ELIZABETH CRAVEN AND HER WORLD

I spent more than a year researching for my book on Sophie de Tott, the artist who was a close associate of Elizabeth Craven. She lived at Brandenburgh House at one time and you could almost say she was part of the family. One of the things I did was to visit Paris and look at some of the places where she lived. In particular I wanted to see the Hotel de Tessé, the home of the Comte and Comtesse de Tessé who adopted Sophie in 1780. Luckily it is still there despite Revolutions and major re-development over more than two hundred years. At one time it was used as a government building, and now it has been turned into private apartments. It is a very handsome neo-classical building on the banks of the Seine right opposite the Louvre. When you looked out of the front windows this is what you saw:- It is an unrivalled view. Paris doesn't get any better than this. In this house Mme de Tessé held her salon where she received Voltaire, Beaumarchais, André Chenier, the Abbé G...

Sophie de Tott by Vigée-Lebrun Of all the emigrés who were welcomed to Brandenburgh House by Elizabeth Craven in the aftermath of the French Revolution, none was more remarkable than Sophie de Tott. She was an artist who exhibited her paintings at the British Royal Academy and when she came to stay at Brandenburgh House she painted portraits of Elizabeth's second husband the Margrave of Anspach and her son Keppel. Madame de Tott had once lived in Paris among the highest French aristocracy. As a girl she had been adopted by a rich Countess and lived in the heart of the capital, meeting all the leading intellectuals and enjoying the most cultivated salons. Laudatory poems had been written about her. She had known Louis XVI, Marie Antoinette, Lafayette, Madame de Stael and Elisabeth Vigée-Lebrun who painted this oval portrait of her in 1786. Since fleeing from Paris in the Revolution of 1789 she had lived in Switzerland and Germany, earning a living with her paintbrush. When...