Despite what my sister may say, it is my considered view that one should only have so many monogrammed sterling frames about the house. So, after adorning your sterling frames with photographs of your great grandparents and grandparents, there are really only two options that remain for the pictures de ta vie – leather frames and tartan frames. (In a future post, I will opine on the best and worst of leather frames.)
Tartan frames are a handsome way to display photos of your nieces and nephews, your parents, your eccentric great aunt, and that certain special someone. I gathered together several tartan frames from around my home for your appreciation. I am particularly fond of the silk Stewart Tartan frame – it includes a meaningful photograph of my mother, my father, and me.
In addition to adding a tartan frame here and there around your home, I also find that leather boxes make a nice addition to any room – I place them throughout my home – perhaps one by itself on a bookshelf with a small painting sitting atop it or three in a small grouping on a table in the living room. I keep spare keys in a leather box by the front door, coins in one in the master bedroom, and matches in one by the fireplace.
I’ve accumulated quite a few over time – my favorites are those with the Florentine gilding - hand made in Florence, certamente. My most recent addition is the mustard colored hexagonal box displayed in the photograph above – I found this little gem tucked into the bottom of my stocking this past Christmas – I had admired it while walking around home furnishings at Bergdorf after lunching at BG one day last autumn. I must admit to being pleased that Santa took notice!
5 comments:
When exactly was teh origin of teh plaid picture frame? My guess is around 1991.
Tartans are nice, and they have been part of the wider Anglo-rooted uppercrust fashion palate since Queen Victoria's times, whether one has a Scottish ancestor or not. I know J. Press sure has promoted the hell out of them since the nineteen fifties, at least. However, in viewing the use of tartans in the home and in dress and with reference to your earlier post about Yale and being a Wasp, I would like to again raise the issue of what being a Wasp is all about to those who toss the term about in in the blogosphere. I was raised an Episcopalean by my mother, and I have direct ancestors who attended Harvard long ago, but that alone doesn't seem to qualify me as a Wasp under the strict definition offered by one of the respondents to your earlier blog. In terms of religion and blood line, both my mother and father were raised protestants and were born with English surnames, with their surnamed ancestors arriving in Virginia and Maryland in 1626 and 1700, respectively. Is this 'Wasp' enough? The fly gets into the ointment, first with my father's mother's ancestors, who were founders of communities in Massachusetts, Connecticut and Long Island in the first half of the 1600s but who merged genetically in the form of an Anglo American male who inturn married a German American female in Chatham, New York, in 1840, who decendended from the union of an early 17th century Dutch settler and a Mohawk Indian. Does this still make my father a Wasp? The same can be asked about my mother, who has a Scottish ancestor that arrived in Virginia at the same time as her surnamed English ancestor, and who has Scotch Irish, French Hugonaut and Southern German ancestors that immigrated to Virginia and the Carolina's in the 18th century. Is she a Wasp? For people whose ancestors have been here for a longtime and who moved away from New England and Virginia, it is often tricky to get caught up in a pure White Anglo Saxon Protestant definition. Winston Churchill and Theodore Roosevelt wouldn't qualify with this rigid a definition [Churchill had a Native American ancestor as well!].
Aug 16, 11:33 am: After reading this para beginning with "Tartans are nice..." I realize that you are extremely WASPy! Dutch and German are still WASPY as the Saxons were their ancestors. You are almost a carbon copy of my heritage...nice to know we Episcopalians are still around.
The Episcopal church is dead.
The Anglican Catholic Church is rising in its place.
Anonymous at 8:48 pm--Correction on that swipe on Episcopalians. It is the ANGLICAN Church in America and NOT the Anglican Catholic Church.
As an Episcopalian, I also have attended the Anglican Church in America and love their older version of the BCP! It is the version we learned at Christ Episcopal Church; Ridgewood, NJ
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