17 beloved Château de Rosny that they were to find a setting becoming them. Whenever she could get away from the exigencies of court life she would escape to the chateau situated in the Vexin region of Normandy which her husband had bought just after their wedding and which she redecorated from top to bottom. It was she who designed the romantic English garden that surrounded it, and Rosny became a haven of freedom in which she could live as she pleased, as well as house her collections and celebrated library. She painted, not without talent, and after reading it was the great passion in her life: paintings adorned the walls of the public rooms, hung in the Italian style which left no space uncovered. Leaving behind in the Elysée-Bourbon palace the impressive collection of paintings which her husband had formed, she here chose to support ‘modern’ unknown painters. In all, some 600 paintings were to be hung in Rosny which, apart from a few family portraits and scenes glorifying the monarchy, tended to favour landscapes and genre scenes. Ever the pioneer, in 1822 she had the idea of using the new technique of lithography to promote the work of contemporary artists and instructed Monsieur de Bonnemaison, curator of her pictures, to prepare lithographs of her collection. The furniture in her apartments is testament to her passion for the decorative arts. Romanticism was in its early stages at this time, and its tenets were in keeping with the sensibilities of someone who had grown up in the freedom and exuberance of Naples and especially Sicily, bathed as it is in sunshine and ancestral home to the gods, but also to volcanoes and sumptuous Baroque towns. An adept of medieval historical novels, she had a decisive influence in the development of the Gothic or ‘Troubadour’ style that is marked by a preponderance of ornamental motifs and an abundance of decorative features. “The furniture at Rosny is incomparable,” said the Duchess of Maillé admiringly. “You have to admit it, Madame has exceptionally good taste. Everything in her house is exquisitely well-chosen. She has that innate Italian feeling for what is inherently beautiful; the music she likes is always the best; the painting she hangs on the wall always deserving of its place.” But it was perhaps in the areas of clothing, accessories and jewellery that the diminutive Duchess was most vigorous in imposing her somewhat eccentric tastes, come what may and without a care for what others thought of her. “She regularly dresses in the oddest of clothes without stopping to think whether they suit her or not. She doesn’t seem to care… she won’t wear a corset. She doesn’t seem to mind being badly dressed, provided she is comfortable…” bemoaned Madame de Maillé. With an eye to her comfort, as well as her freedom of movement, she launched a fashion for flared, socalled ‘short’ dresses that stopped five centimetres from the ground. These were practical for dancing and for those wanting to admire her pretty ankles and delicate little feet but were above all suited to her hectic lifestyle and constant travels. To go with the ostrich and stork feathers she would put in her hair, her love of Walter Scott would drive her to adopt puffed sleeves, Renaissance berets, and turbans and to adorn herself with Gothic inspired belts, adornments and jewellery. This taste for the transgressive, bordering on the desire to disguise herself, culminated in the costume balls which she made fashionable. The most famous of these, the “Mary Stuart Quadrille” took place in the Tuileries palace in 1829 and was celebrated by Eugène Lami in 28 watercolours which showed members of the court in their costumes from the time of Henry II. The reminiscences of her suppliers which were found in the archives at Rosny, and the 1830 catalogue from the sale of her personal effects from her apartments in the Tuileries, are evidence of her vast collection of resolutely modern scarves, watches and costume jewellery. Deliberately shunning the big-name jewellers of her day in favour of younger artists, she was particularly fond of a full set comprising a pendant necklace, hair comb, earrings, bracelets and matching belts made from an array of materials – shells, moonstone, lava, pink topaz, Berlin iron and feldspar among others. Thrust at too young an age into a moribund court, much like her great aunt Marie-Antoinette had been, Marie-Caroline was for a long time tarred with a similar brush as being flippant and irresponsible. This historic sale helps to set the record straight and to recognise in her an unquestionable ambassadress for the