Deco

Anonymous American Designer
Olympiad of the Air Medal
1930
copper alloy
National Air and Space Museum, Washington DC

Anonymous American Designer
Western Union
ca. 1930
offset-lithograph (pamphlet cover)
National Museum of American History, Washington DC

Anonymous Argentine Designer
Hoteles Nogaró, Buenos Aires
ca. 1925
lithograph (poster)
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Anonymous American Designer
Table Mat
ca. 1925
stencil-printed cotton velveteen
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Anonymous American Designer
Table Runner
ca. 1925
stencil-printed cotton velveteen
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Otto Teegen
Design for Dust Jacket
ca. 1930
gouache on paper
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Anonymous French Designer
Flowers and Beads
ca. 1925
machine-printed wallpaper
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Anonymous French Designer
Lattice
ca. 1928-29
machine-printed wallpaper
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Anonymous French Designer
Stripes
ca. 1928-29
machine-printed wallpaper
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Anonymous French Designer
Geometric Pattern
ca. 1930
machine-printed wallpaper
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Anonymous French Designer
Geometric Repeat
ca. 1930
machine-printed wallpaper
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Anonymous French Designer
Art Deco Border
ca. 1930
machine-printed wallpaper
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Anonymous French Designer
Blossoms in Compartments
ca. 1925-35
machine-printed wallpaper
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Anonymous American Designer
Deer and Foliage
ca. 1936
machine-printed wallpaper
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Anonymous American Designer
Floral Border
ca. 1930
machine-printed wallpaper
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Anonymous American Designer
Evening Bag
ca. 1920-30
metal mesh with synthetic lining
Anacostia Community Museum,
Washington DC

Anonymous French Designer
Matchbox
1926
enameled gold, diamonds
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

20 December 1945

    My eye was weeping all on its own, apart from me, the water coursing down my cheek, and my heart was frightened.  I felt abandoned.  The watering of my eye seemed as gruesome as the dripping walls of the lavatory in an Industrial Revolution slum.

18 January 1946

    At home when I drank lemon tea and ate three good chocolates, I read more of Haydon's life, and I thought of his writing in 1823, my writing in 1946 – private thoughts, like toy mice dancing in each century, then lying silent, squashed flat between the pages of a book, piled over and topped for ever with later layers of dancing mice. 

12 May 1946

    The quiet content came bubbling up, was with me every day then; and I remember how reluctant I was to go back to London and be with my father in Adam Street and Ryder Street, to have to go to Quaglino's and the Monseigneur Grill with him and to his club.  Everywhere irked by the bodies and minds jostling one's own.  Oh the dirtiness of herding together.

    Yet it is most important to have people near one that one need hardly see.  Without this consciousness of other human beings I think almost all of us are liable to be swamped by the power of matter.  One's strength is not enough to bear this with no other help near. 

– from The Journals of Denton Welch (who was born in 1915, gravely injured in 1935, then wrote the journals between 1942 and his early death in 1948), edited by Michael De-la-Noy (1984)

Ornamenting the Bosom (Historical) - II

Carl Christian Nahl
Portrait of Catharina von Breithaupt
1845
oil on canvas
Museumslandschaft Hessen Kassel

Gabriel Max
Monkey with Bouquet of Violets
ca. 1880-90
oil on panel
National Museum, Warsaw

Josef Scheurenberg
Portrait of a Lady
1881
oil on panel
Museumslandschaft Hessen Kassel

Giovanni Boldini
Portrait of a Lady
ca. 1885
oil on canvas
Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond

Edward Penfield
Harper's - March
1896
lithograph (poster)
Kunstbibliothek, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Thérèse Schwartze
Mme. J.A.C. van Bilderbeek Lamaison van Heenvliet
1900
oil on canvas
Dordrechts Museum

Lovis Corinth
Portrait of singer Frieda Halbe
1905
oil on canvas
Belvedere Museum, Vienna

Hanna Pauli
Portrait of Kerstin Clason
ca. 1911
oil on canvas
Prins Eugens Waldemarsudde, Stockholm

Heinrich Lessing
Chemiserie Sonnenfeld
1913
lithograph (poster)
Kunstbibliothek, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Hans Rudi Erdt
The Valley of Dreams
starring Henny Porten
1914
lithograph (movie poster)
Kunstbibliothek, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Anton Kolig
General Gottfried Seibt von Ringenhart
1918
oil on canvas
Belvedere Museum, Vienna

