Thread by @dianessunflower

the Gilded Age Ep 4 was an art history lover's dream so here's a thread recapping whatever has caught my eye so far 🎨

we'll start off with the Russells' mansion because it is GORGEOUSSS.

very Rococo, inspired by Fontainebleau (a reference we will get to in a sec). blue walls, light-filled, very pastel. designed by Richard Morris Hunt (he did Marble House irl).

the ballroom and billiard room is actually in The Breakers in Newport.

the entrance fireplaces are also based on Breakers; the pink marble reminds me a lot of the Grand Trianon at Versailles.

the Vanderbilts also built a Petit Château inspired by Louis XII’s Château de Blois.

other bedrooms etc are from Marble House.

full list of historical mansions here: housebeautiful.com/design-inspira…

there's lots of Boucher paintings and there's also a Fragonard in the blue sitting room.

(Boucher's bucolic flower girl paintings are seen in several of Gladys' outfits)

Bertha clearly loves Boucher; in ep 1 she says “I want to try to put the other Boucher in the drawing room!”

(I'm a bit of a Boucher fan too ahah)

François Boucher created The Toilette of Venus for the bathing apartments in Madame de Pompadour’s Château de Bellevue, á la Marie Antoinette's Hamlet. (Met Museum)

A+ for putting The Love Letter on the wall in the scene where Bertha is *writing letters*. sapphic as. (NGA)

there's also at least one Boucher in Bertha's bedroom, Virgin and Child with the Young Saint John the Baptist and Angels. (also Met)

the other might be Angelica and Medoro (above the fireplace).

back in the sitting room is also Jean-Honoré Fragonard's The Swing.

the baron who commissioned it asked for his mistress to be pushed on a swing as he secretly admired her from below. ick. (Wallace Collection)

and then Bertha's portrait is a Boldini 🤩

he influenced John Singer Sargent, who seems to have inspired this red dress (Mrs Hugh Hammersley, Met) - ht @PortraitOfMmeX

the dining room ceiling is a replica of the Hercules room at Versailles (also my desktop wallpaper lol).

if you look closely behind Gladys i think there's another Boucher, The Interrupted Sleep (Met).

don't think we've seen it in a scene yet but, this is Asher Brown Durand's The Beeches in mirror image (again Met).

ok can we talk about that grand piano for a min because that is DIVINE 🤌

on the underside of the cover is Nicolas Lancret's painting ft the dancer Marie Anne de Cupis de Camargo.

IM CRAZY IN LOVE. THATS ALL.

one more which probs goes unnoticed but when i travelled europe a few years ago i was fascinated by tapestries...

the Russells have what look to be several Renaissance Gobelins tapestries, and Medieval-era stained glass windows.

(pic 4 might be The Hunts of Maximillian???)

i gtg but each home has an aesthetic. the van Rhijns have flowers and dark landscapes (dutch and maybe some William Morris), the Morris home has ~oriental~ vibes, the Fane home is Modern Gothic (Aesthetic, British).

and ofc Mrs Astor has a giant portrait of herself as irl 🤣

ok i'm back.

in ep 4, we visit Mrs Chamberlain's home and here we get to my FAV, the Impressionists. i was screaming this whole scene.

first Marian admires a Degas painting, The Dancing Class (Met), and there's another one at the end of the scene.

then they admire Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot's Forest of Fontainebleau (i told you there'd be another reference). (NGA)

the woman reclining is Mary Magdalene. also, Corot didn't actually participate in the first impressionist exhibition but did influence many of them.

there's also a Degas sculpture, "La Petite Danseuse de 14 ans" (my pic from the bronze cast in the Musée d'Orsay, the NGA OG looks more like the show).

not welcomed when exhibited but its urban realism was praised.

should also note, ballet dancers were abused as s*x workers.

