MOMENTS (DRESS)

LONDON.- Christie's will offer style icon Elizabeth Taylor's first wedding dress, designed by the legendary costume designer Helen Rose, in the sale of Pop Culture on 26 June 2013 (estimate: £30,000 – 50,000). Worn for Taylor's wedding to Conrad “Nicky” Hilton, Jr. in 1950, the dress symbolises one of the most iconic off-screen moments of "Golden Age Hollywood‟. At this time, 18 year old Elizabeth was already a veteran actress and celebrated star and was just a year away from her Oscar-nominated performance in Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer's A Place in the Sun (1951). The Hollywood “wedding of weddings” was the social event of the year. MGM boasted that “more stars than there are in heaven” attended, with the 700 guests representing the A-list of Old Hollywood: Greer Garson, Gene Kelly, Ginger Rogers, Fred Astaire, Esther Williams, and Van Johnson were among the many stars who came to congratulate the bride. Guests also included co-stars Spencer Tracy and Joan Bennett from Father of the Bride (1950), which MGM marketed and skillfully scheduled for release mere weeks after the wedding. The sale of this wedding dress – designed for this celebrated film star, fashion icon and humanitarian – provides a once in a lifetime opportunity for collectors and institutions around the world. The star of this wedding was the dress. A gift from MGM and designed by their legendary costume designer Helen Rose, Elizabeth Taylor's first wedding dress was - and still is - so extraordinary that photographs of it have appeared all over the world; from newspapers and tabloids to LIFE magazine. With its twenty five yards of shell-white satin embellished with bugle beads and seed pearls, trailed by a fifteen-yards of satin train, it is exactly the kind of elegant design for which Helen Rose was known.

Everything about this gown was custom designed with Elizabeth Taylor's voluptuous figure in mind; a built-in corset allowed the dress to be tightly cinched in at the waist and the veil's ten yards of shimmering silk net was carefully considered and attached to a pearl-covered Juliet cap in order to float around Elizabeth. The project was so extensive and was such a priority at MGM that more than fifteen people worked full-time for between two and three months straight on it. Helen Rose was known for always achieving Louis B. Mayer's one standing order to “just make them look beautiful” and treated everyone with great respect. She had extremely good relationships with all of her colleagues and clients and often designed their off-screen wardrobes, frequently including their wedding gowns. Perhaps her most famous was Grace Kelly's when she became the Princess of Monaco, a design that recently inspired the Duchess of Cambridge's wedding dress designed by Sarah Burton for Alexander McQueen. Few wedding dresses have as deep a historical connection to both film and fashion as this; it's an example of a legendary designer and star working together in perfect harmony and the result is something that has made a lasting impact on fashion. Though the Taylor-Hilton marriage would quickly end, Elizabeth's appreciation of this dress lived on.

Moments: The Kinks (Link)

Chance

Chance has played such a strong role in my life, that I feel no amazement when I reflect upon the remarkable manner in which it presided over my birth.  One could say that this is everyone’s story.   But not everyone has the opportunity to tell their story.

          And if everyone did, there would be no great harm in that.  Each person’s experience is the treasure of all.

KEY:

Text:  Gerard de Nerval,  Walks and Memories IV (Juvenalia)(1854), (trans. Marc Lowenthal), published in Aurelia and Other Writings, Boston, Exact Change,  1996.

Picture 1:   Ellsworth Kelly, ‘Un coup de dés jamais n’abolira le hasard (A Throw of the Dice Will Never Abolish Chance)’, New York Limited Editions Club, 1992.

Picture 2:  Mr. and Mrs. Mike Todd and Michael and Christopher Wilding. This picture was taken on my fourth birthday.

“She Really Digs The Frans Hals”: Elizabeth Taylor-owned Dutch master Frans Hals Painting Coming to New York Auction

 

The early 1630s painting by Dutch master Frans Hals titled, "Portrait of a Man." The portrait that once hung over the fireplace of Elizabeth Taylor's Bel Air home - and only recently reattributed to Hals - is expected to fetch up to $1 million at auction Wednesday, Jan 25, 2012, at Christie's in New York. AP Photo/Christie's.

 

By: Ula Ilnytzky, Associated Press

NEW YORK (AP).-

A 17th century portrait that once hung over the fireplace of Elizabeth Taylor's Bel Air home — and only recently reattributed to the Dutch master Frans Hals — is expected to fetch up to $1 million at auction.

    "Portrait of a Man," painted in the early 1630s, is being offered at Christie's sale of Old Masters on Wednesday.

    A Hals scholar, Seymour Slive, had listed the painting as a "doubtful" Hals in a 1974 catalog, based on a black and white photo of the work.

    After Taylor hung it in her home in the 1950s, "It academically fell off the radar," said Nicholas Hall, head of Christie's Old Master paintings.

    But last summer, Christie's and Pieter Biesboer, the retired curator of Old Master paintings at the Frans Hals Museum in Holland, confirmed the work was by Hals.

    "From 20 yards away one could tell that it was an utterly authentic Hals, a totally characteristic picture with all the bravura, brushwork ... the very expressive face," Hall said in telephone interview.

    "On top of everything, there's a signature — 'FH' just to the right of the figure itself," he added.

    Biesboer "absolutely had no hesitation in attributing it to Hals," Hall said.

    Before its renewed reattribution, the painting had been estimated to sell for $70,000 to $100,000 on Wednesday. Its current estimate is $700,000 to $1 million.

    The painting, showing a gentleman in a black coat and white collar with his hands folded, came into Taylor's possession in the 1950s, soon after her art dealer father, Francis Taylor, acquired and gave it to her.

    She hung it over the fireplace in the living room of her California home, near an iconic lithograph portrait of herself by Andy Warhol that sold at Christie's in December for $662,500.

    "Portrait of a Man" was the only Old Master she owned, said Hall.

    She was very fond of it. In 1956, while recuperating from back surgery at New York Presbyterian Medical Center, she had her hospital room decorated with "Portrait of a Man" and several other paintings, including a Renoir and Monet.

    "She really digs the Frans Hals," her husband, Mike Todd, told reporters at the time.

    Other paintings from Taylor's collection will be sold by Christie's in London on Feb. 7-8.

    In December, the auction house sold her collection of jewelry, fashion and memorabilia. Among the highlights was a pearl necklace that sold for $11.8 million.

    The screen and stage icon died in March at age 79. 

 

Elizabeth Taylor, left, with her art dealer father Francis Taylor and mother Sara

NOTE:  Happening upon this item this morning was a happy surprise.  The Frans Hals painting is really terrific and the re-attribution story is surprising and splendid.  It's rather nice to think about Elizabeth Taylor loving the painting for itself, even when its connection with Hals was considered doubtful.  Some other impressive works in her collection are pictured Here (link).  

I enjoyed learning of Francis Taylor's friendship with the Welsh artist and Fitzrovian legend Augustus John and reading:  "In a missive marked 25 June 1943,  Francis Taylor wrote to Augustus John: 'We have settled down to living in California and our young daughter is by way of being a movie star, if you see a picture of Lassie Come Home which will be released in September, she is in that.  'Also she may get the lead part in National Velvet. Even if you are not a movie fan see the Lassie picture it is in colour and is beautiful.'"