"Be original or die"

"IF WE ARE GOING TO HAVE COLOUR PHOTOGRAPHS, FOR HEAVEN'S SAKE LET'S HAVE A RIOT OF COLOUR, NONE OF YOUR WISHY-WASHY HAND-TINTED EFFECTS" - Madame Yevonde

Madame Yevonde (Yevonde Philone Cumbers, 1893 - 1975) was a photographer who pioneered the use of colour in portrait photography.

In 1911, she took an apprenticeship with Lallie Charles, the leading woman portrait photographer of the day. In 1914, having only taken one actual photograph, Madame Yevonde decided to set-up her own studio. Over the years she gained quite a unique and personal style, as well as a name for herself with London society, as a premier portrait photographer. In 1921, she started exhibiting her work at The Royal Photographic Society Annual Exhibition.


Self portrait with Vivex camera, 1937


Self portrait with image of Hecate, 1940

Madame Yevonde found the early thirties very successful. She started experimenting with the newly available Vivex Colour process, invented by Dr. D. A. Spencer. At the time, few found colour in photographs to be acceptable or natural and were actively hostile towards her new work. Yevonde made it her personal mission to convert the myopic public into seeing colour again.
In 1932, Yevonde hired the Albany Gallery in London to exhibit 70 of her colour and her monochrome prints. This was the first exhibition of colour portrait work in England by any photographer and it received a glowing review in the British Journal of Photography ... Mme Yevonde has most emphatically established her place among the leading and most up-to-date exponents of photographic portraiture.



Artist with workmen in foreground
The Queen Mary

In 1933, she flung herself wholeheartedly into her colour work and over the next six years did her most creative work. She was now being sought after by members of London society, including the Duke and Duchess of Kent, who wanted more nontraditional, adventurous portraiture. She was also sought after to do big advertising jobs by companies such as Christie's, Daimler, and in 1936 she was commissioned by Fortune Magazine to shoot the Queen Mary on her maiden voyage.



Edwardian girl, advertising shot c.1938


Shelling peas, advertising shot c.1937


Study of cover of Woman & Beauty Magazine, 1937


During this time she began her theme of Goddesses and photographed members of the London elite as mythological characters including Medusa, Europa, Daphne, and Venus. Today, this is probably the work that Madame Yevonde is best known for.


Mrs Edward Mayer as Medusa


Lady Milbanke as Penthesila, Queen of the Amazons


The Hon. Mrs Bryan Guinness (Lady Diana Mosley) as Venus

In 1939, war broke out and soon after Colour Photographs Ltd., where the Vivex color process was manufactured and processed, closed. Madame Yevonde was forced to stop working in colour. To add insult to injury, this same year her estranged husband, the playwright Edgar Middleton, died. Even after the war ended, the Vivex colour process was never to become a standard again. Instead of settling with any other form of colour process, Yevonde began experimenting with black and white again and soon developed an interest in solarisation.

She continued working up until her death in 1975, just two weeks short of her 83rd birthday, but is chiefly remembered for her work of the 1930s, which did much to make colour photography accepted.

Editions of Madame Yevonde's work are available through The Yevonde Portrait Archive.

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Up, up, up!

Tony Duquette iron stand holding three fiberglass clam shells originally made for the Helis estate. Available from JF Chen

If I were ever to shamelessly steal an idea, this would be it.
It is one thing to have something copied for one's own house, it is an entirely different matter to commercially gain from it.


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Here's a thought

Instead of predicting, or following, the next interior trend, why not become it. Take everything that is deeply personal - culture, background, philosophy, etc. - and seek inspiration there first.
Not until those depths have been completely exhausted, should one contemplate looking further afield. I, for one, find nothing more irritating than seeing some WASP twenty-something on the Buddha trail. Don't be the interior design equivalent. Please, I beg of you.

Case in point

If this does not kill the Egg, and possibly all Danish design, nothing will. What was Fritz Hansen thinking?

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Now, this is living...

or, a good reason to slap Erro Saarinen. Take your pick.
I am seriously starting to hate 20th century furniture. Especially those pieces that are described as iconic. This little bandwagon is well and truly full. I suggest that some may consider waiting for the next bandwagon to jump aboard. Hopefully the next won't be full of such readily repeatable goods, or desire, for that matter.

“We need objects to remind us of the commitments we've made. That carpet from Morocco reminds us of the impulsive, freedom-loving side of ourselves we're in danger of losing touch with. Beautiful furniture gives us something to live up to. All designed objects are propaganda for a way of life.” - Alain de Botton.



