Chocolate Box II

Box Construction - C. Andrako 2010 - 15 x 91/4 x 5

An advertisement for chocolates, circa 1900, was the inspiration for this work which is one of two chocolate boxes I've made.

The ribbons are untied and the lid with attached frame removed.

Chocolate selections create an ever-changing vitrine display.

When my chocolate supply is finished I fill it with these "chocolates". Recognize them? I thought they were chocolates when I was a child. I loved seeing them in the hardware store.



The Marquise de Sevigne'. The Hotel Carnavelet
in Paris - a museum not to be missed - was her home.



Footnote:

Madame de Sevigne', the charming and brilliant 17th century aristocrat, whose letters to her daughter over a thirty year period reveal an entire era, was by no means a chocolatier. She had no say in this enterprise, no more so than Madame de Pompadour did with the bottles of cherries soaked in brandy that bear her name. 



Edmond Rostand in the official uniform of the Academie Francaise.



It was the poet and dramatist, Edmond Rostand, author of Cyrano de Bergerac, who declared a box of chocolates he received from a chocolatier's daughter to be "A La Marquise de Sevigne" and the moniker took. One of his plays was being performed at the Pavillion Sevigne at the Casino de Vichy at the time.

Photos (c) C. Andrako 2011 All Rights Reserved

Sevigne', letters, Rostand via Wiki

The One She Wants

The One She Wants - C. Andrako 1988 - Box Construction - 16 1/8 x 13 1/4 x 6 1/2

The shop of Monsieur Charpentier - shoemaker to the ladies of the court of Versailles.

After trying on dozens of pairs of exquisite shoes, which now surround her, she sees the one she wants.

She is looking at the purple feather shoe displayed in the birdcage.

Mounted paper cutout of French 18th century woman stands amongst a mound of shoes made of antique ribbons and carved heels. There are thirty pairs, which I made in one eight hour sitting. A bird cage hangs from a chain and contains a shoe of purple feathers and seed pearls that is perched on a pedestal. Paper from a copy of L'Illustration lines the birdcage. Two pillars. Panel of dusty blue point d'esprit makes a separation between woman and back of box.

On back wall - three areas framed in boiserie. Middle section has framed print of angels. The cover of a publication from early 1900's - "Character Sketches". Right panel reads, Romance - Fiction. Left panel reads, Poetry - Drama. Pale blue and green birds attached to boiserie. Two antique lace panels inside top and sides. Old, cracked, and discolored frame. Escutcheon on bottom of frame reads - Maison Charpentier - Chausseurs de La Reine. (sic)

 

Sheet Music on back. Dated 1868


Photographs (c) C. Andrako 2011 All Rights Reserved

The Weight of Roses



The Weight of Roses - Box Construction 2005



The creation of this box took place during a very difficult time in my forties when I'd stopped dancing and was facing the unknown. Because of the many things I learned about myself while building this box, it's the piece I consider to be the most personally significant...if not the strangest. 

There wasn't a story; I simply wanted to create a room to house this Commedia dell'arte-inspired figure I'd made years before. I like to work in an unplanned way leaving room for magical accidents to take place and this piece didn't disappoint: it is filled with surprising associations - mostly of a personal nature. The most notable, or magical, came after I'd completed the piece but had yet to attach the frame. I felt it needed three oranges scattered on the floor as if the figure had been juggling in an earlier act. I don't know why I chose oranges, maybe they just seemed the perfect shot of color. Strangely, I happened to have some small oranges that I'd made for another piece I'd been working on. Years after I'd finished this box I discovered that there was a 1761 Commedia dell'arte play by Gozzi titled, "The Three Oranges" - of which the principle scene held further associations that mirrored my feelings at the time:

Tartaglia, after recovering from a long fit of melancholy, goes in quest of the three oranges preserved in the castle of the fairy Creonta. The fairy summons her dog, and tells him to "Go, bite the thief who stole my oranges:" but the dog replies: "Why should I bite him? He gave me plenty to eat, while you have kept me here for months and years, dying of hunger." The fairy then turns to the rope at the well: "Rope, bind the theif who stole my oranges." But the rope answers: "Why should I bind him who hung me in the sun to dry, while you have left me for months and years to moulder in a corner?" Finally, the fairy bids the iron gate of the castle to "crush the thief who stole my oranges." But, says the gate: "Why should I crush him who has oiled me, while you have left me so long to rust?"



Box is covered with black fabric that drapes like stage curtains.





Antique Jet Bead Tassels





A laughing Pierrot holds an escutcheon announcing the name of the acte



French Ebony Cabinet - Windsor Castle

The decor of the room is based on this theater stage set inside an elaborate French ebony cabinet that is in the state apartments in Windsor Castle. Building mine was extremely problematic for me and it's only through sheer determination that I was able to do it at all. Besides the fact that some of the pieces of wood I was using were not equal in size but needed to look as if they were (any others would have changed the feel of the piece) I discovered that I had some sort of spatial difficulty which meant that I had to make a maquette first in paper and cardboard in order to grasp what it was I needed. My brain was often tied in knots...total confusion.

'The Confessions' by Jean-Jacques Rousseau, one of the most influential thinkers of the 18th century, was on my desk. I picked it up and came across three pages in Book Three where he describes the difficulties he experienced while trying to write, converse, or express ideas. I was flabbergasted. Everything he described I had felt, too...especially while working on this piece.

In the passage I put on the back of the box he uses the chaos of a backstage scene at the opera to describe what goes on in his head when he writes and how eventually "all falls into place" and "the long tumult is succeeded by a delightful spectacle."



Rousseau's grave  in the Pantheon. Paris



Photos (c) C. Andrako 2008, 2011 All Rights Reserved. Photo of Rousseau's grave from Wiki. Photo of desk from the book, Extraordinary Furniture, by David Linley, Harry N. Abrams, publisher