Original French Handwriting at Auction!

You've seen gorgeous interpretations of old French script printed onto silk, cotton and linen by designers like Carolyn Quartermaine. You've seen the look on painted furniture, in wrapping paper, and on countless blog headers. Even Target has jumped on the bandwagon with their French Laundry Pillows!

Here, though, are the real items... up for auction this May in France. Letters, documents, engravings and stamps dating from the time of Louis XV... when Marie Antoinette was still a young girl playing with her puppy in Austria, and Benjamin Franklin was toying around with electricity in America!

Since I live in the New World, I am always captivated by these fascinating artifacts of handwritten and handmade visual communications in a world long gone by. I would love to attend this auction and bring home a small piece of French history!

Quartermaine fabric.. I have interspersed some beautiful examples

of her fabrics with the original old letters and manuscripts

I recognize the word for "today" here, but other than L'Abbaye, little else

Quartermaine

of course, I can read Dieu Roy de France... or God, King of France... but not much else in this wonderfully scripted piece from centuries back

Quartermaine

this is also clearly from post-Revolutionary France.. note the date as " an 10 de la République Francaise" and the letter is addressed to "Citoyen" and NOT "Monsieur"

Quartermaine

I love this one, written after the Revolution ... in the year "deux de l'ere de la République" (2nd year of the Republic, or 1791).. wish I knew what it says and whose signatures .. members of the "Comité révolutionnaire de l'arrondiffement (sic) de la Côte, premiere division".. appear at the bottom 

Quartermaine

Quartermaine

Quartermaine

a missive from King Louis XV dated 1739 and signed by him at Versailles...
I'm not the best at translating 18th C. French Script... anyone?

portrait of Louis XV, King of France from 1714 until 1764..
not so well regarded for the most part

Quartermaine

I love this very frame able page from a philatalest's book with
République Française stamps from the Art Nouveau era

post-Revolutionary letter addressed to "Citoyen" (Citizen) and

NOT to Monsieur (My Lord)

this stamp from the French Empire era depicts a bust of Napoleon III

an air mail stamp from the early twentieth century

and before there was Poste Aérienne, there
were Carrier Pigeons and Hot Air Balloons!

*

Carolyn Quatermaine's stunning designs rely heavily on the use of 

old French handwritten script and are shown above and 

below in a series taken from her own website to illustrate how 

closely they resemble the actual vintage
handwritings that are coming up for auction

Quartermaine

Quartermaine

Quartermaine

Quartermaine

the three prints above are from the same large print and

depict (I believe) life in the royal court at the very

end.. just as things began to get very tense before the Revolution in 1789

Quartermaine

Carolyn Quatermaine captures the essence of the old French pre-Revolution era in her
design of Chateau Beloeil.. and in her gold printed grey silk fabric,  above

***

check out my NEW features.. 

a picture from

Ma Vie Quotidienne {My Daily Life} here

visit Chic Provence Marketplace here

find me on Facebook

follow me on Twitter

thanks for visiting...  Kit

Jugendstil & Poached Pears Wrapped in Chocolate Mousse :)

In truth, a little Art Nouveau goes a long way. Characterized by organic shapes, curvilinear, sinuous lines and stylized, flowing elegance, the Art Nouveau movement in interior decorating, jewelry, tableware and architecture started in Paris and swept through the world in the late 19th century. Breathing new life into the art world and rejecting the prevailing academic approaches, the movement was dubbed Jungendstil, for "young style" in German.

Today interiors are are simpler, cleaner, perhaps more rustic, sometimes elegant, to say nothing of eclectic. We have moved away from decorative embellishment. The visual shock of an Art Nouveau element might be just what is in order to kick a little life into some of our more predictable rooms. Think of a small wall area covered in a beautiful William Morris wallpaper in an entryway, or an incredible Art Nouveau gilt mirror over an austere concrete or rustic limestone fireplace mantel surround.

I have seen the incredible Art Nouveau architecture all over Paris, and would love to see the Secessionist Building in Vienna. It was built to house the stunning works by the young group of artists who broke ranks with tradition in the 1890's: Gustav Klimt, Josef Hoffman, Joseph Maria Olbrich and others. Their beautiful mantra "To every age its art and to art its freedom" is inscribed in stone over the entrance of the Secessionist Building.

Metro gate in Paris, circa 1903, one of hundreds installed

in Paris in the early 20th century, showcases the organic,

curvy, stylized flowing curvilinear lines of Art Nouveau

silver coffee service Vienna fin de siecle, Art Nouveau style

cover of first edition of magazine

of the Jugendstil ("youth-style") period when

Secessionist artists broke away

from traditional academic art and

started the bridge to modernism, 1898

stylized ornamentation found on the side of

the Successionist Building designed by Joseph Maria Olbrich

and built in 1897 for exhibitions of Secessionist art

lettering for "Ver Sacrum" appears on the front of

the Secessionist Building

a sinuous Otto Wagner staircase,

Stiegenhaus, Vienna, 1898

the fanciful "tattoo style" Majolikahaus, designed by

Otto Wagner, Vienna, 1898

a Metro station in Paris today

William Morris Ianthe wallpaper

Poires Pochées (poached pears) au Chocolat Noir

this dessert is elegantly Art Nouveau, non?

the recipe can be found at Les Recettes de Markus Neff blog

(in French... get your French friends involved here!)

***

a fin de siecle fish with bubbles drawing

by Koloman Moser 1898

***