Marie Antoinette Valentine wishes

Oh to be Queen on Valentine's Day!

What fun that would be! Ordering all my favorite cakes and macaron and flowers spilling out of vases and treats for all the pets. 

Maybe some new masks for a fancy dress ball in the evening!! 

Whee!!!  What fun being a Queen would be!

Have a Pink day!

More 18th Century Pink!!!

Pictures do tell the story of color and style of the 18th century in Europe. I guess I am so drawn to that era because it is a really feminine era bows, roses, pink and blue fabrics and decoration, lots of arabesques and rococo style and lots of references to Greek mythology and the Bible. 

I love all that. 

Even the gardens were feminine. The hand fans I collect tell the same story.

Have a Pink day!

Almost cherry blossom time!

I love sakura time! I love my Yoshino cherry tree. I love to eat pink food! Drink pink tea! I'm getting ready for a sakura saturation going to make food and  view trees. I would love to go to Japan at cherry blossom time.  I've purchased cherry blossom flavoring, dried flowers and honey syrup pretty much everything in photo below. Ready to rock a pink cake!

Have a Pink day!

 

French painting fragments

 Fragonard The Pursuit 

 Francois Drouais

 Mary Elisabeth de France

Natttier The Spring

I love 18th Century French paintings and love these little fragments . So intriguing and it is enjoyable to focus on just a small part of a work. It makes you realize how perfect these works are --so much beauty in each little area.

Have a Pink day!

Chatlaines are quite the thing

When I am in a museum I usually spend a lot of time in the decorative arts area and one of the items I always look for ( besides hand fans and Sevres porcelain) is the chatelaine. It is a decorative pin worn at the waist that the woman of the house or in a large estate the housekeeper wears . The purpose was to have all the keys watch, little tools at hand for use in running the household. Tea was expensive as were spices and keys to those containers or rooms were kept on the chatelaine. 

They come up at auction sometimes and can run fairly high if they are ornate.I guess we could say it was the 18th century and earlier version of the laptop with a password.

Have a Pink day!

258 years ago today Marie Antoinette was born

Was she a diva? Was she spoiled? Was she naive or just ignorant of regular people's lives? Was she French at the end? Was she in love with someone other than her husband? Was she a good mother?

We are not sure of any of those answers but what we are sure of is that she still captures our imagination and she is still talked about, written about and reinvented even today.

I love all these current reinventions of her and of her "look".

Happy Birthday and rest in peace Marie Antoinette.

Have a Pink day!
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