Artemisia Inc

We have two new pillows just added to the collection today! Gorgeous and priced just right for Mother's Day gifting.

Kravet Bronze Chenille Tiger

The visionary life of French antiquarian and decorator Madeleine Castaing is one of remarkable distinction. Against the beat of moderism in the early and mid-twentieth century, she honed a style uniquely hers, a fine blend of Neoclassicism, Proustian Romanticism, and pure ingenuity. Along with her adored husband Marcellin they were pillars at the center of the artistic community of Montparnasse and became intimate friends of such avant-garde artists and writers as André Derain, Fernand Léger, Jean Cocteau, Pablo Picasso, Blaise Cendrars, and especially Soutine, who painted the below portrait after 6 sittings with Madeleine. He painted two others that are known and he so much loved her country house in Leves that he had a room all his own there. In the portrait above Soutine captures her regal chic sophistication and commanding presence, notwithstanding her seemingly vulnerable impatience.

Her designs reveal an eccentric and magical mind, unrelenting, and endlessly envisioning and re-envisioning. She worked well into her eighties and died in 1992 at age 98. Her revolutionary, glamorous, and whimsical legacy is now referred to as style Castaing, and makes reference to her iconic designs that feature leopard carpeting, opaline blue "coolie" lampshades, and an eccentric mix of Neoclassical furnishings ranging from the English Regency to Napoleon III.

Madeleine Castaing has given us endless inspiration here at Artemisia Inc, so it is only fitting and that we pay tribute to her work below, most especially her love affair with her use of leopard print.

The love of her life was her country home in Leves. The house captured her imagination as a child and she purchased it many years later. She recalls, "Just after we got married, I talked to my husband about it and we decided to go back to those places from my childhood. We climbed over the wall. I was tremendously disappointed: the property was a wasteland taken over by brambles. But there was an abandoned house with a tree growing through the roof. I decided that I would own that house; I wanted it with all my might."

If you're interested in learning and seeing more, Emily Evans Eerdmans has a wonderful book "The World of Madeleine Castaing" you should check out.

Art Inspiration at Artemisia