18th century blog

Gustav III:s äktenskap
This is a Swedish mini-series from 2001 in two parts, about Gustav III and his wife during the time when they had their children. The first part builds largely on a rumor that the royal couple needed actual hands-on help to consummate their marriage, so it’s not entirely based on cemented facts. The second part is a bit more slow, and much darker. It’s obviously in Swedish, but English subtitles are available on the DVD.

I thought it was really great, and very beautiful. When I first started watching the acting seemed a bit stiff, but the feeling soon went away. Even my boyfriend who doesn’t have an interest in 18th century fashion really liked it. I thought the actor playing Gustav, Jonas Karlsson, was such a great choice. He is a very good actor and really looked the part.

I found some of the outfits a bit costumey looking, but there were many great ones as well and the overall effect was gorgeous. It’s also really beautifully filmed. I definitely recommend it!

Tons and tons of beautiful screencaps (69 of them!) after the cut. Screencaps from part two will be in a separate entry.

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“Axel von Fersen” by Herman Lindqvist
This is a biography of Axel von Fersen and contains information about his entire life. I found it very interesting although not extremely entertainingly written. There’s lots to learn about Fersen himself, but also about other people around him, such as Gustav III, and interesting anecdotes about 18th century court life. There are many excerpts from Fersen’s own diary for example.

The Fersen and Marie Antoinette question is controversial to some, but although it’s obvious that the author personally believes their relationship was sexual at least once, the book doesn’t state anything as absolutely true or false.

It’s definitely worth a read, both if you’re interested in Fersen or just 18th century life in general. The ending is really sad and horrible of course, because of his gruesome death. The book is available in Swedish and Finnish.

Self portrait with two pupils, 1785.

French painter Adélaïde Labille-Guiard on Wikipedia.

The art of Adélaïde Labille-Guiard

More paintings after the cut.

Edit: Updated this post with more paintings and better quality pictures.

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Jefferson in Paris
I’ve been wanting to see this movie forever because of the costumes and I finally got it on DVD! As a movie I found it kind of uninteresting but ok. Both of Jefferson’s romances seem completely unmotivated and unromantic, not very believable. The costumes make up for this a hundred times though, it’s an absolutely gorgeous movie. The costumes are unusually detailed and interesting, and though I saw a few bad wigs most of it looked wonderful.

The actress who played Marie Antoinette had a pretty good likeness. I think she looked most like the actual Antoinette than any other actress I’ve seen portraying her, although I think she looked quite a lot older and less classically beautiful than the real Marie Antoinette does in paintings from around this time. Then again Marie Antoinette is said to have aged quickly when the revolution came. The actor playing Louis XVI also looked much too old to me. In fact when I first saw him I thought he was supposed to be the old king and this confused me for a while.

I highly recommend watching it! More movie stills after the cut.

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The Swedish national museum will exhibit over 100 paintings by Alexander Roslin from September 27 2007 to January 13 2008. There will also be two lectures. Click the portrait to go to the exhibition website.

Self portrait, 1795.

French painter Louis-Léopold Boilly on Wikipedia. The wikipedia article is pretty much empty though, so here’s another link with a short biography.

More paintings after the cut.

Edit: Updated this post with more paintings and better quality pictures.

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The music lesson, 1788.

I have only seen three paintings by this artist, and I can’t even find a website that mentions him except for some that sell prints of his art. If you have any information on him or have any pictures of his paintings I’d love to see! I really love the ones I’ve seen so far.

More paintings after the cut.

Edit: Thanks to xLady_Lazarusx I have found some more paintings, and found out that his name is probably Michel Garnier, not Michael!

Edit again: Updated this post with a couple of paintings.

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Marie Antoinette (2006)
This is one of my favourite movies. It guess it doesn’t really have much of a plot, but it’s extremely gorgeous to watch, and it’s one of those movies where the music fits so well with the pictures that the (already good) songs become even better than on their own. Kirsten Dunst plays Marie Antoinette, and while the way she is portrayed isn’t exactly like my own vision of Marie Antoinette, I think she’s amazing and so charming and beautiful. I also love Rose Byrne as Polignac.

While the 1938 Marie Antoinette movie focuses on the last part of her life, this one is almost all about her early days at the French court, which to me is more interesting. It doesn’t aim at perfect historical correctness but I think it’s still fairly correct.

The clothes and sets are absolutely gorgeous. It’s probably the most beautiful movie I’ve seen. The only thing that bothers me a little is that while many of the hairdos are great, some of them, particularly Marie Antoinette’s poufs, aren’t that great, and don’t look much like the actual poufs of the 1770s. In the documentary on the DVD someone says they wished they could have put more effort into the hair, but they put all of the effort and money into the clothes so they didn’t have time, or something like that. I would love to see what the movie would have looked like if they had been able to do more with the hair. Some of the hair you see on the extras is better though, strangely enough.

All in all I think this is an amazing movie and I watch it very often. You can see some more movie stills and promotional pictures behind the cut.

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Self portrait, 1782.

French painter Élisabeth-Louise Vigée-Le Brun on Wikipedia.

A good site with tons of her paintings: The art of Élisabeth-Louise Vigée-Le Brun

Some of her paintings after the cut.

Edit: Updated this post with more paintings and better quality pictures.

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Portrait by Boucher, 1758.

Madame de Pompadour on Wikipedia.

Some more portraits of her after the cut.

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Portrait of Boucher by Gustav Lundberg

French rococo painter François Boucher on Wikipedia.

Some of his paintings after the cut.

Edit: Updated this post with better quality pictures.

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The Princesse de Lamballe on Wikipedia. Some more portraits after the cut.

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Portrait by Vigée-Le Brun.

Marie Antoinette on Wikipedia.
Marie Antoinette online.
Marie Antoinette, queen of France.

Many more portraits after the cut.

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Gustav III of Sweden on Wikipedia.

More portraits after the cut.

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