Scrapbook

I confess. I've run out of time so here is a snatch of my I-photo Scrapbook
(I'm a naughty girl, for once I can't attribute them.)

That Goya Portrait

My last post featured Slim Aaron's photograph of the New Year's Eve party hosted by Gilbert and Kitty Miller in 1953. Under the Goya portrait are Mrs. Randolph Hearst and friends including Elsa Maxwell 'in what friends describe as her standard pose'.



The portrait is now in the possession of The Metropolitan Museum of Art NY and I quote their description (I couldn't have put it better myself).

This portrait represents the son of the conde de Altamira. Outfitted in a splendid red costume, Don Manuel is shown playing with a pet magpie (which holds the painter's calling card in its beak), a cage full of finches, and three wide-eyed cats. In Christian art, birds frequently symbolize the soul, and in Baroque art caged birds are symbolic of innocence. Goya may have intended this portrait as an illustration of the frail boundaries that separate the child's world from the forces of evil, or as a commentary on the fleeting nature of innocence and youth. The picture is one of several portraits commissioned by the Altamiras after Goya was appointed painter to the king (1786). It may have been executed after the child's death in 1792, since the imagery and sinister undertone seem more characteristic of Goya's works of the 1790s.

Credits: Slim Aarons: Once Upon A Time pub. Getty Images and Harry N Abrams Inc New York, 2003; The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Entertaining One's Pals

I got a bit squiffy the other day and invited a host of my chums to help me embrace my next decade 'with insouciance and style'. I failed to think through the catering arrangements or what will happen if rain stops play in the garden so I am leaving things to the Fates and hoping they'll be kind.

Here are some possible strategies for having a good time, most of which I've had to discount unfortunately. (Like hiring a band of wandering musicians/minstrels)



Lavender umbrellas and someone to serve the drinks





Inviting celebrities of the order of Tony Curtis and Janet Leigh





Setting up discreet corners for flirting and gossip (This incidentally is Mrs. Gerald Legge who would one day become Raine Countess Spencer, Princess Diana's stepmother)




Finding creative solutions to the table's centrepiece




Asking beautiful people and letting them just chill out




Borrowing a tapestry for the party mis en scene





Classing things up with the odd debutante




Allowing people to feel at ease (under a Goya portrait destined to reside in the Metropolitan Museum of Art)




Or simply inviting everyone to pay homage at a levée


All these images taken from Slim Aarons: Once Upon A Time pub. Getty Images and Harry N Abrams Inc New York, 2003

Sunday Supplement: In The Pink

This week it's a selection of girly stuff from my photoshop files and my drawing folder





































All Images © Rosie West

The Magic of The British Bandstand

I've plundered these pictures from Vintage Bandstands
because they're whimsical in design (sometimes oriental, sometimes wedding cakey) and evocative of the innocent pleasures of promenading on a fine day and settling down on a deckchair to listen to a very jolly brass band, a military orchestra, local musicians.. They are also fine examples of old postcard art.














Locations Top to Bottom: Westcliffe-on-Sea; Southend-on-Sea; Leeds; Newcastle; Margate; Kirkaldy; Hastings; Eastbourne; Dovercourt; Clacton-on-Sea.
The Vintage Bandstands site includes many more 'overseas' from Algeria through The USA to the Virgin Islands . Too lush for words.

Finally, fromWikipedia, this fantastic bandstand from the 1930s in Eastbourne

A Talent for Overdoing It: Tony Duquette

Flamboyant talent: Tony Duquette and his longtime collaborator Hutton Wilkinson

[Do try clicking on all the images for a much better look]


The name of decorator Tony Duquette, protegé of Elsie de Wolfe, is synonomous with excess and the exotic (walls covered in abalone shells anyone?). He prided himself in using cheap or unorthodox materials to substitute for genuine luxe and his longtime friend and business partner Hutton Wilkinson said of him ''He was the only man who could spend $999 in a 99-cent store''


I always wondered what Duquette looked like. Here he is marrying Elizabeth Johnstone, ' an artist and eager contributor to the Duquette vision.' [Read the entertaining NY Times obituary of T D here]
The wedding took place at the fabled Pickfair with Mary Pickford as a bridesmaid.

What about this bridal gown? It looks like the national dress of Piedmont or somewhere. Are those sleeves silk jersey? What colour might they have been? Or is she wearing a jumper underneath? In the context of marrying such an interesting man I think it succeeds fabulously.



Elizabeth who had marvellously turned ankles and Tony at home in 'The Porcelain Pavilion', their miniature house in Paris 1951.


The two of them had a magisterial talent for parties.


Elizabeth helps Mrs Harrison Williams (Mona Bismarck) with her Tony Duquette mask for The Vicomtesse de Noailles' costume ball in Paris C. 1951



T & E at a chinoiserie ball that Duquette designed for the Pendletons of Beverly Hills.




Walls of crushed abalone shell and a Tony Duquette nacre and coral chandelier decorate the entrance to Mrs William Roth's Undersea Ball. ( You didn't need to look up to the surface.)




Another whimsical party setting. Don't you adore indoor topiary!




.. and a magical winter ball




A vegetational decoration for a ball given at his Los Angeles Studio.

Talking of the Studio, I love this picture of them having tea there with the cat 'Weak Eyes'

Maybe the tablecloth was made out of Elizabeth's wedding dress?



And here they are photographed at the Studio for Town and Country Magazine in the 1980s
Click for a close-up of TD's remarkable sunburst sculptures and their gorgeous dressing gowns.


The Duquettes' tiny but mighty house Dawnridge in Beverley Hills is featured in the video below when a jewellery designer pays homage to the whole Duquette legend. The host is Hutton Wilkinson who bought it after TD's death in 1999. (Don't be put off by the video's appearance; just enjoy Wilkinson opening the door to this odd-looking lady)


A pagoda in Dawnridge's orientalist garden.

''Decorating is not a surface performance, it's a spiritual impulse, inborn and primordial.''

All images courtesy http://tonyduquette.com and www.huttonwilkinson.com