I’ll Take This: Chateau in Antigny, France

Just one glance at the images of this chateau in France made me want to pack my bags and move! At 13 bedrooms and just 80 acres, it’s practically petite!

The chateau dates to the 15th century, but had extensive exterior renovations in the 19th century. From the agent’s website:

It has an ornate entrance gate leading to a beautiful, typically French-styled garden, a terrace overlooking the valley below, magnificently carved stone fireplaces and ceilings and a chapel with protected frescos, commissioned by Jean de Moussy which forms part of the “trilogie de la Gartempe”, dating from the end of the 15th century and is set in 32 hectares of pastureland and woods with over 1km of river frontage. It comprises a fully-fitted kitchen with feature fireplace, dining room again with feature stone fireplace leading to the chapel with the famous (listed) frescos, living room again with feature fireplace, entrance with carved stone vaulted ceilings and stained glass windows, games room, 13 bedrooms, 6 bathrooms, stables, guardian’s lodge, tennis court, swimming pool, kennels and a riverside lodge.

Hey, I’d be happy living in the stable block by the looks of them! Especially with that garden just outside the door.

It’s fun to see how they’ve incorporated the old and the new.

Original ceilings, not original light fixtures.

The dining room.

Overlooking the river.

The obligatory suit of armour!

Guessing this is the blue bedroom…

The folly.

The house is a cool €4,750,000 and you can see all of the details here.

Joyeux Anniversaire Tour Eiffel

When I lived in the UK, one of the projects I worked on required me to go to Paris every few weeks for the day. Since I needed to be there at 9:00 on Sunday mornings, I had to fly over on Saturday. I got to know Paris pretty well, a day at a time, and my French language skills showed a vast improvement.

A highlight of each trip, which was otherwise grueling and difficult, was seeing the Eiffel Tower which just turned 126 years old. You may have seen the Google Doodle.

I am endlessly fascinated by the images taken over the year and a half that it took to construct the Tower.

As I would walk around Paris, it was always fun to try and spot the Tower and see if I could get my bearings, the way I used to do with the World Trade Centers in New York. I took dozens of pictures of it, in all kinds of light, but lost most of them when my computer was stolen soon after I moved back to the States.

I did save a few pictures, and when I started this blog, I needed some words to live by and selected these, which still appear on the blog: The difference between an ordinary life and an extraordinary life is finding extraordinary things in an ordinary life. I knew how lucky I had been to have so many amazing experiences when I lived abroad, so I took one of my images of the Eiffel Tower and superimposed my words to live by over it.

I made this more than nine years ago, and it still sits in my kitchen. I still try and live by those words.

Happy Birthday dear Eiffel Tower and thanks for the memories!

Jury Duty

In Baltimore City, the rule is you either serve on jury duty for one day, or for one trial. So, that’s what I spent Thursday doing – waiting to be called for a jury. Luckily, my number never came up, so I was excused at the end of the day.

However, being downtown for an entire day, without racing to get to a meeting, or back to work, gave me an opportunity to spend some time walking around and looking at buildings. At the end of April, I am giving a lecture titled “An Amateur’s Guide to Architecture in Baltimore”, and so I am assembling the buildings that will be used for the slide show. (Click the image for more information)

When I arrived at the courthouse, the statue of Lord Calvert, the founder of Maryland, was decorated for Maryland Day, just two days ago.

When I entered the courthouse, I remembered how beautiful it was, with gorgeous tesserae marble floors, elaborate wood carvings,

and decorative metal work, but with thousands of people in and out every week, it’s a little run down, and accommodations have been made for modern conveniences.

As one of my modernist architect friends said, “yeah, why did they have to 'fancy up' the simple, honest expression of ductwork by putting a cornice on top of it? Postmodernism taken too far…”

As I walked around during lunch, I realized that this is the section of Baltimore that was completely destroyed by a fire in 1904, and so all of the buildings that I was looking at were constructed after that point.