the painting is Claude Monet's Woman with a Parasol. probably en plein air and not a formal portrait of his wife Camille and son. (NGA)

the painting behind Marian is Gustave Caillebotte's Skiffs, very recognisable. (also NGA)

as they walk down the hall on the left, we see Paul Cézanne's Bathers. (Met)

pic 3 is a more well-known Cézanne at the Art Institute of Chicago.

this subject was taken up by Pissarro, Gaugin, and ofc in Seurat's pointilist Bathers at Asnières, pic 4. (National Gallery London)

i must also point out that the Scotts' home shows they are part of the Black elite, from the photos & family history, to the paintings (landscapes, florals), & the interior decor.

this perhaps goes against the grain of our assumptions.

there are paintings in other locations too.

when Marian is at the dressmaker's, there's a painting of women at a piano. very bourgeois, feminine, and aesthetic.

reminds me of Renoir, another Impressionist.

at Fane's home, Aurora calls Clara Barton an angel, and behind her is A Song of the Angels by William-Adolphe Bouguereau. this is the Academicism style.

one of the other paintings on the wall is Joseph Scheurenberg's La lettre d'amour.

and this is not exactly an art reference but Marian at the opera reminds me a lot of Natasha Rostov at the opera and i do like a Tolstoy reference.

anyway, this was fun, i'll probably add more as the season goes on.

i'm a history major and art history, not costume history, is more my lane.

even if the dates are slightly off, i love how much attention was paid to these details and i appreciate it 🤩

i did forget something we saw last week, which was a Grinling Gibbons carved box which Mrs Chamberlain delivered to Marian 🤫

Gibbons is famous for his wood sculptures in Blenheim, Hampton Court, and St. Paul's Cathedral, where he's buried.

she also namedrops M. Knoedler & Co. an art dealership in NYC founded in 1846.

now rather infamous for fraud and looting & closed in 2011.

moving on to ep 5, i think the directors heard me because they really gave us a close up of the tapestries 😭

i'm not 100% sure which one this is, but it looks like a hunting scene, probably made in Flanders.

i had another look, this is The Taking of Lille tapestry, a Gobelins tapestry of Louis XIV receiving the keys of Lille after the 1667 battle.

the Gobelins were a French family of dyers & clothmakers est around 1450 in Faubourg Saint Marcel and became suppliers to Louis XIV.

finally! we see Gladys' room! hers befits a young woman—there's a portrait of a lady posing with a dog, a basket of flowers and needles, and a portrait of likely young Gladys.

all very youthful and innocent.

as Edith Wharton wrote, "The room where the child’s lessons are studied is, in more senses than one, that in which he receives his education."

i already tweeted about this Boucher BUT THIS LIGHT IS GLORIOUS.

continuing with the girls' bedrooms, i doubt Agnes would have redecorated for a niece she's never met but the yellow hues match beautifully here.

again a portrait of a lady, this time standing.

George Russell's study and his office are both very dark in comparison to Bertha's sitting room and the rest of the house. his paintings depict battles, but there's also this map of NY state.

his bedroom is actually Consuelo Vanderbilt's bedroom at Marble House.

last one for now, there's another painting in the dining room i hadn't noticed before (top left).

i assume it's a Boucher like the rest of the house but i'm not sure which one.

it's been a crazy week and i won't get to watch this week's ep when i usually do so here's the art history recap for #TheGildedAge ep 6 🎨🖼️

Mamie Fisher's doll party is not that bizarre tbh—she claimed Prince del Drago of Corsica was a monkey, rented an elephant, made guests dress up as peasants, fed dogs w bday cake (making space rockets rather tame).

still, there's two dolls and a doll house in Gladys' bedroom...

the Fisher house is pretty European in terms of paintings—and interior is generally Aesthetic/Modern Gothic.

but whereas the Fanes looks v churchy for some reason, this house has the Anglo-Japanese style, a little ~oriental~ rather than Medieval.