French decorative arts of her time. THE DUCHESS OF BERRY, AMBASSADRESS FOR FRENCH DECORATIVE ARTS LAURE HILLERIN HISTORIAN, AUTHOR OF LA DUCHESSE DE BERRY, L’OISEAU REBELLE DES BOURBONS On May 30th, 1816, the frigate Christine, accompanied by a flotilla of the French Navy, made its way into the bay of Marseille. On board was a diminutive, seventeen-year-old Neapolitan princess on whose delicate shoulders rested the hopes and dreams of a royal family under threat of imminent extinction. Marie-Caroline of Bourbon-Two Sicilies was the granddaughter of King Ferdinand IV of Naples and Queen Marie-Caroline, MarieAntoinette’s sister. Half Bourbon, half Habsburg, she came from a large family, for which reason Louis XVIII, king of France, had chosen her to be the wife of his nephew the Duke of Berry, the only male offspring capable of continuing the lineage. Her mission? To produce a male child who would become the future monarch. It was a role she was to fulfill in extremis when, seven months after her husband’s assassination, she gave birth to a ‘miracle child’ who was to become the Duke of Bordeaux. Closeted with the austere and stoical Duchess of Angoulême, eldest child of Louis XVI known colloquially as the Orphan of the Temple, life with the royal family was isolated and hidebound, with no interest shown in cultural innovation or novelty. But quickly, the young Duchess made a place for herself. Emboldened by her position as mother to the future Henri V, and having fought hard for the right to be called ‘Madame’, she showed herself as a fervent advocate for all things modern. An avid collector she was also an important patron and promoter of the arts, crafts and commerce. But the glory years were not to last long. In 1830, in the aftermath of the July Revolution, she followed the rest of the court into exile before attempting to foment an uprising in the Vendée as part of a bid to put her son on the throne. This romantic, if somewhat cockeyed scheme, was to finish with her incarceration in the Chateau of Blaye before a second, this time permanent exile in the company of her new Sicilian husband, Count Lucchesi Palli. But during the previous 14 years she had not limited her role to that of a royal figurehead: she had immersed herself in actively supporting arts and crafts, sponsored emerging talents and made an indelible mark on the development of French Decorative Arts through her own, very personal, tastes and likes. She gave her support to the Gymnase Theatre, home of vaudeville and of ‘bourgeois’ comedy and in return the theatre changed its name to the Théâtre de Madame. She was patron to musicians such as Rossini and Boieldieu, who returned the compliment by composing the comic opera, La Dame Blanche in her honour. She was enthusiastic about the Industrial Products Exhibition, at which was shown the Crystal Staircase in 1819 created by Madame Désarnaud, who first had the idea of combining cut crystal with gilded bronze to create decorative objects and furniture. It was there that she acquired the famous dressing table, now on display at the Louvre. Unprecedented for a royal highness, she did her own shopping at this event and would stock up on clocks, candelabras, ornamental vases, bronze statues, lacquered goods, furniture and gothicinspired ornaments in other stores such as the Coq Saint-Honoré and the Petit-Dunkerque. At the end of her official period of mourning, she overhauled her apartments in the Tuileries, brightening the walls with fresh colours and replacing the dark, Empire-period furniture made of teak, with new items in pale wood richly decorated with sophisticated marquetry. In the seaside resort of Dieppe, where she popularized sea bathing, she was not content only to ‘take a dip’: with her incessant buying she helped to rekindle the town’s craftsmanship in skills such as ivory carving and lacemaking which had been badly affected by the Continental Blockade, as well as subsidizing the creation of a school and factory for lacemaking. Conscious of her popularity, she was, in many ways an ‘influencer’ before her time. In keeping with this, she took every opportunity to visit the workshops of French manufacturers, including those devoted to porcelain at Sèvres and in Limoges, to textiles in Nantes and to mirrors at St Gobain. There, she would inspect their latest creations, and in the process contribute to the economic and cultural influence of France’s creative industries. The treasures she had amassed soon outgrew her vast apartments in the Tuileries, and it was in her 16
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