FROM MEDICI TO BOURBON - Newport Mansions

artist’s only commissioned works in America. 101 Baudry’s oeuvre would have been
known to the Vanderbilts from his recently completed decorative cycle in the foyer of
the Paris Opera (1874). 102
In volume, the social function of the salon precluded a more academically-
scaled period room but, at 38 feet by 33 feet, the requisite alterations allowed the
architect to address all important issues of light, ventilation and circulation,
accommodated by large pocket doors and bay windows. 103 These contemporary
touches were not thought to detract from the overall ‘period’ atmosphere; nor did the
revival style furnishings. 104 The spirit of French fashion and history was adapted to
the modern American exigencies of comfort and function. Oversize, tapestried
bergères, fauteuils and canapés by Allard jostled lion and tiger skin rugs and potted
palms. Seen in original photographs against the salon boiseries, were the Riesener
commode and secretary, ironically somewhat un-architectural in the interior
architecture designed to promote them. The Louis XVI secrétaire breaks the low
vertical alignment of the furniture about the room by surpassing the height of the
Régence dado panel and projecting into the ground of the Boreas and Orithyia
tapestry.
That Mrs. Vanderbilt chose a transitional Régence-Louis XV architectural
backdrop rather than a neo-classical theme for her prized Marie Antoinette furniture
101
The Archives of the Preservation Society of Newport County, A letter from Paul Baudry to
Cornelius Vanderbilt, II, c. 1883.
102
It may be some indication of the artist’s popularity but also perhaps of a growing respect abroad for
the Vanderbilt commissions that the duc d’Aumale ordered a very similar work in scale and theme,
L’Enlèvement de Psyché from Baudry in 1884 for installation at the château de Chantilly (Gérard
Fontaine, L’Opéra de Charles Garnier, Paris, 2004, p. 173). The second Vanderbilt Baudry was
installed in the dining room of ‘The Breakers’, Newport in 1895.
103
Bruno Pons, French Period Rooms 1650-1800, Editions Faton, Dijon, 1995, p. 103.
104 Ibid, p. 155.
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