Ladurée is a veritable universe bringing together customers from around the world. Its interiors are influenced by three periods in interior decoration, three women who each created and inspired the style of their time: Madame de Pompadour, the Empress Eugénie and Madeleine Castaing. This book showcases the magnificent creations of each era, which can be found throughout the Ladurée tea salons and shops: from the furniture and fabrics to the wallpaper and china. A 3-D pop-up offers us the wonderful universe of this venerable house in poetic miniature... 32/3877/1 isbn : 978-2-81230-923-6
$49.95 / 49,90 € / £32.95
www.editionsduchene.fr
Decoration & Inspiration
Serge Gleizes
Decoration & Inspiration
THE 1 9 t h CENTURY: THE FLAMBOYANCE OF THE EMPRESS EUGÉNIE
Top: Gold, diamond and pearl brooch, with a miniature Empress Eugénie
on the reverse side, after Franz Xaver Winterhalter (19th century). Above: Porcelain jardinière with enameled decoration. China (19th century). Facing page: Oil on canvas of Empress Eugénie de Montijo, after Franz Xaver Winterhalter (1854).
THE 1 9 t h CENTURY: THE FLAMBOYANCE OF THE EMPRESS EUGÉNIE
Top: Gold, diamond and pearl brooch, with a miniature Empress Eugénie
on the reverse side, after Franz Xaver Winterhalter (19th century). Above: Porcelain jardinière with enameled decoration. China (19th century). Facing page: Oil on canvas of Empress Eugénie de Montijo, after Franz Xaver Winterhalter (1854).
The 19th Century: The Flamboyance of the Empress Eugénie
She began to sob as she lingered before a window at the Château de Compiègne, on a visit to the place where she had been happy, and which had since become a museum. She who used to stroll through the twelve-hundredmeter-long arbour covered with climbing plants that allowed for a shaded walk from the forest to the manor (tanned skin no longer being in fashion), was now just an old lady whom no one recognized, and who traveled incognito as the Countess of Pierre-fonds. A groundskeeper had brought her a chair. And yet it was really her, the magnificent creature who had once sat enthroned in the center of a painting by Franz Xaver Winterhalter, in a crinoline gown, surrounded by her ladies in waiting. Yes, it was really she who had been Empress of the French from January 30, 1853 to September 4, 1870. What a life! And what an era! From the moment of his coronation, the Emperor, her husband, had decreed: 'This will be the century of scientific and social progress, of industry and the arts, of the renewed grandeur of France'. As such, it would become the century of photography, of the 'Salon des refusés' from which Impressionism emerged. It was also that of the 'opera bouffe', the gently corrosive plays of Eugène Labiche, of Paris redrawn by Baron Haussmann, of the Palais Garnier. It was the century of rediscovered splendour, of grand balls at the Tuileries, at Compiègne, at Saint-Cloud, at Fontainebleau where the imperial family lived among princes, the grand bourgeoisie, the artists and the intellectuals of the time. For her part, the Empress was not to be outdone. She created Biarritz, gave her name to an archipelago in the Japan Sea, to the Fougamou waterfalls in Gabon, to a thermal station in Les Landes, Eugénie-lesBains, whose waters had been enjoyed by Henri IV and by Montaigne. There was even a dessert named in her honour: riz à l'impératrice. Eugénie was a beauty who turned all heads. Painter to the Court and to the elite of the time, Franz Xaver Winterhalter painted her dressed in a sack-back gown, inspired by Marie-Antoinette, whom she venerated, with an avalanche of ribbons, flowers, and pearls, meant to demonstrate the wealth of the Empire, even if the guillotine had, a little less than a hundred years earlier, reset the clock. No one more than Eugénie wore with such innate ease the crinoline gowns that she made so fashionable.
Facing page: Baroque-style porcelain vase from the Ladurée tea salon, Champs-Élysées. Overleaf: Oil on canvas representing the salon of Princess Mathilde Bonaparte,
24, rue de Courcelles, Paris, by Sébastien Charles Giraud (1859).