The architecture is sort of blousey and beaux arts, which fits because the golden age of beaux arts architecture in the United States was between 1880 and 1920. Lots of allegorical figures and decorative carving everywhere, deep cornices, lots of swagging and festooning…

On Monday, I will be on another type of jury. The Morgan University School of Architecture and Planning is having a competition for the students to design interiors of a rowhouse, of which we have thousands here in Baltimore. I am looking forward to see what they do!

From the Collections of Mrs. Paul Mellon

The collections of Mrs. Paul Mellon, aka Bunny, are being auctioned by Sotheby’s in November, but the catalogues are on-line now for your perusal. And what fun perusing they make! This is a woman who only had the finest of everything – art, houses, gardens, jewelry and more. And that’s certainly reflected in this auction.

I’ve picked out a few of my favourite pieces to share with you, but you should really take the time to browse through the catalogues yourself – there are three of them. One’s for Masterworks and fine art, one is for Jewels & Objects of Vertu and one is Interiors, with more than 1,200 lots. All are amazing. There’s not a clunker in the lot.

English brass tea caddy with six compartments.

Meissen Sea Life chess set

Five volume set of 18th century garden plans

Green-painted desk from Syrie Maugham

Group of three 19th century tureens in cabbage-ware. There are dozens of pieces of fruit- and vegetable-ware.

Chinese export porcelain “Tobacco Leaf” pattern

Massive collection of table linens

Pair of French Louis XV chairs. Love the contemporary pillow!

19th Century American sheet-iron finials.

Decorative painted backdrop for a party at Oak Spring Farm. There are several dozen of these panels, each painted for parties with different themes.

From the catalogue: Mrs. Mellon’s personal jewels and objects of vertu reflect her close relationships with the designers she loved: pieces from Verdura, Schlumberger and Givenchy appear in the collection, as well period jewels from Cartier.

Charm bracelet with cocktail and bar items

La Bomba brooch by Verdura

Gold, gem-set, rock crystal and sodalite rhino by Verdura

A group of gold keychains

Three gold tassel keychains, marked Hermès

Gardening themed charm bracelet

Whimsical jewelry

White gold and gem-set bunny

I am wondering if the pieces in this auction will go way above their estimates like the pieces in Brooke Astor’s auction did. Some of the estimates for the lots in the interiors auction are quite reasonable. Time will tell!

Baltimore Summer Antiques Show

For the next few days, the Baltimore Summer Antiques Show is taking place, and I had a chance to visit the show today, courtesy of my charming friends at Spare Room Antiques. The show is huge with almost 600 dealers participating. One of the fun things about this show is the full schedule of booth talks, ranging from how to tell good china from bad, and building an affordable collection. Here.

I thought I’d share some of the pieces that caught my eye, starting with the amazing flowers in massive urns that were scattered around the show floor. Each arrangement was at least five feet tall!

One thing that struck us was the number of Flora Danica pieces that we saw. I am not sure whether you can decipher the price, but for a set of 60 pieces, the price is a cool $49,500, down from the original $104,000.

If you’re going to have that china, then clearly you need this silver chest to hold your silver.

It’s service for 24, with more than 800 pieces. The price is $295,000!

I’d have been perfectly content with this little set of mother-of-pearl handled knives and forks. Actually, it’s not unlike some that I already have.

If you’re dining on china like the Flora Danica and using the Reed & Barton silver, then you might think about wearing this set of jewelry.

Or maybe this blingy thingy.

One of the fun pieces we saw several times was an vintage silver plate meat platter dome, cut in half and repurposed as wall sconces.

I love trinket boxes and these are several that appealed to me.

When I was mugged in April, I lost my beautiful Goyard bag, but I am sure that if I’d been carrying this one, the mugger wouldn’t have bothered to grab it.

I am always a fan of prints and ephemera, and this show had no shortage of that.

One of my favourite pieces, which is hard to see, is this old metal dish rack from France. It was about three feet tall and had a row of hooks across the top for hanging teacups or mugs. Such a simple design, but such fun.

I am sure you’re wondering what I got at the show. Funnily, I went to a jumble sale at the Greek church next to my office right before I headed to the Antiques Show, and got some fun things there. But nothing I HAD to have at the Antiques show.

For more information about the Baltimore Summer Antiques Show, please click here.