Eye Candy

A splendid miniature eye portrait from the Victoria and Albert Museum, with a diamond teardrop,
via Tail of the Yak.

In the late 18th and early 19th centuries, miniature eye portraits were all the rage. This was after the late 17th century rage for miniature portraits of any kind. They were painted most often using watercolor or gouache, on a substrate of ivory or parchment, then set into a bit of jewelry- a pin or pendant.
In Victorian times the eye portrait was often a piece of mourning jewelry, but the origin of this form was as a token of love.
I have had, for rather a long time, an obsession with eyes, used as symbols in my paintings. So naturally I am fascinated with these tiny symbolic paintings, the lover's eyes.

an assortment of lover's eyes

According to The Art of Mourning:
"Eye portraits are considered to have their genesis in the late 18th Century when the Prince of Wales (to become George IV) wanted to exchange a token of love with the Catholic widow (of Edward Weld who died 3 months into the marriage) Maria Fitzherbert. The court denounced the romance as unacceptable, though a court miniaturist developed the idea of painting the eye and the surrounding facial region as a way of keeping anonymity. The pair were married on December 15, 1785, but this was considered invalid by the Royal Marriages Act because it had not been approved by George III, but Fitzherbert’s Catholic persuasion would have tainted any chance of approval. Maria’s eye portrait was worn by George under his lapel in a locket as a memento of her love. This was the catalyst that began the popularity of lover’s eyes. From its inception, the very nature of wearing the eye is a personal one and a statement of love by the wearer. Not having marks of identification, the wearer and the piece are intrinsically linked, rather than a jewellery [sic] item which can exist without the necessity of the wearer."

I'd love to be a collector of these, or to have just one of them. Perhaps I will paint one of or for my own best beloved, as a follow-up to the maxi-eye portraits I painted a few years ago, of Erling Wold, myself, and our "adopted" daughter Laura Bohn.

Eye portraits of Erling Wold, eye self-portrait, and Laura Bohn, at 250% of life size, oil on masonite.




Treasuring the Gaze more about Georgian lover's eye portraits.
Check out the highly enviable collection of Cathy Gordon
Oeil en miniature by Le Divan Fumoir Bohémien
Even more lover's eyes from Candice Hern

The Art of Mourning more about Victorian mourning jewelry
Interested in collecting? Antiques Roadshow has some tips.

Lynne Rutter Murals & Decorative Painting

Chinoiserie at Decorati

My Chinoiserie Powder Room is now featured in the "Style Guide" of Decorati's new on-line magazine Decorati Access.

Decorati is a site for locating furnishings for interior décor, and includes a large number of designer profiles, making it a great resource for both designers and design clients.

2002 San Francisco Decorator Showcase. photo by David Papas

Lynne Rutter Murals & Decorative Painting

Landhaus Hexagonal Ceiling

Recently I completed a project three or more years in the making,
for a wonderful home in Orinda, California, built in the style of a Landhaus-Villa, combining elements from both Italian and Austrian hunting lodges, and detailed with custom polychromed ironwork, and antique handmade bricks stamped with the Hapsburg crest.

I was commissioned to design an ornamental painted ceiling for this fantastic hexagonal shaped room!

detail of the handpainted Florentine ceiling border

My patrons love the painted ornament of renaissance Italy as much as I do, so for its principal border element I took inspiration from the Basilica of Santa Croce in Florence. This element was adapted and hand-painted 66 times - a natural, hexagonal number, also a sphenic number, adding a mathematical stability and a sense of architectural symmetry to a slightly off-center space.

before- an unfinished white ceiling in a room with great bones...

after - 22karat gold leaf stars and accents glitter in a colorful ceiling from which grows a polychrome iron chandelier.

more details to follow.... stay tuned

Lynne Rutter Murals & Decorative Painting

Summertime

Labor Day - a day arbitrarily marked as the end of Summer. White pants? what about them? For San Francisco, it's the beginning of the Indian Summer, the warm big sister to those halcyon days to which we look forward all the year.

Balinese temple umbrella on my patio,
photo by Lynne Rutter, August 2008