18th century blog

A couple of days ago I went to Kina slott (the Chinese pavilion at Drottningholm) to take some photos of my robe à la polonaise since I realised it unintentionally matches the colours of the palace exterior. My boyfriend Henrik was the photographer.

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Kina slott by Göran Alm is a book about my favourite 18th century building, the Chinese Pavilion at Drottningholm.

This is definitely a new favourite book of mine. It’s very thorough, covering everything from the facade, interiors, furniture and various collections inside to the restorations made, the court life at “Kina”, 18th century chinoiserie in general and the Swedish East India Company. The chapters are written by different authors and everything is incredibly interesting. It’s also an absolutely beautiful book filled with big wonderful photos and also plans and drawings. I can’t recommend this book enough, it’s great.

The book is part of a set called De kungliga slotten (the royal palaces) and I can’t wait to read some of the other volumes. As far as I know they’re only available in Swedish.

Authentic Decor: The Domestic Interior 1620 - 1920 by Peter Thornton is a book about historical interior decoration and architecture.

If you want to learn about historical interiors this book is amazing. Each chapter starts with a longer text about the stylistic period in question and the rest of the chapter is all paintings, drawings and plans of interiors and architecture, everything with in depth captions. There are so many beautiful pictures and I find it very easy to learn when you actually have a visual example right next to the text.

Unfortunately this book is no longer in print but I think it’s pretty easy to find second hand.

The Private Realm of Marie Antoinette by Marie-France Boyer is a wonderful book about the more or less private spaces of Marie Antoinette, at Versailles, Rambouillet and Fontainebleau. It’s filled with interesting information and the pictures are beautiful and plentiful. It’s very easy to read and I think even someone with just a a casual interest in the 18th century will find this book entertaining.

This is a photo Kathryn Parker took of me last summer in the Echo temple in the Haga park.

I just returned from a short trip to Paris where I visited the Fastes de cour exhibition at Versailles. It was an amazing exhibition and I was particularly happy to see a Russian court dress and the most beautiful yellow redingote.

Edit: The exhibition ended a couple of days ago.

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Gunnebo och andra sommarnöjen från 1700-talet kring Göteborg by Lars Sjöberg and Staffan Johansson is a book mostly about Gunnebo, a late 18th century summer house near Göteborg. The book has plenty of information about the history of the building and the architecture and interior, accompanied by many photos and pictures of the original plans. At the back of the book there are a few shorter chapters about other 18th century summer houses in the Göteborg area.

I love this book and recommend it. The photos are gorgeous and there are many of them, and the text is interesting and fun to read. As far as I know this book is only available in Swedish.

(By the way, I just added a “buildings and interiors” category to the right.)

Slott och salar i Sverige by Massimo Listri and Daniel Rey
This is a book about Swedish castles and mansions and mentions several from the 18th century. The photos in the book are really beautiful, but other than that I was pretty disappointed with this book. Every castle or mansion gets a chapter, but there is very little real information. There are mostly anecdotes and speculations and pretty much nothing about historical architecture or interior decorating. Another big problem with the book is that there are no captions, nothing is told about the beautiful rooms and buildings in the pictures. I’m glad I have the book because of the photos, but I would not recommend it if you actually want to learn something.

The book is published in both Swedish, English and Italian. In English as Great Houses in Sweden and in italian as Interni di Svezia.

The opening of the 18th century weeks at Skansen was yesterday. Here are some photos of my outfit and Skogaholm manor at Skansen.

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