Rodama: a blog of 18th century & Revolutionary France
Thursday, 10 March 2022
The General-Farm of Taxes
Saturday, 5 March 2022
A portrait of Helvétius?
It is always exciting to find a new image of a prominent Enlightenment figure! This portrait of Helvétius has been on the website of Lapham's Quarterly from at least 2015 and is beginning to feature more and more on the internet.....
Monday, 27 December 2021
The Prince and the Magician
Portrait of Orléans by Jean-Pierre Franque, musée de Dreux https://webmuseo.com/ws/musee-dreux/app/collection/record/188 |
"He conversed for more than an hour with this real or phantasmic figure whose hand sealed an iron ring around his neck. He showed us this ring, but did not confide in us what had been predicted. He only told us "The matter is of the highest importance, but it is a mystery". These are the exact words he used. [D'Allonville, Mémoires secrets (1838), vol. 1, p.145]
In later commentaries, notably the history by Auguste Viatte published in 1928, the mysterious Jew is identified as Chaim Samuel Jacob Falk, the so-called "Baal Shem of London", a famous Kabbalistic magician of the later eighteenth century. It was generally assumed that the duke had been promised a magical guarantee for his accession to the French throne. [see Viatte, p.184]
Tuesday, 14 December 2021
William Beckford in Paris
Beckford by John Hoppner, Salford Art Gallery |
In 1784 Beckford, then a young man of twenty-four, journeyed with his long suffering wife to Paris. In the course of his sejourn he wrote a series of letters addressed to his mistress Louisa, the wife of his cousin Peter. The letters survive only in copies which Beckford transcribed in his own hand years later, in 1834. In all probability they were never intended to be sent, but were written for publication; it is reported that the elderly Beckford was in the habit of reading extracts to favoured guests in his retreat at Lansdown Tower in Bath. How far the letters are genuine reportage and how far fanciful reminiscences, is anyone's guess. Either way, they are a fascinating read, though possibly more for the light they shed on Beckford's psyche than for their insights into pre-Revolutionary France.
A discussion of the letters, with substantial extracts, is included in John Walter Oliver's biography, The Life of William Beckford, published in 1932. [Available for loan on Internet Archive]
Saturday, 30 October 2021
Laborde - Life and death of a financier
Laborde by Alexander Roslin, Cover image from the biography by Jean-Pierre Thomas & François d'Ormesson |
Tuesday, 26 October 2021
A promenade at Betz
For a scholarly description of the garden at Betz and its creation, the English-speaking reader is referred to Gabriel Wick's article, which is available on H-Net.
Saturday, 23 October 2021
Betz - The King of Morocco's garden
The princesse de Monaco by an unknown artist ( Wikimedia) |
Tuesday, 19 October 2021
Hubert Robert's gardens - 2017 Expo
I have a bad habit of finding interesting exhibitions several years after they have closed....
Here, before the notices disappear from the internet, are some notes from a exhibition on Hubert Robert as "composer of landscapes", which took place in Autumn 2017. The exhibition, curated by Gabriel Wick, was held in the beautiful and dramatically-located Château de la Roche-Guyon, in the Vale d'Oise, which is owned by the La Rochefoucauld family.The exhibition offered an opportunity to present some of the new research of Gabriel Wick and others on Robert's less-well known garden projects - at the Château du Val, the Hôtel de Noailles in Saint-Germain-en-Laye, at Betz, and, above all at La Roche-Guyon itself. It brought together some sixteen paintings, thirty four drawings and a number of architectural models and published works from both private and public collections. Also featured were photographs by Catherine Pachowski of the surviving fabriques - many of which are now in poor state of preservation.
The exhibits were set out in the public rooms of the Château on ground floor overlooking the grounds. Also offered were tours of the remnants of the jardin anglais at Laroche-Guyon - which has since been opened to the public on a regular basis..
Monday, 18 October 2021
Hubert Robert at Méréville
Here are two striking oil paintings of Méréville by Hubert Robert which were auctioned by Sotheby's New York in January of last last year. Although they have been previously exhibited and documented, this is the first time that images have been readily accessible on the internet. According to the catalogue notes, the pictures originally hung in Laborde's hôtel in the rue Cerutti and were at one time the property of comte Alexandre de Laborde (1853-1944) the financier's great-grandson. The sale price was $620,000, which was within the estimate.
https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/auction/2019/master-paintings-evening-sale/hubert-robert-the-lake-and-chateau-at-mereville
Thursday, 7 October 2021
A Visit to Méréville c.1808
Description des nouveaux jardins de la France et de ses anciens châteaux - Google Books
The English translation is given in the book itself.
SEVENTEEN leagues from Paris and three from Etampes, in the middle of the lonely plains of Beauce, is a charming valley watered by a small river called the Juine, which is never known either to freeze or to overflow. Even very near its source it becomes sufficiently deep to carry boats, and its channel is sufficiently elevated to give all the effect which can be wished for in the composition of the landscape.
It displays all its beauty particularly in the neighbourhood of Méréville. This spot has accordingly been fixed upon for planting one of the finest gardens in the environs of Paris.
The river, which is the principal beauty of the spot, divides into two branches. The one flows in its natural channel, turns several mills and afterwards forms a cascade of two feet, which is seen and heard from the mansion; from thence it spreads through the valley, forming several islands and delightful walks. Its banks are planted with trees so fine and so high, that a boat may sail in the shade round the whole garden. The other branch runs in a subterraneous aqueduct for the space of three quarters of a league, and again makes its appearance through an artificial grotto of rocks in the interior of a building which was intended for a dairy.
The water rushes in the first place into a basin raised in the middle of the grotto, and is afterwards distributed through the room by spouts ornamented with white marble. The pavement as well as the parapets are also of white marble. The coolness of this place, the gentle light which it receives from above and the beauty of the marble , recalls to mind the Arabian authors and the ancient Eastern Fairy Tales. Upon leaving this building, the river, continuing its subterraneous passage, at last falls again into its own bed by a cascade of from ten to twelve feet high, and forms one of the finest situations which any mountainous country can present to the view.
The whole rising ground which commands this site, is planted with tall ever-greens, the rocks are overgrown with ivy, creepers and other plants of that kind. Steps are hewn in the rock leading to the bottom of the cascade as well as to several vaults which are near it.
.... In ignota, Palinure, jacebis arena. VIRG., V, 871. Et statuent tumulum, et lumulo solemnia mittent. VIRG VI, 380