Doris Duke, the Lucky Strike cigarette heiress, once deemed the richest woman in the USA in many ways had been a Renaissance figure, she used her fortune to endow academic and charitable institutions on a stunning scale, but her wealth did not bring her true love. Surprise, surprise. I researched her life after I received an invitation from a client to an auction of furnishings from some of her properties. For a quick introduction to an extraordinary life, Hugo Vickers' elegant obituary of Duke in The Independent will inform and entertain you.
Re-reading the auction catalogue, I still had mixed feelings and felt intrusive going through her possessions with a critical eye. Her domestic taste was eclectic and uncertain. I imagine she was well advised by decorators like Tony Duquette, but no money in the world can give you that je ne sais quoi.
I am not saying that there were not many interesting pieces at this auction. Alas, her collection of antiquarian books and Asian art had already been actioned off by Millea Bros.
Here then, is the one that got away (just what I needed)-
Lot 846 - James Buchanan Duke's horse-drawn buggy
8 comments:
Darn, and I have just the horse for this. Just as old, just as...;-)
I should have known!
We would have made a handsome pair traveling along PCH in this.LOL
Just how does one acquire that je ne sais quoi? (If one has to ask...)
The idea of a collector's uncertainty caught me. As an artist (former and still) certainty of one's own taste is taken for granted, and it's understood that one's own je ne sais quoi is not necessarily anyone else's demi-tasse de thé.
But, from association with people who actually have the means with which to indulge nearly every whim, the abundance choice does present a problem and in all most every case leads to uncertainty (and hence the need for experts and a qualified audience).
That, to me, is the objectivization-commoditization of art, reducing art to a status cipher... better to have less and remain in possession of one's individuality, since therein lies the only certainty.
je ne sais quoi= 'I don't know what'. That certain something!…
Your observation is spot on, as always. I was alluding to, in this instance, the great breathtaking collections bought with unimaginable wealth put together artificially, gathered indiscriminently, lumped together, out of place. I felt this strongest in Peggy Guggenheim's Palazzo Venier dei Leoni. Put together artificially.
…here is an excerpt from a post I did sometime ago perhaps it speaks clearer.
“Nothing was contrived or collected with the intent to impress. No museum like order or display. You just lived there. The beauty of Monplaisir was used every day.”
Ah, I love that quote. That is as it it should be: art as the soul bridge between the material and the etherial, without artifice or self-consciousness...
Yes, exactly.
(Laughing!) Almost. Less etherial, more ethereal. Cheers Lady E!
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