in fact other paintings in the Fanes home also seem quite religious—apart from last week's St John and all the stained glass, these two look like one birth and one resurrection. not sure of the artist tho...

like the Chateau de Fontainebleau gallery, Mrs Chamberlain's home has herringbone flooring—infinitely French chic.

no idea what the paintings are but i want that couch.

should note, Mrs Chamberlain is like the Impressionists at this time—critics thought their art was vulgar.

still haven't figured out what this painting is altho istg i've seen it before...doing my head in 😭

quite apart from THEE AUDRA playing Beethoven, it is really something to see all the art, flowers, decor, the sculpture shadow, plus the piano, in the Scott home 🤌

i'm a big fan of the fans 😉

they're likely Brisé fans, since Madame de Pompadour liked them and Bertha likes Pomp style.

they imitate delicate Chinese/Japanese wooden and ivory fans but Bertha's are much more gilded than the French/British ones in the Met.

ending for now with Agnes because i love Agnes... here's Durand's Beeches!

not sure what the other paintings are altho there's some (family) portraits.

picking up where we left off last week with the cigarette case that Bertha Russell gifts Ward McAllister at her luncheon.

gold enamel, monogrammed, very lovely 🤌

#TheGildedAge ep 7 is another art lover's dream because we return to m̶y̶ ̶d̶r̶e̶a̶m̶ ̶h̶o̶m̶e̶ Mrs Chamberlain's gallery 🤩

said this before, but i'm still so intrigued by Mrs C collecting Impressionists because in contemporary times the word was basically an insult.

said this before, but i'm still intrigued by Mrs C collecting Impressionists bc in contemporary times the word was basically an insult.

Impressionism is about *feelings* not detailed realism, and the various artists exhibited outside the formal French Academy's Salon *gasp*.

first we see John Singer Sargent's A Venetian Woman (Cincinatti Art Museum). Sargent was an American painter of the Gilded Age, inspiring Bertha's dresses.

one can see cultural exchange bw American artists & Venetian Murano glassmakers in this portrait of a working-class woman.

commissioned by Catharine Lorillard Wolfe, this depicts Echo, a figure from Greek mythology.

this Met painting is a replica of a well-known composition now in the Musée national Jean-Jacques Henner, Paris, called Les Naïades.

at the far end, there's another Caillebotte (Mrs C is clearly a fan), called Paris Street, Rainy Day. probs his best known work, of Place de Dublin/Carrefour de Moscou. (Art Institute of Chicago)

in front is Rodin's Thinker (pic my own from Musée Rodin, Paris in 2018).

apart from CB EATING this scene, i love seeing the hats & a fan in the background.

(pls let Agnes wear that dress in the background 🙏🙏)

not getting into corset misinfo since there's plenty of resources out there, but i myself previously thought undergarments were plain but they were not.

slightly off date hence the smaller waist but Agnes here reminds me of this French Maison Léoty silk at the Met.

ep 8! cannot believe this is the penultimate ep already 😭

still cannot figure out a lot of Agnes' decor, but lots of landscapes.

(if anyone knows what the blue lake or the one on the easel is pls pls tell me 🙏)

i did figure out that in the room with yellow sofas (looks like above a piano?), there's a Théodore Rousseau called The Edge of the Woods at Monts-Girard, Fontainebleau Forest. (Met)

very 17C Dutch influenced.

also want to point out that this piece behind Peggy looks like embroidery depicting some country house, which is perhaps a nod to where the sisters grew up and that Peggy has just come from Doylestown.

(full pic from past ep)

we see more of Mrs Astor's home!

forgot to mention but way back in ep 1, we saw a landscape painting called Adirondack Lake Scene by Levi Wells Prentice, typical of the Hudson River School. (Hudson River Museum)

this ep we see a Winslow Homer painting in the corridor, Painting, the Butterfly. (Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum)

in the poorly lit bedroom, i think you can see a fan which is a nice touch.

historic houses galore!

