Metaphoric Chair.

I am a chair fool.  I love chairs.  I collect chairs.  This chair has haunted me since I first saw it on 1st Dibs.  I  would like to know its story.  Provenance is a good word but I want the story of this chair.  It is listed by David Skinner as "18th Century Corner Metamorphic Chair.  England circa 1770.  A unique 18th century mahogany metamorphic reading chair with detachable book and candle arms".  I spent a few moments considering the term "metaphoric" and decided that unless it meant the chair has mixed periods, I didn't care much why the term was used except as it adds to the romance.

My thoughts were about the lady or gentleman who used the chair in its period.  Perhaps it was sat in by an educated gentleman of class who wore a powdered wig and knee britches.  Fashion was changing during this time and he might have been considering that Ben Franklin had recently appeared in a French court sporting his own unadorned hair.  No wig?  Surely there was some comfort in that trend.

 I much prefer to consider that the chair was used by a young woman, perhaps pursuing some avenue of study.  If so, she might have been dressed like these ladies engaged in needlework.

Reading is more of a solitary pursuit, unless she were reading to someone else in the room.  In my story, though, she is a young lady who has her feet propped on another piece of furniture and she is so completely lost in her novel that she is unaware that wax is dripping from the candle onto her skirts.  How do I know she has her feet propped up?  She has kicked off her shoes!!

Note:  I googled metaphoric chair.  Most of the image results show chairs that can also function as library steps. 

PRUNELLE...

This is a repeat of a post from the old blog with a few edits to make it timely.  Not outdated, I think, since I've seen a lot of purple in design blogs in recent weeks so I brought this back.. 

 

I read a number of home decorating magazines itermittently. It's my business. There was a time when I stacked them up month by month. Would you believe I once had ALL the Victorias ever published? I miss Southern Accents terribly.  I buy Veranda sometimes and wish Elle Decor were more available to me.  Others I pick up sporadically or sometimes a friend passes one on.  I like shopping for magazines from a rack and just will not trust the mailman to deliver one unscathed.

In this brave new internet world we have some wonderful decorating and design blogs - there are so many but I've found some I can trust to offer inspiration regularly.  We'll link to them when we can. Two years ago there was a piece on The Peak of Chic about colors and how their names are more interesting in French than in English. The color being discussed was called prunelle by some famous designer. Purple. Brownish purple. The color doesn't sound any more appetizing than it's namesake but it is a fantastic design color for upholstery or accents. I would love to do a room with dove grey walls and shades of grey, prunelle and yellow in upholstery and accents.  Perhaps red.  I think a rich bullfight red and prunelle would be luscious next to each other.  It is a well known decorator maxim that every room should have a dot of red or black.   Notice I didn't say "pop".  I don't want anything to "pop" in my rooms.  I'm bored with the use of the word in fashion and decorating. 

Would I do the walls of a room in prunelle? Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe.  Is it a new color or a new name?  In the same evening I browsed some clothing catalogs and found that JJill knew about prunella since there were at least six items in the online outlet close to that color. Come to think of it, I have an old and worn Life Is Good t-shirt that is faded prunella. I knew I liked that color.  Don't go looking at JJill now.  Remember I first wrote this post in 2009. 

The photo above is of Italian prunes and the one shiny one is the best exemplification of the color I could find. Isn't it rich??

~ Sami