by Clara Greenleaf Perry
In Mary DeForest Denny’s 1921 diary, she wrote of a journey to France with a good friend, artist Clara Greenleaf Perry. It was a trip filled with experiences: outdoor cafe dining, sight seeing, French language lessons, conversations with fellow artists, and most importantly, a visit to the Chateau of Lafayette–the “Hero of two worlds”– America and France. In this episode you will get to hear some of Mary’s entries (mostly to do with the time spent at the Chateau) and the important work being done there to care for children. Many of whom were orphaned during WW 1. We also tell you a bit about the Marquis de Lafayette and finally, an interview with Stephanie Dray, the best selling author of a novel entitled “The Women of Chateau Lafayette”. Interestingly, this historical fiction novel mentions several of the women our diary’s author was friends with and visited while she and Clara were on this trip–a first for Sally in her years of research!
MEET OUR THREE MAIN CHARACTERS
Mary DeForest Denny
Madame Louise Marie LeVerrier – Portrait Painted by Clara Greenleaf Perry
Example Pages From Mary’s Diary
SOME OF THE OTHER ARTISTS ON THE TRIP WITH MARY
Elizabeth Saltonstall (born Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts, July 26, 1900; died there May 10, 1990) was an American artist who used stone lithography & painting to depict the natural world, particularly that of her summer home of Nantucket. She studied at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts under William Merritt Chase & later studied lithography in Maine with Stow Wengenroth. In 1922 she came to Nantucket to study with painter Frank Swift Chase, and she spent all but one summer after that on the island. Saltonstall taught painting to girls at Milton Academy for 37 years, retiring in 1965. Saltonstall became known for her lithographs of flowers, shells, mushrooms, and other objects, as well as for her landscapes. She had exhibits at the Brooklyn Museum, the National Academy of Design, the Carnegie Institute, and the National Association of Women Artists. Works by her are in the collection of the National Gallery of Art. She was an important member of the Nantucket art colony, a founding member of the Artists Association of Nantucket, the Boston Society of Independent Artists, and the Boston Printmakers. On a very historical note; Theodore Roosevelt had a longstanding relationship with the Saltonstall family.
Cecilia Beaux. On the 15th of September she talks about having lunch with this woman at the restaurant Les Marinrers. Eliza Cecilia Beaux (May 1, 1855 – September 17, 1942) was an American artist and the first woman to teach art at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. Known for her elegant and sensitive portraits of friends, relatives, and Gilded Age patrons, Beaux painted many famous subjects including First Lady Edith Roosevelt, Admiral Sir David Beatty and Georges Clemenceau.
Marion Monks Chase (1874-1957) Like many Boston artists, Marion Monks Chase received a traditional education in the fine arts from the Boston Museum of Fine Art School and also from private instructors in Paris. She studied under George Noyes, Henry Hunt Clark and André Lhote, but soon diverted from these instructors’ methods and styles for a more modern approach to watercolor. During the 1920s, she exhibited with the “Boston Five,” a group of similarly trained artists who were brought together by their common support for modernist ideas. In a group including Charles Hopkinson, Charles Hovey Pepper, Harley Perkins and Carl Cutler, Chase was the only female member and was considered the most modern and primitive, working with bold compositions and colors. Charles Hovey Pepper responded to Chase’s 1923 exhibition at the Kilgore Gallery in New York, describing her works as “unweaseled…paintings which say ‘Here I stand, Take it or leave it.”
Bayonet Trench the Place Mary Visited on Her Way to the Chateau
Marie-Joseph Paul Yves Roch Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette
CHATEAU DE CHAVANIAC LAFAYETTE – THEN & NOW
The Chateau Before the Renovations in the early 1900’s
The Orphaned Children Outside the Chateau – Early 1900’s
Chateau Lafayette Now, From the Cult Rez-Vous Website
Many of the photos above came from a book we received from the Chateau Lafayette Museum. I want to thank Claire Pratviel Régisseuse du château de Chavaniac-Lafayette. You were so wonderful in helping us out and sending us all the information we needed.
AND LAST BUT NOT LEAST!!!
To Hear This Episode:
Diary Discoveries 