Books about Vicomte from Amazon.com

Countess Cristina de Vogüé invites us into the splendor of her home at Château Vaux-le-Vicomte and divulges sixty-three recipes from her exclusive collection. Personally selected from family recipe books, passed along by close friends, or inspired by her international travels, these decadent desserts are the perfect finale to any meal. From Lady Cawdor’s Orange Soufflé to Floating Island with Pink Pralines and Green Tea Custard, they are suited for every occasion, from afternoon tea to holiday feasts.The book opens with the history of the château, whose striking architecture and idyllic gardens were the inspiration for Versailles. Stunning original photography showcases the finished desserts in the atmospheric interiors and shaded gardens of Vaux-le-Vicomte, featuring the rich details that define French style—brocade upholstery, crisp linens, crystal tableware, and silver place settings..
Price: $28.19 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Versailles has long been the consummate symbol of Louis XIV's distinct political and aesthetic influence, the epicenter of French national identity and classical style. From furniture and fashions to gardens and typefaces, the objects that define style underwent dramatic innovation during the very decade of Versailles's creation. In all this, the creation of Versailles has been represented as providing a foundational moment for both modern political subjectivity and French cultural hegemony.

Before Louis started work on Versailles, however, there was another center of innovation: his finance minister, Nicolas Fouquet's château Vaux-le-Vicomte. Vaux was, for a few short years, the country's artistic capital, It was at Vaux, that, after years of civil war and division, Fouquet modeled a unified France by assembling the country's most important thinkers, writers, and artists at an artistic court that privileged liberal rule, the autonomy of the individual, and harmonious collaboration among formerly divided factions. Yet within a few months of Vaux's completion, the king had Fouquet jailed and recruited the minister's stable of writers, artists, weavers, and gardeners to Versailles.

Claire Goldstein shows how the connection between Vaux and Versailles is at the heart of classical style, a connection made by political repression, theft, and erasure. Goldstein retraces the unacknowledged roots of Versailles in Fouquet's short-lived experiment, and destabilizes any easy understanding of the court of the Sun King as the origin of French national style. Recounting how trees and tapestries, gardeners and writers were sometimes forcibly removed from one palace to the other--and how their meanings were transformed in the process--she discovers in the apogee of classicism the remnants of a repressed cultural vision.

.
Price: $50.92 [Notify me when price goes down.]