Random Hollywood

 

Carole Lombard, by George Hoyningen-Huene, 1934.

Groucho Marx and Marlene Dietrich, circa 1932-33.

Gloria Swanson, publicity for "Music in the Air", photograph by Otto Dyar, 1934.

Mary Astor and Peter Lorre on the set of "The Maltese Falcon", 1941.

Passport for Roy Harold Fitzgerald, aka Rock Hudson, stamped 1952 and 1954.

Joan Crawford and Joan Crawford, circa early 1940s.

 Boris Karloff, ND.

Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz, circa 1943.

Irene Dunne, by Roman Freulich, 1932.

Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell at the Academy Awards ceremony, 1942. 

James Stewart and Judy Garland, circa 1941. (Spencer Tracy can be seen in the background, far right.)

Bette Davis, publicity for "The Letter", 1940.

Clark Gable and Vivien Leigh rehearsing during the production of "Gone With The Wind", 1939.

Norma Shearer chez elle, 1948.

Jean Harlow, by George Hurrell for Vanity Fair, 1935.

Dick Powell, publicity for "Murder, My Sweet', photograph by Ernest Bachrach, 1944.

Rosalind Russell, publicity for "The Velvet Touch", 1948.

Judy Garland, Mickey Rooney, and Shirley Temple, 1941.

Audrey Totter, by Clarence Sinclair Bull, 1944.

Passport for Katherine Hepburn, circa late 1930s. Note the exception to travel in Spain, which was in the midst of its Civil War.

Olivia de Havilland and Vivien Leigh (and stewardess?) en route to the Atlanta premiere of "Gone With the Wind", 1939.

Franchot Tone, Richard Cromwell, and Gary Cooper during the filming of "The Lives of a Bengal Lancer", 1934.

Dolores del Rio, publicity for "Madame Du Barry", 1934.

Joan Blondell and Bette Davis during the filming of "Three on a Match", 1932.

Adrienne Ames, circa early 1930s.

Freddie Bartholomew and Douglas Scott during the filming of "Lloyd's of London", 1936.

Kay Francis during the filming of "It's a Date", 1941. 

Mannequins who were featured in the "Lovely to Look At" fashion show in "Roberta", 1935.

Tallulah Bankhead and Dickie Moore, 1932.

Alice Faye, circa 1940.

Passport for Cary Grant, stamped 1946 and 1947.

Stars gathered at the Hollywood Bowl in 1943 to welcome Madame Chaing Kai-Shek who was on a tour of the United States. 
In the background at far left can be seen Ginger Rogers, Shirley Temple, and Barbara Stanwyck. While in the foreground, left to right
and front to back, are Ingrid Bergman, Marlene Dietrich, Irene Dunne, Rosalind Russell, Deanna Durbin, Kay Francis, and Loretta Young.

Lizabeth Scott and Raymond Burr, publicity for "Pitfall", 1948.

Montgomery Clift and Elizabeth Taylor during the filming of "A Place in the Sun", photograph by Peter Stackpole, 1950.

Claire Trevor, publicity for "Murder, My Sweet", 1944.

Marion Davies, publicity for "Going Hollywood", 1933.

Clark Gable and his 1932 Packard Twin Six 905 Coupe Roadster.

Constance Bennett and Greta Garbo, "Two-Faced Woman", 1941.

Rooms intimate and lofty, personal and public - two paintings by Johan Vilhelm Gertner

 

A bedroom in Bernstorff Palace near Copenhagen, circa 1845.

Built in the middle of the eighteenth century for Danish foreign minister Count Johann Hartwig Ernst von Bernstorff, by 1842 the building had fallen into neglect and was about to be demolished when King Christian VIII of Denmark purchased it and ordered a complete renovation. Gertner painted the king on several occasions, so one might assume that some degree of familiarity led to the artist being given the opportunity to portray such a private space.

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Thorvaldsen's Studio in the Royal Academy of Fine Arts, Copenhagen, 1836.

The studio in question was that of the celebrated Danish neo-classical sculptor Bertel Thorvaldsen. He was considered one of the greatest sculptors of his time, regarded as the successor of Antonio Canova. Mainly resident in Italy - he maintained a large workshop in Rome - he made a final triumphant return to Denmark in 1838, only six years before his death at the age of seventy-three.

Sehr gemütlich - A nobleman and his wife, with a servant stoking the fire, by Wenceslaus Wehrlin, 1769

 

Adapted from the Christie's website:

Wenceslas Wehrlin  - or Venceslao Verlin, as he was called in Italy - was a little-known but talented artist known to have died in Florence in 1780. He is generally believed to have been Viennese and born about 1740, though an inscription on the reverse of his self-portrait in the Uffizi, if correct, would indicate that he was born in Turin in 1725. Various members of his family certainly seem to have served at the court in Turin, and he is likely to have begun his career there before moving to Florence. 

It's more than probable that the male sitter in this work was an Austrian dignitary at the grand ducal court in Florence; the letter on his desk is addressed to the Emperor, including his further titles of Archduke of Austria and King of Bohemia: "A Sua Maestà L’Imper... Arcidu... Boem... a."

The portrait hanging above the mantelpiece in this lively scene is that of Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor. The Emperor's brother and eventual successor Leopold was, as Grand Duke of Tuscany, Wehrlin's most important patron; a group portrait of the grand ducal family dated 1773 is in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna.

The painting was auctioned at Christie's in December of 2008.

The Marquess and Marchioness of Lorne, by Heinrich von Angeli, 1875

 

In 1871, Princess Louise (Louisa Caroline Alberta; 18 March 1848, London - 3 December 1939. London), the sixth child and fourth daughter of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, married John Campbell (John George Edward Henry Douglas Sutherland Campbell; 6 August 1845, London - 2 May 1914, Cowes), the Marquess of Lorne and, later, the 9th Duke of Argyll.

This was the first time since 1515 that a legitimate daughter of the sovereign had married a subject of the Crown. The pair shared a common love of the arts - Louise was a talented sculptor - but the marriage was childless and unhappy, and they spent much time apart. Lorne formed close friendships with men who were known to be homosexual or bisexual, and there has been conjecture that he may have been as well. Louise was an energetic supporter of the arts, higher education, and of the feminist cause.

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Lorne was Governor General of Canada from 1878 to 1883, and the couple's tenure there was a success. On their return to England, Queen Victoria allocated them apartments in Kensington Palace where they would live for the remainder of their lives. Lorne succeeded to the title of Duke of Argyll in 1900. He suffered from dementia in his last years and Louise nursed him devotedly, the couple becoming closer than they had been before. Following his death in 1914 at the age of sixty-eight, Louise had a nervous breakdown, writing to a friend shortly afterwards: "My loneliness without the Duke is quite terrible. I wonder what he does now!" The Princess lived on for another twenty-five years, passing away at the age of ninety-one.

Lorne wears Highland dress in his portrait, along with the riband and star of the Order of the Thistle.

The portraits were commissioned by Queen Victoria who, on their delivery, was delighted with the results. She wrote to her eldest daughter, Victoria, Crown Princess of Prussia: "I have now got Louise's here and I own it is most exquisite. It is wonderfully, marvelously like, and there is a depth of feeling in the eye and mouth which are Louise herself and (as with all Angeli's pictures) you can look at it quite close by as though it were enamel - which is really what the surface is like…Lorne's is very good too and equally characteristic." 

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Von Angeli was paid £150 for each of the portraits, the pair of which were placed in the Queen's drawing-room at Osborne House.