Etsy and other such places for lovely presents instead of shamefacedly handing over an unhappy looking bear holding a felt ‘I LOVE YOU’ garland of hearts. Oh crikey, and that reminds me of the ex boyfriend who bought me such a bear and PULLED THE GARLAND OFF IT AND THREW IT AWAY IN FRONT OF ME WHILE SAYING ‘IT’S A BIT SOON FOR THAT SORT OF THING, BUT HAVE THE BEAR ANYWAY.’ Twonk klaxon going off!

Marie Antoinette painted by Boze

17 Jan

Marie Antoinette painted by Joseph Boze. This rather unflattering and flat faced portrait was commissioned by her husband Louis XVI in December 1784 to the tune of 2,400 livres, which is peanuts compared to the 18,000 livres that Madame Vigée-Lebrun received for her painting of the Queen with her children.

Marie Antoinette in a super fashionable redingote gown

16 Jan

A beautiful drawing of Marie Antoinette from around 1780. It is not known who drew this portrait but it was sent as a present from Axel de Fersen to his beloved sister Sophie. A redingote, as worn here by the Queen was a very popular style of dress in the 1780s – the name comes from the English ‘riding coat’, which they were based upon. It was generally accepted at the time that the very best riding habits came from London and so fashionable Parisian ladies would send across the channel for them.

A visit to the Petit Trianon in 1784

15 Jan

A beautiful painting by Nikklas Lafrensen le Jeune of the fête given by Marie Antoinette at the Petit Trianon on Monday, 21st June 1784 in honour of Gustave III, King of Sweden. I adore the graceful way that the guests stroll around the illuminated Temple of Love. This painting was part of Gustave’s private collection, kept as a souvenir of a happy time.

Gustav III was a great admirer of his French royal hosts and as a gift for him, Marie Antoinette commissioned this portrait of herself with her two eldest children from the Swedish artist, Adolf Ulrich Wertmuller. It was delivered to Sweden in 1786 and remains there still, in the Nationalmuseum in Stockholm.

In its own way, this painting provoked just as much disapproval as Vigée-Lebrun’s portrait of the Queen dressed in a muslin gown. It was seen as both ridiculously stiff and at the same time, offensively informal, depicting as it did, the Queen strolling in her garden like a bourgeois housewife. In short, it pleased no one, much like its subject.

Marie Antoinette shocks France with a dress!

14 Jan

Detail from one of the most famous portraits of Marie Antoinette, which was painted by Madame Vigée-Lebrun in 1783. This portrait depicts the 27 year old Queen of France in her favourite outfit, a simple ruffled muslin gown, tied at the waist with a gauze sash and teamed with a ribbon bedecked straw hat. She is posed as though picking roses in her beloved gardens at the Petit Trianon and her gaze is both direct and enquiring, although not unfriendly.

This painting caused a sensation when it was displayed at the prestigious Paris Salon of 1783. Marie Antoinette and Madame Vigée-Lebrun, both young women whose minds were full of romance and idealistic ideas of the simplicity and virtue of private life were fixated on the lack of etiquette in the painting, in the lack of heavy court gowns and jewels, in its charm and honesty. The critics and populace at large, however were rather less charmed and saw in the lack of Queenly decoration and etiquette, a quite deplorable lesé majesté that acted as a metaphor for the gradual erosion of the dignity of both France and its royal family.

Imperial family life in Vienna

12 Jan

You don’t have to look far to work out where Marie Antoinette got her taste for informality and a cosy, intimate ‘normal’ family life, that the snobs of Versailles disapproved of so thoroughly. This charming painting by the Archduchess Maria Christina of Austria (‘Mimi’) shows the Imperial family at their leisure on St Nicholas’ Day 1762. In front of the fire sits the Emperor Franz-Stephen, still dressed in his dressing gown, night cap and slippers, while behind him stands the dread Empress Maria Theresa herself, looking thoroughly unregal in a plain blue dress.

