Luxurious precision - wedding gown from the House of Worth, 1896

Happy thirteenth anniversary to us!

The best thing that ever happened to me in this crazy life, the most miraculous thing, was G and I finding each other. You can't imagine just how impossible it was that we did. And today we celebrate thirteen - thirteen! - years of being married. Thank you for everything, my sweet and fierce wife!

We always make silly/sweet cards for each other to celebrate these sort of things. Here is today's, mine to her.

In case it isn't obvious, that's our kid-heads Photoshopped into a vintage photograph; I wasn't terribly ambitious this year...!

Con vestido negro - portraits by Joaquín Sorolla y Bastida

Clotilde con traje negro - Clotilde García del Castillo, señora de Sorolla, 1906. Clotilde, the artist's wife, was a frequent model for her husband.

María Teresa Moret y Remisa, señora de Beruete, 1901.

Mrs. William H. Gratwick, née Emilie Victorine Piolet Mitchell, 1909.

Clotilde con traje de noche, 1910.

Mrs. Esperanza Conill de Zanetti, 1909.

Retrato de dama desconocida, ND.

 Clotilde con mantilla negra, 1919-20.

Clotilde con sombrero negro, 1910.

Elena con sombrero negro, 1911. Elena was the artist's third and youngest child.

Mrs. Orville E. Babcock, 1911.

Una mantilla de negro - Eulalia Fernández Molina, señora de Urcola, 1909.

On the far side of the lens - Victor Kraft photographed by Beaton (and others)

By Cecil Beaton, circa 1935.

A "ballet film improvisation" with Princess Natalie Paley, directed by Pavel Tchelitchew and photographed by Beaton, 1935.

*

By Carl Van Vechten, 1935.

Victor Kraft (né Victor Hugo Etler Kraftsov; 8 August 1915, Oneonta, New York – 2 July 1976, Maine), professional photographer and life-long friend/lover of composer Aaron Copland. A violin prodigy, he gave concerts as a child. He later attended Juilliard and studied composition with Roger Sessions. When he was sixteen, he met Copeland who encouraged him to give up music and focus on photography. The two would maintain a close relationship until Kraft's death; Copeland called Kraft his, "pupil, companion, secretary and friend." He went on to contribute photographs to many of the most prominent publications of the day, he worked as a photojournalist during the Spanish Civil War, and became known for his portraits of leading figures in the world of music. All this time, though, he was also paid by Copland as his secretary and chauffeur, and the two lived together and traveled extensively. All through their relationship Copeland had a series of affairs or brief relationships with other handsome young men, much to Kraft's distress. And after a retaliatory affair with Leonard Bernstein, he married writer Pearl Kazin in 1951; only a few months later he returned to Copeland. Nine years after that, though, he married again and settled in Croton-on-Hudson, nearby to Copeland. The couple had a son - Copeland was the godfather - but the child was mentally handicapped. In 1968 Kraft, long upset about his son's condition and the state of his relationship with Copeland, kidnapped the then seven-year-old Jeremy and left the country for several months. Copeland remained in contact though, even meeting with Kraft in England and Israel. And only a few years later when Kraft died of a heart attack in Maine at the age of sixty, Copeland looked out for Jeremy, paid his tuition at a private school, and later helped him get training to become an auto mechanic.

By George Platt Lynes, 1936.

The fleet and vivid stroke - charcoal sketches by John Singer Sargent

John Edward Murray-Smith, 1911.

Michelle, Lady Poole, née Peveril Le Mesurier, 1913.

Thomas Whittemore, 1922.

Beatrice Alice Fielden, 1911.

Eugenia Huici Arguedas Errázuriz, 1905.

Alexander Henry Higginson, 1917.

Alice, Lady Lowther, neé Blight, circa 1905.

Eva Katherine Balfour, later Lady Buxton, 1911.

Quincy Adams Shaw, Jr., 1917.

Alice, Marchioness Of Salisbury, née Gore, 1923.

 Eric Spencer Fitzwilliam, 9th Earl Fitzwilliam, 1912.

Olga, Baroness de Meyer, née Caracciolo, 1907.

William George Simmonds, 1911.

Daisy (Mary Theresa Olivia), Princess of Pless, née Cornwallis-West, 1913.

Crescenzo Fusciardi (model), circa 1890-1915.

Daisy, Mrs Reginald Fellowes, née Marguerite Séverine Philippine Decazes de Glücksberg, circa 1915-20.

Kermit Roosevelt, 1917.

Miss Susan Strong, 1903. (Miss Strong was an operatic soprano.)

John Barrymore, 1923.

Violet, Countess of Powis, Baroness Darcy de Knayth, née Lane-Fox, 1912.

Robert Gould Shaw III, 1923.

"Study of a Boy", for the "Israel and the Law" mural in the Boston Public Library, circa 1895-1916.

Evelyn Bligh St. George, 1915.

Rosemary, Viscountess Ednam, née Sutherland-Leveson-Gower, 1919.

Harold Irving Pratt, Jr., 1924.

 Lady Elsie Meyer, later Lady Lambert, 1908.

Grace, Mrs. Horace Webber, née Pinder,1911.

Percy Grainger, circa 1908.

Maria Suzanna Nelke, née Conrad, 1912.

Emilio Bassi (model), circa 1910-20.

Ernest Schelling, 1910.

The Hon. Clare Stuart-Wortley, 1923.

David Tennant, 1915.