75
The 19th Century: The Flamboyance of the Empress Eugénie
She began to sob as she lingered before a window at the Château de Compiègne, on a visit to the place where she had been happy, and which had since become a museum. She who used to stroll through the twelve-hundredmeter-long arbour covered with climbing plants that allowed for a shaded walk from the forest to the manor (tanned skin no longer being in fashion), was now just an old lady whom no one recognized, and who traveled incognito as the Countess of Pierre-fonds. A groundskeeper had brought her a chair. And yet it was really her, the magnificent creature who had once sat enthroned in the center of a painting by Franz Xaver Winterhalter, in a crinoline gown, surrounded by her ladies in waiting. Yes, it was really she who had been Empress of the French from January 30, 1853 to September 4, 1870. What a life! And what an era! From the moment of his coronation, the Emperor, her husband, had decreed: 'This will be the century of scientific and social progress, of industry and the arts, of the renewed grandeur of France'. As such, it would become the century of photography, of the 'Salon des refusés' from which Impressionism emerged. It was also that of the 'opera bouffe', the gently corrosive plays of Eugène Labiche, of Paris redrawn by Baron Haussmann, of the Palais Garnier. It was the century of rediscovered splendour, of grand balls at the Tuileries, at Compiègne, at Saint-Cloud, at Fontainebleau where the imperial family lived among princes, the grand bourgeoisie, the artists and the intellectuals of the time. For her part, the Empress was not to be outdone. She created Biarritz, gave her name to an archipelago in the Japan Sea, to the Fougamou waterfalls in Gabon, to a thermal station in Les Landes, Eugénie-lesBains, whose waters had been enjoyed by Henri IV and by Montaigne. There was even a dessert named in her honour: riz à l'impératrice. Eugénie was a beauty who turned all heads. Painter to the Court and to the elite of the time, Franz Xaver Winterhalter painted her dressed in a sack-back gown, inspired by Marie-Antoinette, whom she venerated, with an avalanche of ribbons, flowers, and pearls, meant to demonstrate the wealth of the Empire, even if the guillotine had, a little less than a hundred years earlier, reset the clock. No one more than Eugénie wore with such innate ease the crinoline gowns that she made so fashionable.
Facing page: Baroque-style porcelain vase from the Ladurée tea salon, Champs-Élysées. Overleaf: Oil on canvas representing the salon of Princess Mathilde Bonaparte,
24, rue de Courcelles, Paris, by Sébastien Charles Giraud (1859).
75
78
The 19th Century: The Flamboyance of the Empress Eugénie
One voyage was key, a visit to Istanbul in 1869, at the moment of the construction of the Suez Canal, to the Armenian Catholic patriarchate and to the Jesuit and Lazarean Saint-Benoît High School. She stayed at the palace of Beylerbeyi, which was said to have been built especially for her. Raised on the shores of the Bosphorus in 1829, the original wooden dwelling had been built for the Sultan Mahmud II. After having been reduced to cinders, the palace was reconstructed from 1861 to 1865 by the new Sultan Abdülaziz, this time in marble, in a French baroque style. Surrounded by a park of magnolias, the building is rectangular in shape and includes two stories, six drawing rooms, and 26 rooms, as well as an indoor swimming pool. The floors covered with straw mats, the chandeliers in Bohemian crystal, the opulent furniture and above all, the lights of the setting sun that set fire to the marble façade in the evening, dazzled the Empress, who would later have some of the windows replicated for rooms at the Tuileries in Paris.
A century of eclecticism The Napoléon III style was that of pastiche and reuse. A mix of Roman and neoclassical inspirations, peppered here and there with touches of the Renaissance, it was the style of the emerging haute bourgeoisie, which was establishing itself in the mansions of Saint-Germain, finding there the reflection of their social achievements. Everything began with the World's Fair of 1851, which launched four great movements: Japonism, neo-Greek revival, neo-Egyptian, and Orientalism. Homes were furnished with a reassuring profusion of objects, to counter one's fear of emptiness or quite simply to demonstrate one's power, and this until 1920. Plants invaded the salons. Boulle marquetry and Martin lacquer were again in fashion, as were mother-of-pearl and shell inlays, decorated porcelain tabletops, and gilt bronze. Big display cases became the key pieces of furniture, housing collections of porcelain. Corner pieces, buffets, and the semainier (with seven drawers, much less imposing than a dresser) met with similar success. Tables proliferated: work tables, games tables, overlapping tables (a real invention of the era), pedestal tables and consoles as well, secretary desks, and bonheurs-du-jour. Walls were covered in silk and taffeta, grand portraits were juxtaposed with landscapes which were like windows onto the world. Draped like patrician togas, heavy velvet wall coverings filtered the light. In 1838, the Wallpaper design in Chinese ink wash and watercolor. France (19th century).
