many places on a saturday

 
taking care of minerva this morning . . 

minerva likes to come say hello, but she doesn't like to be coddled.

this morning i woke and said that i'd like to visit cafe habibti (which i first went to with morgan and ellen in january) and greg woke and said he'd like to visit the met museum . . so we combined the two.

on our way to the bus on lafayette . . 

the museum was very, very busy today!

figuring out which way to go for the special raphael exhibit . .

through the new oceania wing . . 

two canoes from west papua, new guinea . . one is a spirit canoe used for initiation rites:

and the other is a fifty foot long canoe carved from a single tree trunk by chief chinasapitch of asmat, per village in 1961:

the raphael exhibit was so crowded! it was also quite extensive, comprising six or seven rooms with paintings, sketches and tapestries. above is: the virgin and child with the infant saint john the baptist in a landscape, 1509-11, oil on canvas, transferred from wood.

greg admiring the tapestries from madrid . . 

head of an apostle by raphael, 1519-20, black chalk on paper, drawn freehand over pounce marks  -spolvero underdrawing (and i have no idea what that means). 

we then wandered into the asian wing. this is the head of a bodhisattva, northern wei dynasty (386-534) late 5th century, sandstone with traces of pigment. the card states: "this head is reportedly from yungang in the northern shanxi province of china, where caves with colossal buddhist sculptures were constructed under the patronage of turkic-speaking tuoba rulers."

(can you imagine visiting those caves?)

the astor court which we've visited often with the girls . . 

this is the first time i noticed that you can see the clouds through the skylight . . actually, when i first looked up i saw two seagulls flying by.

now we're in nepal, kathmandu valley, with a yaksha relief, made of stone, 8th or 9th century. the yakshas are nature dieties and in buddhism they serve as guardians of the underworld treasures. this piece may have been a caryatid supporting a religious structure such as a shrine or pavilion.

one last figure which was very tall:

from cambodia, pre-angkor period, late 7th - early 8th century, stone, female diety - according to the explanation - probably a representation of the goddess durga in her role as the slayer of the buffalo demon. 

finally . . lunch and dinner rolled into one . . we walked to a diner on madison avenue . . 

and then took the bus home along fifth avenue (stopping in one last time to feed minerva).

friday field trip

 
i visited cafe sabarsky for apple strudel and a coffee with whipped cream before crossing the street to the met museum this morning. (i would like to return for a special exhibit of paintings by the german artist paula modersohn-becker that eva has recommended. i have until september 9th!)

i was there to view the costume exhibit with several knitting friends.

several of the garments were so delicate they were draped flat with very low light. they had a computer generated video of the above ball gown from 1887 (house of worth) in motion which i didn't film as too many people were congregated around it. the dress is silk satin with silk chiffon and gold and metal lace trim. it's embroidered with gold sequins, opalescent and gold glass beads.

a french dress from 1780 - silk taffeta hand painted with wisteria, cherry blossoms and asters.

ivory silk dress from 1878/80, madame martin decalf, hand painted and trimmed with glass beads.

i didn't take a photo of the explanation for this confection . . so i have no idea of its purpose or its materials. it's certainly very pretty.

no photo of the information, but i thought it looked like a monet painting.

the exhibit was actually very cramped and crowded. i believe its final date is drawing near and everyone was trying to see it before it closed. i was relieved to arrive at this room which had more space for everyone. 

it also included beautiful yellow dresses; the earlier ones dyed with weld (reseda luteola, sometimes joined with spurge flax, daphne gnidium) and the later ones dyed with synthetic variants. several dresses were a combination of the natural plants and synthetics.

the color graphs at the bottom show the spectrum of light that each garment absorbs and reflects and allowed the restorers to identify the dyes used for each item and track the transition from natural to synthetic (invented around the mid-nineteenth century).

they had large glass capsules with smell molecules replicated from the garments! i had to try smelling several of them and it wasn't pleasant. the odor was very chemical-like. it gave me a sore throat.

this contains the explanation of how they captured the odors along with descriptions of the smells of each hat or dress that they used as samples. it's interesting to read and i think you need to click on the photo to enlarge it so it's legible.

#7, house of dior, "vilmorin" ensemble, spring/summer 1952

house of dior, "may" ball gown, spring/summer 1953

"white net overlaid with white silk organza embroidered with light green, green, pink and purple silk thread in a pattern of red clovers and grass."

h&m, swedish, light pink polyester chiffon recycled from shoreline plastic waste (!)

on the right: biosequin dress (2023) by stella mccartney - white deadstock (fabric leftover from textile mills production process) silk tulle embroidered with iridescent cellulose sequins (manufactured by radiant matter, british). on the left: algae sequin dress (2021) by phillip lim and charlotte mccurdy (textile manufactured by pyratex, spanish).

this is very interesting to read as it explains how stella mccartney and phillip lim are working with non-plastic alternatives to sequins and trims and describes how the effects of the two above dresses were created.

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a few photos when leaving the museum:

the gift shop is now selling mariebelle chocolates from soho (nyc soho chocolate shop) . . 

very pretty!

walking to a cafe for a bite to eat . . 

my friend's autumn alpine sweater designed by caitlin hunter. the yarn is moondrake spun by spincycle, colorway fairy godmother (the lavender) and ulysse (de rerum natura), colorway fusain. i love the colors.