Vaux-le-Vicomte in a misty fog

An Invitation to Vaux-le-Vicomte

In 1641, the 26-year old parliamentarian Nicolas Fouquet, who was then the Master of Requests at the Parlement of Paris, acquired the viscounty of Vaux…

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Windsor Castle Upper Ward Quadrangl

The Tapestry of History

In just a few hours, the modern ideal of a fairy tale wedding will take place at Windsor Castle. A trip I took to the…

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Chambre Bleu painting

A Backward Glance on rue de Varenne

The narrow sidewalks push their black iron batons up out of the ground to protect the buildings hemming them; the rain turns the cobblestones to…

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The gardens at the Château Vaux-le-Vicomte

Heaven Shall Be Here

In the film A Little Chaos, Alan Rickman, who plays an unlikely Louis XIV, declares, “Heaven shall be here.” He’s speaking of a ballroom he…

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Bernardaud produces the Marie-Antoinette pattern of porcelain

Dining with History

A month from Sunday, I’ll be winging my way to Paris to attend Maison & Objet, and I’m thrilled to say I’ve been invited to…

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Jean Leon Gerome's painting Louis XIV and Moliere

We’ll Never Be Royals

Nest Nest Nest features the Alliage pattern.As I write this, I can feel the design energy draining from the Americas as the movers-and-shakers in our…

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One of Hampton Court Palace's Eavesdroppers

Decorating Hampton Court Palace

The premise of this article and the next one I’ll post here on The Diary of an Improvateur (next week) began with a rather capricious question:…

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