HUGO GRYGKAR II: Les Edifices de Paris 1806

HUGO GRYGKAR LES EDIFICES DE PARIS 1806
Hugo Grygkar
First issued: unkown date, around 1960
Catalogued 2A

My dear friend Pauillac kindly shared with me several wonderful pictures of her new Hermès treasure, Les Edifices de Paris 1806. Our little community of vintage lovers had a wonderful time trying to discover and label all the distinctive building displayed on this beautiful piece of art.

The central motive is a medallion ornate with ribbons, spears and flags with the colors of Paris, blue and red. In the very center we can find the title of the scarf:

The date, 1806 provides us with the historical framework: The First French Empire led by Napoleon, which was the dominant power of much of continental Europe during the early 19th century.

Beginning at the top center and moving clockwise we can find eight magnificent, historic building of the city of Paris, I have made some little collages with the different designs on the scarf and their corresponding image IRL.

La Madeleine, Madeleine Church, is a Roman Catholic church occupying a commanding position in the 8th arrondissement of Paris. It was designed in its present form as a temple to the glory of Napoleon's army and built in Neo-Classical style, it was inspired by the Maison Carrée at Nîmes, one of the best-preserved of all Roman temples.

The Arc du Carroussel, was built between 1806 and 1808 to serve as an entrance of honor at the Tuileries, became the dominant feature of the Place du Carrousel. It is a triumphal arch that was commissioned in 1806 to commemorate Napoleon's military victories of the previous year. The more famous Arc de Triomphe de l'Étoile nearby was designed in the same year, but it took thirty years to build, and it is about twice as massive.

The first stone of the Church of Saint Roch was laid by Louis XIV in 1653 and was finally completed in 1754. At the time of the French Revolution, the church of Saint Roch was at the heart of the action and was itself the scene of many shootings, which have left their imprint on the facade.
Notable tombs in the church included those of Denis Diderot, Baron d'Holbach, Marie Anne de Bourbon (daughter of Louis XIV). The church is also notable due to Marquis de Sade's marriage there in 1763.

Les Invalides , officially known as L'Hôtel national des Invalides (The National Residence of the Invalids), is a complex of buildings in the 7th arrondissement containing museums and monuments, all relating to the military history of France, as well as a hospital and a retirement home for war veterans, the building's original purpose. The buildings house the Musée de l'Armée, the military museum of the Army of France, the Musée des Plans-Reliefs, and the Musée d'Histoire Contemporaine, as well as the burial site for some of France's war heroes, notably Napoleon Bonaparte

The Hôtel de Ville (French pronunciation: [otɛl də vil], City Hall) is the building housing the City of Paris's administration, it has been the location of the municipality of Paris since 1357. The building was rebuilt in the 1870s in its original French Renaissance style inspired by the Châteaux of the Loire Valley.
It was the stage for several famous events during the French Revolution, notably the coup of 9 Thermidor Year II when Robespierre was shot in the jaw and arrested in the Hôtel de Ville with his followers.

At the left bottom corner of the scarf is the very well-known Notre Dame de Paris also known as Notre Dame Cathedral, it is a Gothic, Catholic cathedral on the eastern half of the Île de la Cité in the fourth arrondissement of Paris. It is the cathedral of the Catholic Archdiocese of Paris: that is, it is the church that contains the cathedra (official chair) of the Archbishop of Paris, The cathedral treasury houses a reliquary with the purported Crown of Thorns.
Notre Dame de Paris is widely considered one of the finest examples of French Gothicarchitecture in France and in Europe, and the naturalism of its sculptures and stained glass are in contrast with earlier Romanesque architecture. The first period of construction from 1163 into the 1240's coincided with the musical experiments of the Notre Dame school.
The cathedral suffered desecration during the radical phase of the French Revolution in the 1790s, when much of its religious imagery was damaged or destroyed. An extensive restoration returned the cathedral to an 'original' gothic state.