A pair of early 19th century Egyptian Revival giltwood console tables inscribed Chenou, Paris each with a ledge back depicting a relief of a pharaoh flanked by crocodiles and stiff leaf capitals and a rectangular rouge marble top above a frieze of hieroglyphs and animal symbols, including alligators, hyenas, scarabs, birds and scorpions, held aloft by a winged sphinx formed in green patinated composition and incised with the maker's name behind the shoulder, the lower portions comprising mirror backs within reeded giltwood frames, on plinth bases.
The design of the sphinx closely recalls that used in the trade label of William Bullock (illustrated in Clive Wainwright, George Bullock -Cabinet Maker, 1988, p.42, fig.13).





An important George III mahogany bombe commode
In the manner of Thomas Chippendale.
The serpentine shaped top with a gadrooned edge above a rococo and gothic relief carved frieze with one long drawer, below are a pair of cupboard doors enclosing shelves and with foliate carved aprons, raised on outswept supports terminating in Greek key carved block feet.
A matching pair of lacquer commodes apppear on page 135 of the ''Dictionary of English Furniture'' by Percy MacQuoid and Ralph Edwards, from Wollaton Hall, Nottingham. A note states that on these examples the carved aprons are missing. They are presently in Birdsall Hall, Malton, North Yorkshire, the property of Lord Middleton, and have since been exhibited at the ''Treasure Houses of Great Britain'' Exhibition in Washington DC as being by Thomas Chippendale.



An unusual George IV Gonzalo Alves side cabinet of narrow inverted breakfront form, the raised volute carved end sections with plain cupboard doors enclosing shelves flanking a pair of central cupboard doors decorated with three flowering lotus stem uprights with a 'halved' stem to each corner, enclosing mahogany faced reeded shelves, on plinth base.
The decorative carved details found on this cabinet show similarities to those found in the designs of Thomas Hope. The ''high'' Regency style side cabinet was often of relatively narrow proportions with a stepped top and narrow side doors.


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Hercules and Love Affair - Blind, Hercules Club Mix

It is far better to reign in Hell, than to serve in Heaven

Count Robert de Montesquiou
Giovanni Boldini, 1897
Musée d'Orsay



Arrangment in Black and Gold: Comte Robert de Montesquiou-Fezensac
James Abbott McNeill Whistler, 1891–92
The Frick Collection


Count Robert de Montesquiou (1855-1921). A descendant of d'Artagnan, a writer, and a savage wit of France's Belle Epoque. Now best remembered as a dandy and an aesthete, who inspired the literary character, amongst others, of the Baron de Charlus in Marcel Proust's novel, Remembrance of Things Past.

Montesquiou was an arbiter of taste, whose profound belief in Beauty as an absolute, helped to cement taste as one of the new century's virtues. A poet not in words, but in life.

Here are a few items that he may have well culled from the chaos that was 19th Century interior decoration. A look that I absolutely love, but find virtually impossible to sell.


An Aesthetic movement inverted breakfront sideboard, circa 1870, the thumb moulded top over centre twin glazed doors flanked by cupboard doors and open shelving with fine painted decoration, upon bulbous reeded and turned supports with platform undertier.


A Louis XVI style centre table, the veined and variegated inset marble top above gadrooned edge over acanthus leaf frieze upon shell leaf and scroll pierced tapered supports united by X-frame stretcher with stylized pineapple finial.


A 19th century Japanese black and gilt lacquer cabinet on stand the two panelled cupboard doors decorated with figures and buildings in landscapes, enclosing an architectural balconied interior, with galleried shelves, drawers and doors, on British stand with pierced fretwork frieze and triple cluster column legs, scrolled spandrels, on chamfered block feet.



A Louis XVI period giltwood and upholstered confidante the shaped arched back and overstuffed serpentine seat covered in buttoned red fabric, raised on turned fluted legs.


A Victorian period Aesthetic ebonised and amboyna library table the canted rectangular top above two real and two opposing dummy frieze drawers, raised on foliate carved spiral turned legs united by an x-form stretcher and terminating in brass cappings and casters



Le Palais Rose, Montesquiou's last house. It was here, that he was the first to revive the Empire style, and hung pale tinted walls with beautiful white painted 18th Century frames.


The Neuilly house - Pavillon des Muses.
Surely, the precursor to the work of Elsie de Wolfe.


