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Winterhalter studio - 1853 - Private Collection  |
NAPOLEON III’S STYLE
An art of pleasure, which fairly reflects the way of life at that time, under the French Second Empire. The highest fortunes were mainly built on estate speculation.
Baron Haussman, then Prefect of Paris, undertook to refashion the city center which remains, in our days, one of the most beautiful towns in the world. Very pretty and rather frivolous women called “lionnes” enjoyed squandering about these huge fortunes, and easily took advantage of jewelry, formal dresses, and equipage, as wealthy men would offer them magnificent and richly furnished mansion houses, abundantly decorated with precious curios, padded chairs, mother-of-pearl and gilding. This opulent and sophisticated furniture has given rise to the famous “cocotte style”. Ladies gave sumptuous parties, inviting in their parlors the whole society of art and literature which would green with envy the traditional and puritan aristocracy.
“The crowd would look round when she drove by the boulevards, people would turn their heads and point her out with excitement, just as subjects greeting their monarch; meanwhile, she would show a friendly and cheerful smile, her flimsy dresses around her, her tiny blonde curls running as rain drops over the blue shadow of her eyes and the red paint of her lips (...)
She was at the core of a fashion and high society ladies imitated her charming manners.”
E. ZOLA “NANA”
An art of pleasure, which fairly reflects the way of life at that time, under the French Second Empire. The highest fortunes were mainly built on estate speculation.
Baron Haussman, then Prefect of Paris, undertook to refashion the city center which remains, in our days, one of the most beautiful towns in the world. Very pretty and rather frivolous women called “lionnes” enjoyed squandering about these huge fortunes, and easily took advantage of jewelry, formal dresses, and equipage, as wealthy men would offer them magnificent and richly furnished mansion houses, abundantly decorated with precious curios, padded chairs, mother-of-pearl and gilding. This opulent and sophisticated furniture has given rise to the famous “cocotte style”. Ladies gave sumptuous parties, inviting in their parlors the whole society of art and literature which would green with envy the traditional and puritan aristocracy.
She was at the core of a fashion and high society ladies imitated her charming manners.”
E. ZOLA “NANA”