The Panthéon (from Greek Pantheon, meaning "Every god") is a building in the Latin Quarter in Paris looking out over all of Paris. It was originally built as a church dedicated to St. Genevieve and to house the reliquary châsse containing her relics but, after many changes, now it functions as a secular mausoleum containing the remains of distinguished French citizens. It is one of the most important architectural achievements of its time and the first great neoclassical monument.

The Sorbonne is an edifice of the Latin Quarter which has been the historical house of the former University of Paris which is often referred to as the Sorbonne or La Sorbonne after the collegiate institution (Collège de Sorbonne) founded about 1257 by Robert de Sorbon.

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Many congratulations to dear Pauillac for such an unique master piece! And thank you very much for your contribution to this blog.


Let's say au revoir for now with a dreamy sight to the City of lights:

PHILIPPE LEDOUX V: L'Ecole Espagnole de Vienne

PHILIPPE LEDOUX V L'Ecole Espagnole de Vienne 

Philippe Ledoux
First Issue: unknown.
Catalogued: 4B

Yesterday I received a scarf that I'd been looking for for a long time. Unfortunately, it wasn't in great condition but I carefully washed and ironed her (thank you Lily for your advice on this subject), removed the appalling care tag which was falling apart and... voilá! she's become one of my most beloved jewels! Let me present a brief profile of this beauty!

The Spanish Riding School of Vienne, a significant part of Austria’s cultural heritage, is not only the oldest riding academy in the world, it is also the only one where the High School of Classical Horsemanship has been cherished and maintained for over 430 years.
The School takes the Spanish part of its name from the horses which originated from the Iberian Peninsula during the 16th century and which were considered especially noble, spirited and willing and suited for the art of classical horsemanship. Today’s Lipizzaner stallions are the descendants of this proud Spanish breed, a cross between Spanish, Arabian and Berber horses, and they delight horse lovers from all over the world with their performances.

In 1729 Emperor Charles VI commissioned the architect Josef Emanuel Fischer von Erlach to build the magnificent Winter Riding School in the Hofburg Palace; it was completed in 1735. A portrait of the monarch graces the splendid baroque hall in which the riders of the Spanish Riding School train their Lipizzaner stallions and show off their skills to an international audience during the public performances.

As usual, Philippe Ledoux knew how to capture the essence of both the architecture and the show, the equine figures are wonderful, the sense of movement and elegance are impeccable.

The budding rider has to overcome many challenges on his long journey from inexperienced cadet to fully qualified rider, perhaps even to chief rider. Depending on each cadet’s individual talent and personal commitment it takes approx. 4 to 6 years to leave the supervision of the Stable Master and achieve the career jump to the position of an assistant rider.

A cadet’s early years are spent learning not only proper horse care and maintenance, but also the correct handling of all the equipment: saddles, bridles, everything needs to be painstakingly cleaned, neatly stored and properly used.
It takes around 8 to 12 years to successfully achieve the status of a fully qualified Rider, years in which many give up and only the very best persevere.

The prestigious Spanish Riding School, for centuries a bastion of masculinity, is modernizing. Recently, the 436-year-old institution officially presented its first female riders-in-training. Congratulations!!!! 

Riders of the Spanish Riding School wear the traditional brown coat, hat bicornis, white pants, white gloves and black suede boots. This style of clothing empire has long been the uniform of the school and has remained unchanged for two centuries.

The Imperial Summer Festival is a celebration in and around the Spanish Riding School, which gives life and color to the summer in Vienna. It is a wonderful show that promotes and enables the Spanish Riding School to open its doors to locals and tourists and at the same time breathe life into the festivities, while reviving the ancient traditions of Vienna.

Dear Holsby shared a picture of a Lipizzaner with me and kindly accepted that I posted it here, it's called Levade - Spanische Reitschule, it was made by Augarten porcelain factory in Wien.  Thank you so much, dear friend!