Ward McAllister's house is Wrentham House, the first collaboration between Richard Morris Hunt and landscape designer Frederick Law Olmsted.

2nd exterior shot of Mrs Astor's Beechwood is actually Chateau-sur-Mer, which Hunt remodelled in the Second Empire French (Beaux-Arts) style.

Oscar's and Agnes' bedrooms were both shot in this mansion.

YEAH BABY in time for the S1 finale i had some time to research #TheGildedAge art history (thanks to TinEye and some brightening) so here goes:

i'm most excited about the flower still life next to Agnes' desk, my fave genre.

by German-born French painter Moïse Jacobber. trained in the Gérard Van Spaendonck workshop, exhibited in the Salon.

Fleurs et fruits, mirrored (RMN-Grand Palais, Château de Fontainebleau)

in Agnes' bedroom:

🖼️ Sickness and Health, Thomas George Webster (V & A Museum)
🖼️ Love's Messenger, William Knight Keeling (Wolverhampton Art Gallery)
🖼️ Young Lady Bountiful, Richard Redgrave (RA 1861)
🖼️ The Proposal, William Powell Frith

all these children in her room 🥺

in the dining room is View of the Town of Alkmaar, Salomon van Ruysdael (Dutch, Met).

in Marian's room is, fittingly, News from Afar, Alfred Stevens (Walters Art Museum); known for his Japonisme style.

also, i realise now why i want her art gallery... Mrs Chamberlain is likely based on Arabella Huntington, the driving force behind the Huntington Library & Gardens in LA, which i visited in (very early) 2020.

(photos my own)

so i'm v excited about this find: Auguste Rodin's Eve, intended to flank his monumental bronze doorway, The Gates of Hell, with Adam.

bronze casts of Adam and Eve were commissioned for The Met.

the top painting is Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot's Ville-d'Avray, c. 1865 (NGA).

the other one that was absolutely BUGGING me was this Camille Corot. The Curious Little Girl depicts Emma Dobigny. (Met)

Corot was lauded for the 'naïveté' which collectors loved in his figure paintings.

there's more in this gorgeous gorgeous room, both from the Met:

left is Monet's Camille Monet (1847–1879) in the Garden at Argenteuil.

right is another Corot, an idyllic landscape called The Ferryman.

all from the Met, George Russell's classically decorated study:

a Goldsmith in his Shop, Petrus Christus. from Bruges, Northern Renaissance Art.

the Adoration of the Shepherds, by Italian Andrea Mantegna, also v
Netherlandish.

and Peter Paul Rubens' The Triumph of Henry IV.

the painting high up in the Russell's dining room is a cropped Boucher, Jupiter, in the Guise of Diana, and Callisto. (Met)

and then in the parlour is a Fragonard, A Game of Hot Cockles. (NGA)

the Red Cross scenes were shot at Lyndhurst Mansion, & you can view the room virtually:

🖼️ A Moorish Girl, Raymundo de Madrazo
🖼️ Guards by an Entrance (Two Albanians & their Dog), Jean-Léon Gérôme
🖼️ Entrance to the Harem, Addison Thomas Millar

(well-travelled or exoticism 🤷‍♀️)

but American landscapes too—the two against the stained glass are

left: Albert Bierstadt's Among the Sierra Nevada, California. America as promised land. (Smithsonian American Art Museum)

right: George Inness' The Lackawanna Valley. America's industrial age, depicts PA. (NGA)

other travels include:

🖼️ Two paintings by Martin Rico Y Ortega, A View of Venice & Venetian Canal with Bridge
🖼️ An Abbey on a Hilltop with a Watermill in the Foreground, Gustave Courbet
🖼️ River Landscape, Charles Daubigny
🖼️ A Wooded River Landscape, Karl Pierre Daubigny

🖼️ Traveller on Horseback, Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot
🖼️ The Broken Vase, Charles Baugniet
🖼️ The Champes Elysée, Jean Beraud

previously mentioned but i didn't pick up these ones:

a Pre-Raphaelite is not quite the right era but anywho, William Adolphe Bouguereau's Madonna of the Roses *and* The First Caress.

