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Lot Essay
CONSUELO VANDERBILT BALSAN
Consuelo Vanderbilt Balsan (1877-1964) was a celebrated debutante and one of the Gilded Age’s ‘dollar brides,’ marrying the 9th Duke of Marlborough in 1895. They divorced in 1920 after a long separation and she married the French aviator, Jacques Balsan. Settling in France, they divided their time between their splendid 17th century château de Saint-Georges-Motel, near Eure, Normandy and the hôtel Marlborough, Paris, both of which they filled with exceptional French furniture and works of art of the ancien régime. Fleeing to Palm Beach in 1940, Colonel and Madame Balsan continued to surround themselves with the jewels of their collection. For additional Cornelia Vanderbilt Balsan property featured in this sale please see lots 164, 195 and 207.
CHINESE EXPORT WALLPAPER
Printed and painted Chinese wallpapers were known in Europe from the very late 17th century, but the fashion for this exotic room decoration really flourished in the second half of the 18th century (before being supplanted by the development of high quality French scenic papers in the 19th century). The most common themes were Chinese birds and flowers or, as one contemporary writer put it, "...the richest China and India paper....where all the flowers of fancy were exhausted." (The World, no. 64.) But by the late 18th century more descriptive subjects for wallpaper included depictions of the arts and industries of China. A French advertisement of 1781 read, "En vente,...tenture de papier de la chine, à petites figures representant les arts et metiers, de trieze feuilles." (Dictionnaire de L'Ameublement, Vol. IV, p. 64.) The famous paper given to the Coutts family by Lord Macartney (probably as a wedding gift for Sophia Coutts in 1793) and still hanging at Coutts Bank in London depicts porcelain production and tea cultivation along with silk manufacture. While these subjects intrigued wealthy Europeans, for whom Chinese porcelain, tea and silk were highly desirable luxuries, they were actually part of a distinctly Chinese tradition founded by the Kangxi Emperor (1662-1722). In a gesture of pride in his Empire he commissioned in 1696 the Gengzhi tu, or "Illustrations of Ploughing and Weaving," on rice production and silk cultivation (later porcelain production was added to the series), comprised of woodblock prints by the court artist Jiao Bingzhen accompanied by Kangxi's own poetry.
Consuelo Vanderbilt Balsan (1877-1964) was a celebrated debutante and one of the Gilded Age’s ‘dollar brides,’ marrying the 9th Duke of Marlborough in 1895. They divorced in 1920 after a long separation and she married the French aviator, Jacques Balsan. Settling in France, they divided their time between their splendid 17th century château de Saint-Georges-Motel, near Eure, Normandy and the hôtel Marlborough, Paris, both of which they filled with exceptional French furniture and works of art of the ancien régime. Fleeing to Palm Beach in 1940, Colonel and Madame Balsan continued to surround themselves with the jewels of their collection. For additional Cornelia Vanderbilt Balsan property featured in this sale please see lots 164, 195 and 207.
CHINESE EXPORT WALLPAPER
Printed and painted Chinese wallpapers were known in Europe from the very late 17th century, but the fashion for this exotic room decoration really flourished in the second half of the 18th century (before being supplanted by the development of high quality French scenic papers in the 19th century). The most common themes were Chinese birds and flowers or, as one contemporary writer put it, "...the richest China and India paper....where all the flowers of fancy were exhausted." (The World, no. 64.) But by the late 18th century more descriptive subjects for wallpaper included depictions of the arts and industries of China. A French advertisement of 1781 read, "En vente,...tenture de papier de la chine, à petites figures representant les arts et metiers, de trieze feuilles." (Dictionnaire de L'Ameublement, Vol. IV, p. 64.) The famous paper given to the Coutts family by Lord Macartney (probably as a wedding gift for Sophia Coutts in 1793) and still hanging at Coutts Bank in London depicts porcelain production and tea cultivation along with silk manufacture. While these subjects intrigued wealthy Europeans, for whom Chinese porcelain, tea and silk were highly desirable luxuries, they were actually part of a distinctly Chinese tradition founded by the Kangxi Emperor (1662-1722). In a gesture of pride in his Empire he commissioned in 1696 the Gengzhi tu, or "Illustrations of Ploughing and Weaving," on rice production and silk cultivation (later porcelain production was added to the series), comprised of woodblock prints by the court artist Jiao Bingzhen accompanied by Kangxi's own poetry.