Christian Schad
Maika Sprangermacher in Paris
1929
oil on canvas
Von der Heydt Museum, Wuppertal

Christopher Munthe
Portrait of dancer Ingse Kaarsberg
ca. 1930
oil on canvas
Oslo City Museum

Kerstin Bernhard
Model at Dior
1949
gelatin silver print
Moderna Museet, Stockholm

Benno Movin-Hermes
Portrait of soprano Birgit Nilsson
1969
color photograph
Moderna Museet, Stockholm

Carlota Perla
Caramellogram from Barcelona
2010
screenprint
Moderna Museet, Stockholm

Hydaspes, the Ethiopian king, had been in time to observe from a distance the Persian dash for Syene, but despite a vigorous pursuit had arrived too late to engage them before they entered the town.  Thereupon he had unleashed his forces against the city, whose walls they encircled like a river, in numbers so vast that the mere sight of them made resistance inconceivable.  . . .  It was here that the scouting party found him and presented their prisoners.  Joy welled in him at the sight of the young pair; he felt an instant attraction to his own flesh and blood, as, did he but know it, the prophetic intuition of his heart exerted its power over him.  But he derived even greater joy from the omen afforded by the presentation of these bound prisoners.

"Excellent!" he exclaimed. "In the first spoils of war, the gods deliver our enemies bound into our hands!  Let these, our first prisoners," he went on, "be kept safe for the victory sacrifices as the firstfruits of the war, for so Ethiopian law requires.  They are to be kept under guard to be an offering to the gods of our homeland."

He rewarded the scouting party with gifts and sent them and their prisoners away to the supply train.  He detailed a complete detachment of Greek-speakers to stand guard over the young pair and gave them instructions to spare no pains in catering to their needs and stint nothing in their care, but above all to keep them clean of all impurity, for they were now being kept as a pair of sacrificial victims.  He also gave orders that their fetters were to be replaced with chains of gold, for in Ethiopia gold is customarily employed for the purposes for which other nations use iron. 

The guards put these orders into effect.  The removal of the first set of chains raised hopes in the two lovers that they were to be given their freedom, but these hopes were dashed when their guards loaded them with new chains, chains of gold.  Theagenes could not contain his laughter. "A great improvement, I must say!" he exclaimed. "What kindness fortune is showing us!  We change iron for gold, captivity brings us riches, and now we are aristocrats among prisoners!"

Charikleia smiled too and tried to brighten Theagenes' mood by reminding him of what the gods had foretold and beguiling him with happier hopes for the future. 

– Heliodorus, from The Aethiopica, or, Theagenes and Charikleia (3rd or 4th century AD), translated from Greek by J.R. Morgan (1989)

Ornamenting the Bosom (Historical) - I

Conrad Faber von Creuznach
Portrait of a Woman
1510
oil on panel
Royal Museum of Fine Arts, Antwerp

attributed to Bernard van Orley
Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor
ca. 1520
oil on panel
Galleria Borghese, Rome

Monogrammist HB
Portrait of Anna von Winssen with her Child
1528
oil on panel
Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum, Braunschweig

Antonis Mor and workshop
Portrait of a Man
1561
oil on canvas
Mauritshuis, The Hague

Hermann tom Ring
Portrait of Katharina von Hatzfeld
1587
oil on panel
National Museum, Warsaw

Johannes Cornelisz Verspronck
Portrait of a Young Woman
1647
oil on canvas
Kunsthaus Zürich

Diego Velázquez
Portrait of the Infanta Margarita Teresa,
later Holy Roman Empress
1656
oil on canvas
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

Isaac Luttichuys
Portrait of a Woman
ca. 1662
oil on canvas
High Museum of Art, Atlanta

Nicolas de Largillière
Portrait of a Woman
ca. 1690-95
oil on canvas
Musée des Beaux-Arts de Pau

Rosalba Carriera
Half-Length Portrait of a Woman
before 1757
pastel on paper
Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, Dresden

Joshua Reynolds
Portrait of a Woman
ca. 1760-70
oil on canvas
Hamburger Kunsthalle

Wilhelm Böttner
Portrait of Caroline von Schlotheim
1788
oil on canvas
Museumslandschaft Hessen Kassel

Anonymous German Miniature-Painter
King Ludwig I of Bavaria
ca. 1820
watercolor on ivory
Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, Dresden

Thomas Lawrence
Portrait of the Honourable Mrs Seymour Bathurst
1828
oil on canvas
Dallas Museum of Art