Josef Scheurenberg's The Confidante. maybe this is sapphic too??

and then there's a Jonathan Eastman Johnson portrait of Mr. Gould (as in robber baron Jay Gould). Lyndhurst was his residence.

finally, to end with the Scotts. i didn't recognise anything on sight but expected symbolism:

a gorgeous hand-coloured lithograph by Frances Flora Bond Palmer (finally, a woman) of a Landscape – Fruit and Flowers, with a view of the Hudson River. (Met)

photo wikipedia

the dining room's untitled floral still life is by Edward Mitchell Bannister. (Smithsonian American Art Museum)

his father was from Barbados, mother unknown. in Boston, he was influenced by the Barbizon School paintings of William Morris Hunt.

photo National Portrait Gallery

#TheGildedAge art history, one last time 😭😭

we get a *loverly* view of the portrait in Marian's room, Alfred Steven's News from Afar, in which a young woman hearing news from a loved one far away, clutches at her heart.

premonition indeed.

💐 there's another floral still life in the van Rhijn's entrance, which looks like Flowers in a Vase on a Marble Console Table, by Jan Frans van Dael. (Chateau de Fontainebleau)

💐 i also found the one in the dining room, Balthasar van der Ast's Basket of Flowers, c. 1622. (NGA)

i really want to know what these paintings in the Scott house are but i can't find them 😏😏

not art-related at all but i also really want these bookshelves in Mrs Astor's mansion bc they are 🤌🤌

i found a couple on 1st dibs but the ones in the show are FANCY.

in Gladys' room, there are a few portraits:

left 🐕: Lady Maria Conyngham (died 1843), Sir Thomas Lawrence. (Met)

right 🐑: Isabelle Franks, Thomas Gainsborough (mirrored). (Birmingham Museum)

blink and you'll miss it, but i'm fairly sure this is Landscape with a Village in the Distance by the Dutch Jacob van Ruisdael. (Met)

the highlight! Alva Vanderbilt's masquerade ball on 26 March 1883, celebrating her new Fifth Avenue Petit Chateau.

in the Dresden Quadrille, women powdered themselves to resemble Dresden china (v Marie Antoinette).

in another, hobby-horses were attached to the dancers' waists.

a lil costume history:

💃 Bertha's wearing this House of Worth dress from the Met (1898-1900).

💃 Marian is wearing this John Singer Sargent portrait of Madame Paul Poirson (tho the bleeding heart is a little on the nose). (Detroit Institute of Arts)

💃 Mrs Astor looks very much like this 1890 portrait of Mrs. William Astor by
Carolus-Duran. (Met)

in fact Mrs Astor actually dressed as a Venetian princess, based on a painting by Alexandre Cabanel, and her husband was the 'Duc de Guise.'

(metmuseum.org/perspectives/a…)

💃 can't quite decide but i think Gladys looks like this other Sargent portrait of Florence Adele Vanderbilt Twombly. (priv collection)

or, it could be Olivia Peyton Murray Cutting, by Cabanel. (Museum of the City of New York)

either way, the costumes are also *loverly* 🤌

ok, to wrap up, as a history major, i gotta say that identifying art is all good & fun.

but art doesn't just appear, someone funds it, it's capitalist as heck.

and it's not just $$$. like most period drama, this show likes to divide old/new money, while mostly ignoring race.

don't get me wrong, i adore Peggy & want more of that NY.

but this society is built on slavery & post Civil War myths about the nation's history continue.

like, the railroads, europe trips, the mansions require money *and* racism. the English/French obsession is for a reason.

so all i'm saying is art doesn't exist in a vacuum.

enjoy the easter eggs i found, but also know why it exists at all.

/ end /