{"id":2914,"date":"2008-03-13T01:30:36","date_gmt":"2008-03-13T01:30:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/2008\/03\/13\/the-divine-sarah\/"},"modified":"2012-09-30T01:52:43","modified_gmt":"2012-09-30T00:52:43","slug":"the-divine-sarah","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/2008\/03\/13\/the-divine-sarah\/","title":{"rendered":"The Divine Sarah"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"bernhardt11.jpg\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Sarah Bernhardt by Jean-L\u00e9on G\u00e9r\u00f4me (1895).<\/em><\/p>\n

You can’t be a fin de si\u00e8cle<\/em> fetishist and not develop a fascination with actress Sarah Bernhardt, a woman who was muse to many of the era’s finest artists, most notably Alphonse Mucha<\/a>, who she employed as her official designer. Mucha’s marvellous posters are endlessly popular, of course; less well-known is the sculpture by academic painter and Orientalist Jean-L\u00e9on G\u00e9r\u00f4me<\/a>, a rare three-dimensional work inspired by the actress.<\/p>\n

\"bernhardt2.jpg\"<\/p>\n

Inkwell by Sarah Bernhardt (1880). <\/em><\/p>\n

Even less well-known is Ms Bernhardt’s own design for a curious bat-winged inkwell. I’ve read of her having created other sculptural works but so far this is the only one I’ve seen a picture of. With something as decadent as this you’d really have to use peacock quills for pens, wouldn’t you?<\/p>\n

\"bernhardt4.jpg\"<\/p>\n

\"bernhardt3.jpg\"<\/p>\n

Bracelet by Alphonse Mucha & Georges Fouquet (1899).<\/em><\/p>\n

And in a similar sinister vein to the inkwell there’s this serpentine bracelet and ring, a superb one-off, designed by Mucha and crafted by the jeweller Fouquet. After seeing works such as this and the Lalique dragonfly<\/a> (which Ms Bernhardt once wore), most other jewellery seems timid and unadventurous in comparison.<\/p>\n

Update:<\/strong> Added another photo of the inkwell.<\/p>\n

Previously on { feuilleton }
\n\u2022 The art of Philippe Wolfers, 1858\u20131929<\/a>
\n\u2022 Lalique\u2019s dragonflies<\/a>
\n\u2022 Lucien Gaillard<\/a>
\n\u2022 Smoke<\/a>
\n\u2022 The Masks of Medusa<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sarah Bernhardt by Jean-L\u00e9on G\u00e9r\u00f4me (1895). You can’t be a fin de si\u00e8cle fetishist and not develop a fascination with actress Sarah Bernhardt, a woman who was muse to many of the era’s finest artists, most notably Alphonse Mucha, who she employed as her official designer. Mucha’s marvellous posters are endlessly popular, of course; less … Continue reading “The Divine Sarah”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[58,2,4,57,41,46],"tags":[905,136,964,7362,444,2349,963],"class_list":["post-2914","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-art-nouveau","category-art","category-design","category-fashion","category-sculpture","category-theatre","tag-alphonse-mucha","tag-fin-de-siecle","tag-georges-fouquet","tag-jean-leon-gerome","tag-peacocks","tag-philippe-wolfers","tag-sarah-bernhardt"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pq7rV-L0","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2914","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2914"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2914\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2914"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2914"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2914"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}