Jan Adam Kruseman
Portrait of Henriette Eclasina Geertruida Vinju Heije
1834
oil on canvas
Teylers Museum, Haarlem

Andrew Geddes
Portrait of Hannah Fry (Mrs Harris Prendergast)
1838
oil on canvas
Scottish National Gallery, Edinburgh

The Ethiopians decided to spare them and take them back alive.  This was their first catch, as it were, and it was a fine one for them to present to their king: on the one hand, the most prized of the satrap's possessions (for eunuchs act as eyes and ears to the courts of Persian royalty, since they have no children or family, love for whom might divide their loyalties, but are entirely dependent on him who places his trust in them); on the other, the young couple, who would be a gift to adorn the retinue and court of their king.

So without a moment's delay they led them away, after mounting them on horseback.  Bagoas because he was hurt, Theagenes and Charikleia because their chains made them unable to keep up with the rapid pace that was set.  The scene was like the preliminary appearance and introduction of the actors in the theater before the play begins;* strangers in a foreign land, prisoners in chains who a moment ago had been haunted by a vision of their own violent death, were now being not so much led as escorted in captive state, guarded by those who were soon to be their subjects.  Such was the position of Theagenes and Charikleia.

* The technical terms used here (proanaphonesis, proeisodion) are obscure, and so the exact point of the comparison is unclear.

– Heliodorus, from The Aethiopica, or, Theagenes and Charikleia (3rd or 4th century AD), translated from Greek by J.R. Morgan (1989)

Jacques de Gheyn II (Engraved Physiognomies)

Jacques de Gheyn II after Karel van Mander
The Twelve Sons of Jacob
Reuben
ca. 1590
engraving
Los Angeles County Museum of Art

Jacques de Gheyn II after Karel van Mander
The Twelve Sons of Jacob
Levi
ca. 1590
engraving
Los Angeles County Museum of Art

Jacques de Gheyn II after Karel van Mander
The Twelve Sons of Jacob
Simeon
ca. 1590
engraving
Los Angeles County Museum of Art

Jacques de Gheyn II after Karel van Mander
The Twelve Sons of Jacob
Judah
ca. 1590
engraving
Los Angeles County Museum of Art

Jacques de Gheyn II after Karel van Mander
The Twelve Sons of Jacob
Zebulon
ca. 1590
engraving
Los Angeles County Museum of Art

Jacques de Gheyn II after Karel van Mander
The Twelve Sons of Jacob
Issachar
ca. 1590
engraving
Los Angeles County Museum of Art

Jacques de Gheyn II after Karel van Mander
The Twelve Sons of Jacob
Dan
ca. 1590
engraving
Los Angeles County Museum of Art

Jacques de Gheyn II after Karel van Mander
The Twelve Sons of Jacob
Gad
ca. 1590
engraving
Los Angeles County Museum of Art

Jacques de Gheyn II after Karel van Mander
The Twelve Sons of Jacob
Asher
ca. 1590
engraving
Los Angeles County Museum of Art

Jacques de Gheyn II after Karel van Mander
The Twelve Sons of Jacob
Napthali
ca. 1590
engraving
Los Angeles County Museum of Art

Jacques de Gheyn II after Karel van Mander
The Twelve Sons of Jacob
Joseph
ca. 1590
engraving
Los Angeles County Museum of Art

Jacques de Gheyn II after Karel van Mander
The Twelve Sons of Jacob
Benjamin
ca. 1590
engraving
Los Angeles County Museum of Art

The twelve sons of Jacob were born of four different mothers – two of them wives and two of them concubines.  Each son, according to the Old Testament, founded one of the twelve tribes of Israel.  De Gheyn and Van Mander supply traditional attributes or creatures to identify the sons (and the tribes), much as the four Evangelists of the New Testament had come to be presented visually with companion-animals.  

workshop of Jacques de Gheyn II after Pisanello
Four Portraits after Italian Renaissance Medals
Cosimo I de' Medici
ca. 1595
engraving
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

workshop of Jacques de Gheyn II after Pisanello
Four Portraits after Italian Renaissance Medals
Francesco Sforza
ca. 1595
engraving
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

workshop of Jacques de Gheyn II after Pisanello
Four Portraits after Italian Renaissance Medals
John VIII Paleologos
ca. 1595
engraving
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

workshop of Jacques de Gheyn II after Pisanello
Four Portraits after Italian Renaissance Medals
Sigismondo Malatesta
ca. 1595
engraving
Royal Collection, Great Britain