Modern Wallpaper of the 19th Century

The center hall of the Beauregard-Keyes House; reproduction circa 1860s wallpaper on its walls

This week I visited an old (by our standards) house in the Vieux Carré of New Orleans,  built in 1826, which has come to be known as the Beauregard-Keyes House, after its two most famous residents.

PGT Beauregard was the Confederacy's first and most brilliant brigadier general, and lived in this house in his post-bellum days,  from 1866-1868, while he was president of the New Orleans, Jackson and Great Northern Railroad.   So years later when the building fell into disrepair, its famous tenant helped save the house by attracting the attention of the Daughters of the Confederacy who lobbied for its preservation. 

In the 1940s,  the famous lady novelist Frances Parkinson Keyes bought the house and restored it to its Beauregard-era glory, researching the original paint colors and having custom reproduction wallpaper made.   Keyes took excellent care of this house, wintered there for over 25 years, and eventually died there in 1970, leaving the property to a foundation.  It's now a museum to both the historic house,  and to the amazing woman who lived there later.
And of course it is now reputed to be haunted, so no doubt it is further protected by the spirits of those who came before.

I like the vivid wallpaper in the hall.   A bit odd, to see Victorian wallpaper imposed on Greek-Revival architecture but the mix does work for me for some reason.  It's scaled perfectly - this is a large print and needs to be, as the hallway is over 800 square foot with 14 foot ceilings. The caramel and teal palette, and bold design seem oddly modern to me.  

Lynne Rutter Murals and Decorative Painting

Miniature Portraits

Recently I have been spending some time cleaning and getting to know the miniature portraits collected by my great-grandmother. Many in her collection were acquired from a sale at the Metropolitan Museum in New York, and most of those were portraits of Marie Antoinette.
I will be posting the entire collection in sections here as I have time.

Portrait of Marie Antoinette with a rose, signed "A.T." gouache on ivory backed with white kid leather, in gilt wood frame.

 

 

 

 

Oval portrait of a dark-haired lady dressed in the Italian fashion, watercolor on ivory, unsigned.

 

Portrait of Marie Antoinette in a green dress, gouache on ivory, signed “Chatain.” Backed with white kid leather and set in a simple ornamental oval frame with watch-crystal type pillowed/beveled glass. Very likely painted as a copy of another painting, as a souvenir.

 Portrait of Marie Antoinette in an apricot dress, unsigned watercolor on ivory. This painting is much smaller and older than its elaborate frame, which dates from the late 1870's.

Very fine and pretty portrait of a young girl, gouache on bone ivory, signed "Gericault 1812" backed with white kid leather, in its original simple brass frame.

Want to know more about miniatures?
Read here about my obsession with Miniature Eye Portraits

Elle Shushan in Philadelphia has a fine business collecting and selling miniatures.

Check out this huge on line gallery of a number of collections on this extremely informative site: "Artists and Ancestors"

Lynne Rutter Studio

Eye Candy

A splendid miniature eye portrait from the Victoria and Albert Museum, with a diamond teardrop

In the late 18th and early 19th centuries, miniature eye portraits were all the rage. This was after the late 17th century rage for miniature portraits of any kind. They were painted most often using watercolor or gouache, on a substrate of ivory or parchment, then set into a bit of jewelry- a pin or pendant.

In Victorian times the eye portrait was often a piece of mourning jewelry, but the origin of this form was as a token of love.
I have had, for rather a long time, an obsession with eyes, used as symbols in my paintings. So naturally I am fascinated with these tiny symbolic paintings, the lover's eyes.

An assortment of lovers' eye jewelry  from the Georgian period

According to The Art of Mourning:
"Eye portraits are considered to have their genesis in the late 18th Century when the Prince of Wales (to become George IV) wanted to exchange a token of love with the Catholic widow (of Edward Weld who died 3 months into the marriage) Maria Fitzherbert. The court denounced the romance as unacceptable, though a court miniaturist developed the idea of painting the eye and the surrounding facial region as a way of keeping anonymity. The pair were married on December 15, 1785, but this was considered invalid by the Royal Marriages Act because it had not been approved by George III, but Fitzherbert’s Catholic persuasion would have tainted any chance of approval. Maria’s eye portrait was worn by George under his lapel in a locket as a memento of her love. This was the catalyst that began the popularity of lover’s eyes. From its inception, the very nature of wearing the eye is a personal one and a statement of love by the wearer. Not having marks of identification, the wearer and the piece are intrinsically linked, rather than a jewellery [sic] item which can exist without the necessity of the wearer."

I'd love to be a collector of these, or to have just one of them. Perhaps I will paint one of or for my own best beloved, as a follow-up to the maxi-eye portraits I painted a few years ago, of Erling Wold, myself, and our "adopted" daughter, Laura Bohn.

Eye portraits of Erling Wold, eye self-portrait, and Laura Bohn, at 250% of life size, oil on wood panels

Treasuring the Gaze more about Georgian lover's eye portraits.
Check out the highly enviable collection of Cathy Gordon
Oeil en miniature by Le Divan Fumoir Bohémien
Even more lover's eyes from Candice Hern

The Art of Mourning more about Victorian mourning jewelry
Interested in collecting? Antiques Roadshow has some tips.

Lynne Rutter Studio