Friday, December 19, 2008
Thursday, December 11, 2008
Snow Day in the Quarter!
Well, maybe not, but it was magical enough to drag me from my sick bed (my luck to be sick on the one snow day in New Orleans) and skulk about in the snow with my camera. It will all be a memory by lunchtime.
Decatur and Barracks (the other end of the block)
My gallery (front porch in Kentuckian)
Sunday, December 07, 2008
Malocchio
The older Mario Praz
Spark's article goes on to describe him sitting under a leak in the roof of the opera house: "sure enough, there was our dear Malocchio sitting under the afflicted spot," enduring his own private rainstorm. The burden of such a reputation would turn anyone into a recluse.
This eminent outcast eventually assembled one of the finest collection of Empire, Regency and Biedermeier furniture and decorative arts in private hands at the time, paid for by his work as a translator (he translated most of his English contemporaries into Italian). His oddly fascinating memoir, The House of Life (a reply to the roman a clef written by his estranged ex wife, who considered their marriage a tomb), catalogues his collection in terms of relationships with the various people who passed through his life when he wasn't haggling with dealers. A description of a rare objet will end with an anecdote about T.S. Eliot; his attempt to show his affection for his daughter with fine Empire furniture in her nursery was not met with the hoped-for gratitude.
The collection now resides in the Museo Mario Praz, located in his final apartment in the Palazzo Primoli, over the Museo Napoleonico on Via Zanardelli. http://www.museopraz.beniculturali.it/
The Grande GalleriaThe Salle della Biblioteche (3 pictures above courtesy the Museo Mario Praz)
*http://www.nytimes.com/books/01/03/11/specials/spark-rome.html