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Picasso's other Mother

Eugenia Huichi, by Eugenia Errazuriz's husband Jose Tomas Errazuriz .


Eugenia Errazuriz, Pablo Picasso 1924.


Mme. Errazuriz, Jacques Emile Blanche 1890.


Mme. Errazuriz, John Singer Sargent 1882.


Eugenia Huici Arguedas de Errazuriz (15 September 1860 - 1954).

Cecil Beaton wrote of her in The Glass of Fashion,"Her effect on the taste of the last fifty years has been so enormous that the whole aesthetic of modern interior decoration, and many of the concepts of simplicity...generally acknowledged today, can be laid at her remarkable doorstep."

Mme Errazuriz had the aesthetic and the spirit of an Abbess. Her framework, the Biarritz villa La Mimoseraie, was stripped to its bare essentials: plain linen curtains, indigo upholstery, red-tile floors, and whitewashed walls. For her, elegance was the elimination of the superfluous. Throw out and keep throwing out.
Ah, there really is nothing like that Latin sense of severity. To ascribe the trait of minimalism to her though, is a mistake. Modernism, yes. Minimalism, no.


For more on Eugenia Errazuriz, An Aesthete's Lament recomends this article in The New York Times.

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The Peach Orchard

From Akira Kurosawa's Dreams
Hina Matsuri, the Doll Festival, traditionally takes place in spring when the peach blossoms are in bloom. The dolls that go on display at this time are representative of the peach trees and their blossoms. One boy's family, however, has chopped down their peach orchard, so the boy feels a sense of loss during this year's festival. The boy is led to the now treeless orchard by a spirit - where the dolls from his sister's collection have come to life and are standing before him on the slopes of the orchard. The spirits of the dolls berate the boy for having chopped down the precious trees, but after realising just how much he loved the orchard in bloom, they agree to give him one last glimpse at the peach trees by way of a symbolic dance to gagaku music.

Part 2

The art of Balenciaga

The great couturier Cristobal Balenciaga cited, amongst others, the work of Francisco de Zurbaran as one of his inspirations. Zurbaran was known for his severity of line and dramatic use of chiaroscuro. Like Balenciaga, he was a master at handling sumptuous fabrics.
Yet, there is an austerity, almost an economy, of expression both in Balenciaga's and in Zurbaran's work. This, I believe, to be the manifestation of their shared Spanish sense of formality.



Top, St. Casilda, oil on canvas circa 1630-1645. Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection, Lugano-Castagnola, Switzerland.
A dress in pink and violet printed faille by Abraham, summer 1961. The inspiration for this dress was the painting of St. Casilda (pictured top).


St. Margaret, oil on canvas, circa 1630-1635. National Gallery, London.


St. Rufina, oil on canvas, early 1630s. National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin.




Zurbaran's St. Marina. Balenciaga's evening dress in aquamarine wool organdie, spring 1958.


Cecil Beaton photograph of Balenciaga at home.


The interior of La Reynerie.
Top: The Grand Salon, note the Janet stags; Balenciaga's bedroom.
Above: The dining room; another view of the Grand Salon.


La Reynerie, Orleans, France.




All Balenciaga images are from Balenciaga, by Jouve and Demorenex, the definitive book on Balenciaga to date.

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King of the Heteroclites

French architect and designer Jean-Charles Moreux (1889-1956). Drawing upon classical, baroque, and rococo styles Moreux introduced aspects of the marvelous into staid architecture and everyday interiors. The everyday, for him, meant creating collective dwellings that were more poetic than Le Corbusier's "machines for living".
Among Moreux's noted clients were the Baron Robert de Rothschild, the fashion designers Raphael and Jacques Doucet, and the novelist Colette.


A cabinet of natural history in the living room of Robert Bienvenu, Rouen, 1942-1947.


The dining room of Raphael Lopez, Ville d'Avray.


35, avenue Matignon, Paris, 1935.


Living room of Sonia Batcheff.


The Paris apartment of Georges Lang, an example of a collaboration between Moreux and Bolette Natanson.




Moreux was also drawn to, and very successful at, creating landscapes and gardens.
A hippopotamus skull as the feature of a fountain. Ardeche, France.
A mask done for the gardens of Gobleins, Paris.





Examples of Moreux's collaboration with Bolette Natanson for her boutique Les Cadres.

Jean-Charles Moreux, by Susan Day.
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