78
The 19th Century: The Flamboyance of the Empress Eugénie
One voyage was key, a visit to Istanbul in 1869, at the moment of the construction of the Suez Canal, to the Armenian Catholic patriarchate and to the Jesuit and Lazarean Saint-Benoît High School. She stayed at the palace of Beylerbeyi, which was said to have been built especially for her. Raised on the shores of the Bosphorus in 1829, the original wooden dwelling had been built for the Sultan Mahmud II. After having been reduced to cinders, the palace was reconstructed from 1861 to 1865 by the new Sultan Abdülaziz, this time in marble, in a French baroque style. Surrounded by a park of magnolias, the building is rectangular in shape and includes two stories, six drawing rooms, and 26 rooms, as well as an indoor swimming pool. The floors covered with straw mats, the chandeliers in Bohemian crystal, the opulent furniture and above all, the lights of the setting sun that set fire to the marble façade in the evening, dazzled the Empress, who would later have some of the windows replicated for rooms at the Tuileries in Paris.
A century of eclecticism The Napoléon III style was that of pastiche and reuse. A mix of Roman and neoclassical inspirations, peppered here and there with touches of the Renaissance, it was the style of the emerging haute bourgeoisie, which was establishing itself in the mansions of Saint-Germain, finding there the reflection of their social achievements. Everything began with the World's Fair of 1851, which launched four great movements: Japonism, neo-Greek revival, neo-Egyptian, and Orientalism. Homes were furnished with a reassuring profusion of objects, to counter one's fear of emptiness or quite simply to demonstrate one's power, and this until 1920. Plants invaded the salons. Boulle marquetry and Martin lacquer were again in fashion, as were mother-of-pearl and shell inlays, decorated porcelain tabletops, and gilt bronze. Big display cases became the key pieces of furniture, housing collections of porcelain. Corner pieces, buffets, and the semainier (with seven drawers, much less imposing than a dresser) met with similar success. Tables proliferated: work tables, games tables, overlapping tables (a real invention of the era), pedestal tables and consoles as well, secretary desks, and bonheurs-du-jour. Walls were covered in silk and taffeta, grand portraits were juxtaposed with landscapes which were like windows onto the world. Draped like patrician togas, heavy velvet wall coverings filtered the light. In 1838, the Wallpaper design in Chinese ink wash and watercolor. France (19th century).
90
The 19th Century: The Flamboyance of the Empress Eugénie
A taste for chiseled silver The silverware is studded with flowers, foliage or even putti, little effigies of infants or cherubs. Originating in ancient Greece, cherubs reappeared in the Italian Renaissance to decorate the pediments of palaces or to punctuate the handle of a tureen or the corner of a ceiling. In the nineteenth century, they would again float across the decorative arts, as symbols of lightheartedness, tenderness, and love.
Above: Gold and white harmony of silverware and a porcelain service. Top right:
Silver pitcher from a 24-piece travel vanity set by Charles Nicolas Odiot (1834-1840). Right: Cup with three putti from Empress Eugénie's tea service by Christofle in 1860. Facing page: The dining room of the Ladurée tea salon, rue Bonaparte, Paris.
Overleaf: Coronation Coach of Charles X transformed in 1856 for the baptism of the Prince Imperial,
based on designs by the architect Charles Percier (1825).
90
The 19th Century: The Flamboyance of the Empress Eugénie
A taste for chiseled silver The silverware is studded with flowers, foliage or even putti, little effigies of infants or cherubs. Originating in ancient Greece, cherubs reappeared in the Italian Renaissance to decorate the pediments of palaces or to punctuate the handle of a tureen or the corner of a ceiling. In the nineteenth century, they would again float across the decorative arts, as symbols of lightheartedness, tenderness, and love.
Above: Gold and white harmony of silverware and a porcelain service. Top right:
Silver pitcher from a 24-piece travel vanity set by Charles Nicolas Odiot (1834-1840). Right: Cup with three putti from Empress Eugénie's tea service by Christofle in 1860. Facing page: The dining room of the Ladurée tea salon, rue Bonaparte, Paris.
Overleaf: Coronation Coach of Charles X transformed in 1856 for the baptism of the Prince Imperial,
based on designs by the architect Charles Percier (1825).
Ladurée is a veritable universe bringing together customers from around the world. Its interiors are influenced by three periods in interior decoration, three women who each created and inspired the style of their time: Madame de Pompadour, the Empress Eugénie and Madeleine Castaing. This book showcases the magnificent creations of each era, which can be found throughout the Ladurée tea salons and shops: from the furniture and fabrics to the wallpaper and china. A 3-D pop-up offers us the wonderful universe of this venerable house in poetic miniature... 32/3877/1 isbn : 978-2-81230-923-6
$49.95 / 49,90 € / £32.95
www.editionsduchene.fr
Decoration & Inspiration
Serge Gleizes
Decoration & Inspiration