.
Her momentary respite from the restricting fashions of court in Liotard's evocative painting may have suited her- she and her sisters- Victoire being one- were known to defy the court's dress dictates and simply wore panniers with a coat when leaving their rooms at Versailles. Though a part of the father's reign & less influential- the sisters as Aunt's of the now King- were a part of Marie Antoinette retinue on occasion. For the most part they seem to have done as they pleased.
100 years later- London.
A room in the flat of Michael Szell*. A reading chair -quite wrong for Madame's rooms in Naples-
Yet-
The room- exotic, cocooning, could well serve as a haven for a once regaled Princess' haunting memories. I can see her lost in thought reading a letter from some other French exile recalling their shared grandeur and loss. Would she wrap herself in that mysterious golden embroidered robe so much a part of a Liotard painting as some small consolation?
& today-light years beyond Madame's life and even the Szell room, we find Michael Smith's distillation of those times. Not a trend, the use of the suzani is timeless-that it predominates in the work of Michael Smith is evidence enough.
Here- in the simplest of terms-with the most extravagant of details, designer Michael Smith's own bedroom.
The aging Princesses fled to Naples and lived out their days there, dying within a year of each other; Princess Victoire first in 1799 and Liotard's once lovely & wistful Adélaïde- as the century turned. She was 67.
*Michael Szell, a renowned textile designer covered the walls of this room in a malachite printed linen of a Persian design and a silk suzani covers the bed.
Szell image from AD's International Interiors
.
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Madame painted in 1787
by Adélaïde Labille-Guiard
Separated by centuries- these scenes- now summoning me. Liotard's Marie Adélaïde of France, fille de Louis XV, en robe turque. The reader-sitter was known as Madame Quatrième -"Madame the Fourth" and later- Madame. She never married- saw every court intrigue imaginable, participated in them- of course. She managed to outlive her Father King, many siblings and her doomed nephew and his family- Madame escaped the terror in France, leaving on October 6 1789.
the rooms of Adélaïde's sister -Victoire- in Versailles
Adélaïde's must have been much the same
Her momentary respite from the restricting fashions of court in Liotard's evocative painting may have suited her- she and her sisters- Victoire being one- were known to defy the court's dress dictates and simply wore panniers with a coat when leaving their rooms at Versailles. Though a part of the father's reign & less influential- the sisters as Aunt's of the now King- were a part of Marie Antoinette retinue on occasion. For the most part they seem to have done as they pleased.
100 years later- London.
A room in the flat of Michael Szell*. A reading chair -quite wrong for Madame's rooms in Naples-
Yet-
& today-light years beyond Madame's life and even the Szell room, we find Michael Smith's distillation of those times. Not a trend, the use of the suzani is timeless-that it predominates in the work of Michael Smith is evidence enough.
Here- in the simplest of terms-with the most extravagant of details, designer Michael Smith's own bedroom.
The aging Princesses fled to Naples and lived out their days there, dying within a year of each other; Princess Victoire first in 1799 and Liotard's once lovely & wistful Adélaïde- as the century turned. She was 67.
*Michael Szell, a renowned textile designer covered the walls of this room in a malachite printed linen of a Persian design and a silk suzani covers the bed.
Szell image from AD's International Interiors
.
.