PHILIPPE LEDOUX IV Phaeton 1958

PHAETON
Philippe Ledoux
First Issue: 1958
Catalogued: 4D


Dear Lily did it again and kindly lend me her beautiful, extensive research on this vintage jewel, thank you Lily, you are the best!


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I received my lovely Phaeton this week and couldn't resist doing a bit of research. (BkM this is especially for you and for shelby for her assistance in authenticating it!):

PHAETON – PHILIPPE LEDOUX (originally issued in 1958)

Any Hermes scarf collector, no doubt, is familiar with one of Hermes’ often used design motifs – the carriage. After all, it’s even part of their iconic Ex Libris logo. Ledoux seemed quite fond of the carriage, as well, and often incorporated various styles in his designs for Hermes.

The carriage in question here is a phaeton, from the Greek phaethon - to shine - and dates to the early 19th century when it was fashionable in France to use classical references (we’ll get to that a bit later.) In carriage speak, the phaeton was defined as a sporty open carriage, drawn by a single horse or a pair and was owner driven. Typically, it featured four extravagantly oversized wheels and was very lightly sprung with a minimal body. It was fast, and it was dangerous. It was also quite elegant, as one can see from the painting by George Stubbs below. Because of its speed and grace, the aristocracy adored it.

And, here we see the various phaetons depicted in Ledoux’s design:

But, there is so much more to this scarf than simply the haute monde out for a pleasant carriage ride on a lovely spring day in the Bois de Boulogne.

Phaeton also refers to the disastrous ride of Phaeton, the son of Helios (Apollo to the Romans) and the ocean goddess, Klymene (or Clymene, an Oceanid), who set the earth on fire in an attempt to drive the chariot of the sun. Phaeton was raised as the foster son of Merops, the King of Ethiopia, and one day his friend, Epaphus (the son of the king of Egypt) taunted him about his parentage.

“Son of Helios?” the other boy said. “A likely story. Your mother is ashamed to admit her liaison with some commoner, and so she claims a lofty lover who’s too 

far away to deny it.”

Phaeton was distressed by his friend’s taunts and went to his mother, asking again about his true father. Even though she had told him many times, she told him once again:

“It is Helios. I swear by the River Styx, the dread river of the underworld on 

which the gods of Olympus themselves swear binding oaths. Your father is

Helios, and if you doubt me, you can go to him yourself, for his halls are to the 

east and not far from here.”

Delighted and relieved, Phaeton set out to seek his father’s house, following the directions provided by Klymene. His adventures in the eastern lands were many, but they are no longer remembered. In those days, there were no searing deserts but instead, lush gardens, verdant forests and shallow lakes. Still, he was wandering in wild lands, which according to Herodotus, were inhabited by strange and dangerous creatures. So, it took wile and courage to at last reach the Mountain of the Sun.

He declared himself at the gates, and servants led him up to his father’s great hall to await the chariot of Helios at day’s end.

Helios, when he descended the sky-track and found his son waiting in his halls, was very pleased that Phaeton had sought him out. He embraced the boy and affirmed Klymene’s words that he was, indeed, his true son. Moreover, Helios swore by the River Styx that we would grant Phaeton a wish – any one wish.

“Then let me drive your chariot, Father,” said Phaeton. "For then, no king's son will mock me as a bastard."

“Not that,” said Helios, in distress. “It is not safe for you, my son. The horses

that pull the Sun are fierce and wild. Only I may handle them. Ask me another

wish.”

“That is my wish,” Phaeton insisted. “Father, you promised.”

At this, Helios was distraught, for even the gods dared not break an oath sworn upon the Styx. At last, he gave in to his son’s pleas and led him to the stable shortly before dawn.

“Fly not too high,” Helios instructed him. “Nor too low. Keep to the zodiac.

That is the middle way.”

Then he put the whip in Phaeton’s hand and helped him into the chariot. He placed the golden helmet on Phaeton’s head, crowned him with his own fire, winding the seven rays like strings upon his hair and put the white tunic girdlewise over his loins, clothed him in own fiery robe and laced his foot into the purple boot. Overjoyed and proud, Phaeton took the reins with great joy and looking down, thanked his reluctant father for his gift.

