Happy Easter! This is Marie-Adelaïde of France dressed in the Turkish style, painted by Jean-Étienne Liotard in 1753. It’s in the Uffizi in Florence. I love this painting. It’s so intimate, and she is so self-contained. She isn’t showing any skin. She isn’t gazing out looking alluring, eager to have her beauty immortalised, or to snare a suitor. She is beautifully dressed (anything Turkish was the height of fashion) but nothing about the painting amplifies her status as a princess of France
Happy Easter! Oh yes the Liotard and the Lavergne family breakfast is marvellous. Unmissable. What a frisson to see the oil and the pastel next to each other for the first time after 250 years. Such a human moment captured: the milky coffee overflowing and the little girl with her curlers, the messy table. I’ve no idea how a pastels could have been fixed to last yet it’s aged better than the later oil. Thanks so much for this beauty and the back story.
Lovely post - and also reminded me of the beautiful Liotard exhibition that the National Gallery put on this spring. It completely changed my view of an artist I’d previously thought a little chocolate-boxy. From the biographical details given in the exhibition he came across as an open-minded traveller with a gift for friendship & someone who you’d very much like to know.
Perfect….and precisely what I am doing now: on the sofa reading (and knitting) and drinking coffee, though not so elegantly dressed (am still in Pjs as no one else is up yet)! 🙂 Happy Easter - hope the Egg/BBQ cooking goes well!. 🍖🥦🥕🔥
Thank you so much for this India - what a treat! I really appreciated the back-story too. It’s funny, because I had also noticed the window. It reminded me of the red internal porch in architect Christian Liaigre’s house. It got me thinking about pops of red in neutral spaces. Had no idea it was A Thing!!
It's one of those images so alive that there is a pang in reflecting that she's dead.
Happy Easter! Oh yes the Liotard and the Lavergne family breakfast is marvellous. Unmissable. What a frisson to see the oil and the pastel next to each other for the first time after 250 years. Such a human moment captured: the milky coffee overflowing and the little girl with her curlers, the messy table. I’ve no idea how a pastels could have been fixed to last yet it’s aged better than the later oil. Thanks so much for this beauty and the back story.
Lovely post - and also reminded me of the beautiful Liotard exhibition that the National Gallery put on this spring. It completely changed my view of an artist I’d previously thought a little chocolate-boxy. From the biographical details given in the exhibition he came across as an open-minded traveller with a gift for friendship & someone who you’d very much like to know.
Perfect….and precisely what I am doing now: on the sofa reading (and knitting) and drinking coffee, though not so elegantly dressed (am still in Pjs as no one else is up yet)! 🙂 Happy Easter - hope the Egg/BBQ cooking goes well!. 🍖🥦🥕🔥
Thank you so much for this India - what a treat! I really appreciated the back-story too. It’s funny, because I had also noticed the window. It reminded me of the red internal porch in architect Christian Liaigre’s house. It got me thinking about pops of red in neutral spaces. Had no idea it was A Thing!!
Thank you for this morning’s inspiring artistic flavours - I do hope your Big Green Egg steps up to the plate this morning! Happy Easter 🐣
Thanks - just lit it.
Happy Easter!
And to you!