Flowery Rococo Portraits

Award winning Australian artist and photographer Alexia Sinclair's work is a feast for the eye. Dark and seductive, it blends notions of fashion with symbolism and baroque visuals. Her latest collection - Rococo - shows off all the popular attributes from the time period with the same name. Here we find Madame de Pompadour's porcelain flowers, Madame du Barry's diamond necklace, Marie Antoinette's muslin chemise, and the Duchess of Devonshire's towering plumes - all set against a backdrop of thousands of real flowers that were brought into the studio. In the photo with silk flowers, each flower had to be hand-painted to resemble white porcelain... I love how some photographers still use the real deal, although it requires a lot of work, than just rely on Photoshop! Here are the photos from the series. Enjoy...

Porcelain Petals

The Grove Of Venus

The Secret Garden

Perfumier's Rose

Delphinium

Fields Of Lavender

The Labyrinth

The Perfumed Garden

Bed Of Roses

The Poetry Of Flowers

The Edible Garden

Heralds Of Spring

To see more of Alexia Sinclair's work, you can always visit her website here!

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Fabergé Friday

Summer is here, and flowers are everywhere! Unfortunately they will all wither and die too soon... But some flowers bloom forever. Like this Convolvulus by Fabergé for example. It was made around the year 1900!

The flowers are made of enameled gold, with centers of rose-cut diamonds, gold stems, and leaves of nephrite. The plant sits in a bowenite trough, and it's dimensions are 4.4'' x 2.6'' x 1'' (11.1 x 6.5 x 2.5 cm). In 1908 it was bought by Vita Sackville-West from Fabergé's London branch. After that it was owned by Sir Bernard Eckstein, who sold it at Sotheby's on February 8, 1949. It was subsequently presented by the royal family to Queen Mary for her birthday on May 26 that same year. It is now part of the Royal Collection. 

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Fabergé Friday

The snow is melting away, and I hope we won't get any more of it now... But in the wait of seeing real flowers popping up through the ground, here are some field daisies by Fabergé! They were made by workmaster Henrik Wigström in 1908.

The heads of the four daisies are made of opaque white, pale pink and translucent green enamel. In the center of each flower sits a bronze-foiled rose-cut diamond. The stalks are made of green gold, and the leaves of nephrite. The plant sits in a silver enameled terracotta flower pot with simulated soil. It was acquired by Queen Alexandra, consort of King Edward VII, and can now be found in the Royal Collection.

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