Our holiday card for 2025

 

To my dear Gigi go all the laurels! Or maybe all the holly? The talented human I get to spend my life with conjured this year's odd little confection. I love it!

Is it warm in here, or is it just me...?

The game of youth - a selection of photographs by Luke Smalley

I believe that most, if not all, of the images here were published in Luke Smalley's first book, Gymnasium. The photographer stated that they were taken primarily in western Pennsylvania between 1988 and 2000. He used real high school athletes as models, and he pictured them engaged in a series of scenarios, unusual and whimsical competitions invented by the photographer, who often designed and crafted his own athletic equipment, props, and costumes. While resisting any gimmicks to make the images seem "vintage," Smalley was inspired by fitness manuals and yearbook photographs from the turn of the twentieth century. Many of the photographs are mildly homoerotic, but never overt. Rather, he employs his coolly minimalist aesthetic, coupled with an only hinted at nostalgia, to very gently subvert the ideal of the "small town youth," particularly the athletic "all-American" young man.

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Luke Smalley (6 June 1955, Pennsylvania – 17 May 2009, Pennsylvania), American photographer and art director. After attended Hunter College and Northeastern University, he graduated with a degree in sports medicine from Pepperdine University and then worked for a number of years as a model and personal trainer in California. Turning to photography, his work eventually appeared in prominent magazines and many high-profile advertising campaigns. In addition to his gallery exhibitions, three collections of his work were published during his lifetime, and one posthumously. He died unexpectedly - I've found no mention of the cause - at the age of fifty-three.

A stubborn confection - pink satin and tulle ballgown, circa 1865

 

The short waist, the bouillonnés (puffs) of tulle adorning the bodice, and the pleated tulle of the skirt are clear indicators of the gown's probable date of creation; the unusual shade of pink is probably the result of the fairly new aniline dyes. Given the fugitive nature of these early synthetic dyes, and the fact that the garment still retains it's brilliant pink color, the gown - in quite amazing condition - is a particularly rare survival.

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From the catalogue of Cora Ginsburg LLC, experts and specialists in fine and rare historical fashion and textiles. 

By appointment in Sharon, CT & New York, NY.

The tender question - two paintings by Jean-Baptiste Greuze, 1759-61

 

These two early compositions, La Simplicité and Jeune berger tenant une fleur, were originally in the collection of the marquise de Pompadour. In 1756 her brother, the marquis de Marigny, Director General of the King's Buildings, commissioned from Greuze two oval paintings destined for the apartment of the marquise at Versailles, leaving the choice of subject to the artist. Despite the importance of such a commission, Greuze did not exactly rush to finish the paintings; the first was completed only three years later, and the second four or five.

La Simplicité, 1759.

Jeune berger qui tente le sort pour savoir s'il est aimé de sa bergère, or Jeune berger tenant une fleur, circa 1760-61.

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They've long been separated, les très jeunes énamourés; the girl is in the collection of the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth, Texas, while the boy is held in that of the Petit Palais, Paris. But coincidentally, at the time of this writing, the two have been temporarily reunited in Paris for an exhibition of Greuze's work.

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