Robert Lefèvre paints the upper portion of Pauline Bonaparte (1806) in her classical and revealing muslin gown, glitzy shall, and unique renaissance head-wear. Yay or Nay?
[Apsley House]
Sunday, November 29, 2009
Yay or Nay? Marie Pauline Bonaparte
Goodness! The majority of you were quite vocal with your dislike of Maria Luisa's play on a 90's version of court dress. The end result was a big Nay on her panniers and fancy embroidery. Mayhap you were hoping for something a little more new age? Something daring? Something we should be very careful about our criticisms with since they concern a certain emperor's beloved sister?
Robert Lefèvre paints the upper portion of Pauline Bonaparte (1806) in her classical and revealing muslin gown, glitzy shall, and unique renaissance head-wear. Yay or Nay?
Robert Lefèvre paints the upper portion of Pauline Bonaparte (1806) in her classical and revealing muslin gown, glitzy shall, and unique renaissance head-wear. Yay or Nay?
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Corsicans will do anything for attention, I think we can all agree, but parading their clearly...er...special...sister about with one rosebud out for the world to see is just hitting rock bottom. And if one must participate in this sort of thinly veiled smut, could they not be persuaded to leave off with their head gear? There's nothing sexy about a retainer.
ReplyDeleteNay. The part below her neck looks like she's supposed to be some bare, billowy greek goddess, while from the neck up she seems to be attempting to convince onlookers she possesses a "Renaissance mind". The end result is somewhere between tasteless and the absurd.
ReplyDeleteNay. Sheer clothing is never a good idea, I don't care what century you're in.
ReplyDeleteI like her but I can't say the same for her outfit, sorry Pauline it's a nay.
ReplyDeleteNay. Bit of a mismatch between her headress and dress. And that is rather revealing too much.
ReplyDeleteI like the dress but the thing on her head (and 'thing' is really the only appropriate word) is awful - and she lacks modesty...put it away!
ReplyDeleteNay.
I'm tempted to say yay, both because Polette/Pauline is such a facinating character and because I've been kind of harsh lately. So that's what I'm going to do. I know the headpiece isn't exactly a winner, and that the fabric of the dress should't display her breats so much, but I'll giver her a yay for modish renaissance and Roman inspiration. The Empire period is after all the first where one has deliberately looked for inspiration in times gone by. Give her credit for trying!
ReplyDeletehmmmm - I say Yay also ---- kind of the "lady Gaga" of her times, mais oui?
ReplyDeleteOn a day like today I'd find the gown a bit too nipply. Just saying. Nay for November. Yay for the wedding night.
ReplyDeleteI love Pauline Bonaparte but it does look like she was paintd wearing her nightgown, but what can you expect from the woman who used to bathe in milk in front of her admirers and posed for Canova in the nude. She was the Paris Hilton of her day. So I'm going to have to say Nay to the portrait.
ReplyDeleteNay.
ReplyDeleteFrom the naughty sheet of a dress to the strangely rigid headdress, this outfit does not know what it wants to be. A very vociferous Nay from me.
ReplyDeleteNay. Plain and simple. She tried to pull something off that was a tribute to times past, I think and failed miserably.
ReplyDeleteNay.
ReplyDeleteSorry, but the attempt to juxtapose the Renaissance and the Classical mode is odd enough, without her complete lack of modesty. And yes, a number of late Renaissance women were painted with their breasts out, and it was used to depict the Virgin Mary, and of course nudity is all good in classical Greek statuary, but that doesn't make it any less tacky.
Madame Recaimer did much better versions of classical deshabille (hmmm...maybe that is why Pauline hated her so much. No one likes to be shown up....)
I like the dress, despite the, er, indelicacy. But that headdress! Does she have the Toothache? Because that's the only excuse I can think of.
ReplyDeleteNay.
@ Vic really? I thought you always wear these little numbers around town! HA I have been deceived!
ReplyDeleteYay! I love it...so grecian sex goddess!!
ReplyDeleteNay. It's soooo fifteenth century.
ReplyDeleteI'm wondering if people give it a nay because they don't really like 15th century's aesthetics, or just because this was paint in 1806... Just curious lol.
ReplyDeleteI'm sad to say it's more of a nay from me also. Her head-wear is beautiful except, of course the part that goes under her chin.
What she's wearing is a bit messy (well, the sleeves). I prefer the very classical beauty of what Madame Récamier is wearing in her famous painting.
And the whole bossom-showing-through-a-tin-fabric looks tacky to me. Madame Récamier's look, on the contrary, is deliciously erotic and sexy.
The painting kind of reminds me Da Vinci's Lady with an Ermine.
Oh well, the last comment (Anonymous, that is) was from me. I was just in preview mode, click on the wrong thing and it was sent without me being connected to my account.
ReplyDeleteAnd now I'm annoyed because I wanted to correct my comment before sending it (English is not my first language), so here it is :
- this was paintED*
- tHin fabric
It's the first time I comment here and I'm being totally obnoxious. Lol.
Btw, love your blog Heather.
Don't worry about your writing, it is better than most english-speaker's! It does look like Lady with an Ermine (my fav DaVinci), good observation!
ReplyDelete