Meanwhile, the four horses of Helios, Aethon (Blaze), Eous (Dawn), Pyrois (Fire), and Phelgon(Flame), kicked at the gates, anxious to be off on their daily journey.

The bronze doors of the east opened with a clang, and Phaeton stood tall in the chariot as the horses leapt into the sky. They vaulted upwards, red sparks clattering from their harnesses. At first all went well . . . 

(“Phaeton & The Chariot of the Sun,” Athenian red-figure krater, 5th century BC, British Museum, London)

But Phaeton feared that his friend would not believe him unless he had some proof, so he tried to coax the horses to drop lower over Africa, so Epaphos might see him. The steeds fretted in their harness. His weight was lighter than his father’s, and the chariot was already swinging wildly from side to side. Abruptly, they bolted. 

Down they plunged. The sun rattling behind them burned the lower air and set the forests ablaze. Rivers and lakes smoldered and dried up. The lands were parched to deserts, and the people living there were turned brown in the heat. Desperately, Phaeton tried to jerk the reins back and turn the horses upwards. They reared and raced heavenward, leaving the smoking earth behind. The lands below cracked under sheets of ice, and the sky itself began to burn, leaving a white scar in his wake – the Milky Way.

Phaeton drove harder still, drawing the chariot close to Notos (the South), to Boreas (the North), and close to Zephyros (the West) and then to Euros (the east.) With wonder, Luna (Selene, the Moon goddess) saw her brother’s team running wildly below her own. She sensed the impending disaster. There was tumult in the sky, shaking the core of the immovable universe. The very axle, which runs through the middle of the revolving heavens (and holds the constellations in their place) bent under the strain. Libyan Atlas (another son of Klymene) could hardly support the rolling firmament of stars, as he rested on his knees with back bowed under this great burden, and all the constellations and the stars were thrown from their paths in complete disarray.

As Phaeton looked down from this great height, he grew dizzy and ill. With the furious horses of fire running madly before him, he wished he had never set foot in his father’s chariot. But now the chariot was speeding head-long toward the gigantic Scorpion, and the huge monster raised its tail in an attempt to slash Phaeton with its stinger. Fear-struck, the boy dropped the reins completely, and the unchecked horses galloped downwards.

The horses bolted down, then up, then down again, burning and freezing the earth and sky. Zeus, the king of the gods, heard the cries from his suppliants, praying at the temples and looked out from Mt. Olympus. Seeing a stranger in Helios’ chariot, he launched a thunderbolt. There was deafening crash as the lightening shattered the chariot, and Phaeton fell wrapped in sizzling flames. The horses of the sun, now driverless, broke free of their harness, bolted and headed back to their stables on the Mountain of the Sun.

(“The Fall of Phaeton” Peter Paul Rubens, 1605)

(“Fall of Phaeton” by Sebastiano Ricci 1703/04)

The ill-fated Phaeton dropped like a falling star and plunged into the river Eridanos. His sisters, the Heliades, gathered on the banks of the river, and in their mourning were transformed into amber-teared poplar trees. 

(“The Sisters of Phaeton” Tito di Santi for the Studiolo, Palazzo Vecchio, Florence, 1572)

“Helios, mad with grief, his bright sheen subdued as in the gloom of an eclipse, loathing himself, the light, the day, gives way to his grief, and then with grief turning to rage denies his duty to the world. 

'Enough,' he cries. 'Since time began my lot has brought no rest, no respite.

I resent this toil, unending toil, unhonoured drudgery. Let someone else take out

my chariot that bears my sunbeams, or if no one will, and all the gods confess they can’t, let Jove (Zeus) drive it, and as he wrestles with the reins,

there’ll be a while at least when he won’t wield his bolt to rob a father of his son; and when he’s tried the fiery-footed team and learnt their strength, he’ll know no one should die for failing to control them expertly.'