On the floor lies Maximilian, the youngest of the Imperial children, enjoying a plate heaped with gingerbread biscuits, while behind stands Maria Antonia, proudly holding aloft a new doll, clearly a gift from St Nicholas. Maria Christina chose to paint herself in the work, dressed in a pretty pink dress and playing the part of a teasing, yet affectionate elder sister as she asks a crying Archduke Ferdinand to choose between the treat of some biscuits or the punishment of some birches inside a shoe. The paper that the Emperor holds in his hand is probably a list of the unfortunate Ferdinand’s misdeeds throughout the year and he is caught as he is about to pronounce sentence. Which will it be?

This other painting by Maria Christina, shows another intimate scene, this time the birth of her niece, the Archduchess Maria Theresa on the 20th March 1762. The new baby’s proud parents were the Archduke Josef (later Joseph II) and his adored wife, Isabella of Parma, the granddaughter of Louis XV of France. The young couple look thrilled and exhausted: Josef is wearing a dressing gown and night cap and is wholly and proudly concentrated on his wife, while she looks back at him fondly as she eats some sustaining and restorative gruel with a long handled spoon.

Again, Maria Christina has painted herself into the domestic scene and watches proudly, dressed in blue, as a wet nurse feeds the baby some milk with a spoon.

Marie Antoinette’s sister in law, Isabella of Parma

12 Jan

A portrait of the Princess Isabella of Parma. She had the most amazing name – are you ready for this? Princess Isabella Maria Luisa Antonietta Ferdinanda Giuseppina Saveria Dominica Giovanna of Parma. Cor blimey.

She was born in Madrid on the 31st December 1741, the daughter of Louis XV’s adored eldest daughter, Louise-Élisabeth, who was the only one of his beloved daughters to ever leave Versailles to become a wife and mother, creating a ‘little France’ in her new home Parma. Her son, Duke Ferdinand of Parma was to marry Marie Antoinette’s feisty elder sister, Maria Amalia while her youngest daughter, Luisa Maria was to become the Queen of Spain, so infamously depicted by Goya.

Isabella is said to have been a highly intelligent girl with an interest in philosophy and mathematics and a talent for music. She was gentle, with pleasing manners but had a decided and unfortunate melancholy side, which led her to fall into a deep depression after the premature death of her overbearing mother in 1759.

Shortly after this, Isabella was sent to Vienna to be married to the Archduke Joseph, eldest son and heir of the Empress Maria Theresa. The young couple fell deeply in love and Isabella seems to have won over the Imperial court thanks to her youthful beauty and charm. Her somewhat sombre nature was probably far more to the taste of the Viennese than it was to her frivolous, Parisian mother, who had a decided preference for her rather more flighty younger sister, Luisa.

Isabella was to become close friends with her sister in law, Maria Christina (‘Mimi’). It has been speculated that there was more than mere friendship between the two girls, thanks to the caressing and affectionate way in which they addressed each other in their letters, but I think that this is reading far too much into it as employing lavish sentimental language when addressing female friends was perfectly normal at the time and nothing out of the ordinary at all. Maria Christina and Isabella were both of a similar serious nature and shared a mutual interest in science, maths, art and music so it is hardly surprising that they became close friends.

One of Isabella’s letters to Maria Christina includes the following: ‘I am writing you again, cruel sister, though I have only just left you. I cannot bear waiting to know my fate, and to learn whether you consider me a person worthy of your love, or whether you would like to throw me into the river…. I can think of nothing but that I am deeply in love. If I only knew why this is so, for you are so without mercy that one should not love you, but I cannot help myself.“.’

Isabella and Joseph were to have their first child, the Archduchess Maria Theresa, on the 20th March 1762. She became pregnant again shortly afterwards but sadly the baby, another daughter, Maria Christina died at birth and Isabella herself became ill with small pox and died only a few days after this on the 27th November 1763.



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