Then, all the deities surround Helios and beg and beseech him not to shroud

the world in darkness. Zeus, indeed, defends his fiery bolt and adds his royal

threats. So Helios took in hand his maddened team, still terrified, and whipped them savagely, whipped them and cursed them for their guilt that they destroyed his son, their master that dire day.” (Ovid – “Metamorphoses)

After his death, Phaeton was placed among the stars as the constellation Auriga (the charioteer), or else transformed into the god of the star the Greeks called Phaeton – the planet Jupiter or Saturn. 

His devoted friend (some claim lover), Kyknos, who dove repeatedly into the river Eridanos, attempting to retrieve his body, was turned into a swan (a bird sacred to Helios) by the gods in an attempt to relieve his grief. (You can see his swan’s image in “The Sisters of Phaeton” above.)

Ledoux’s portrayal of the doomed youth, Phaeton and the centerpiece of the scarf:

Obviously, he’s chosen to portray the ill-fated Phaeton prior to his disastrous destiny and fiery death. He is still in control of the horses of the sun at this point, but, sadly, we know the fate that awaits him. 

And, in closing, two of the four lovely corner details - much more docile horses, who, no doubt, would be happy to pull a phaeton through a Paris park on a tranquil day and avoid the fate of Phaeton and his ferocious team.

HUBERT DE WATRIGANT III Plaza de Toros 1993

PLAZA DE TOROS
First Issue: 1993
Catalogued: 3B

Not only is Hubert de Watrigant a brilliant equestrian painter but he is also a connoisseur of the world of tauromaquia, the art related to bulls and bullfighting as we can see in many of his paintings:

In Plaza de Toros he depicts the traditional elements of a classical Corrida de Toros. The scarf is designed around a broad circle which represents the bullring (La Plaza). In the very center we can see the entourage of authorities (alguaciles) who officially open the corrida, the montera (matador's hat)  two pairs of banderillas and a Matador jacket (la chaquetilla). 

This is the main piece of the Traje de Luces (Suit of Lights) called so for the reflections produced by the thousands of hand embroidered sequins and gold thread. A suit of lights can cost over 4000 Euros and some of the best known toreros wear it only once. Until the 18th century it was made of suede but since then is made of silk and adorned with gold for the matadors and silver for the banderilleros, the hat called montera, is made of astrakhan and lined in taffeta. This is a detail picture of the back of a chaquetilla:

Since the Traje de Luces is entirely hand made by accomplished artisans, it's not wonder that it inspired fashion designers like Galliano, Dior, Gaultier, Lacroix, etc:

Bullfighting and art have always walked hand in hand. The visual intensity of bullfighting has greatly fascinated plastic artist like Goya, Picasso, Dalí or Miró:

Several contemporary photographers have also gotten inspiration from bullfighting, like the French photographer Josephine Douet in her wonderful series on the handsome Spanish matador José María Manzanares:

Back to the silk, we can see other characters depicted on the scarf, like the Mozo de Mulas, Picador and Rejoneador (shown in the next pictures). Around the central motive, there are toreros performing different pases, meaning different figures of bullfighting art: Verónica, Pase de Pecho, Natural, etc. In the corners we can find four alamares, traditional decorations on a classic Traje de Luces.

Although it's the most popular, Plaza de Toros is not the only Hermès scarf inspired by bullfighting, Toros, by Hugo Grygkar is its predecessor from 1952, this scarf is a real rarity, I'll post more pictures of it in my future review on "The rarest Hermès scarves"

Although bullfighting is a sensitive issue for many people, it's also unquestionable that it has drawn the attention of several celebrities from the world of art, like Ernest Hemingway, Grace Kelly, Ava Gardner, Greta Garbo, Charlton Heston, Orson Welles, Mario Vargas Llosa, Mme and M. Sarkozy, etc.

Let's say hasta luego by now with a display of different color ways of this beautiful H. de Watrigant's design: