Bibelotslondon Ltd is a UK registered company based in London Bridge dealing in ephemera and curiosities from Britain and around the world. Our diverse inventory is carefully chosen and constantly evolving. We work very hard to offer the highest quality works at competitive prices. Our inventory is listed online, and we strive to keep our website completely up to date, so our customers can easily check availability. We believe in offering clients items that are unique and rare for aficionados of the antique and collector's world. Bibelot is a late nineteenth century word derived from the French word bel 'beautiful', meaning a small item of beauty, curiosity or interest. The word ephemera is derived from the sixteenth century Greek word ephmera meaning a printed or hand written paper not meant to be retained for a long period of time.
Fine antique signed and hand painted Christmas card from Sir Francis Cyril Rose 4th Baronet of the Montreal Roses (1909-1979) sent to Princess Nina Mdvini (1901-1987). It is accompanied by the original envelope and also a signed exhibition catalogue leaflet for 1967 with a drawing of a rose.
The Mdivani is a Georgian family. In the West, the best known bearers of this name were the children of General Zakhari Mdivani (1867-1933) and his wife, Elizabeth Viktorovna Sabalewska (1884-1922). The five siblings fled to Paris after the Soviet invasion of Georgia in 1921, and became known as the "Marrying Mdivanis", as they all married into wealth and fame. Nina who was married to Charles Henry Huberich, a Stanford professor and lawyer, from 15 July 1925 until their divorce on 19 May 1936. On 18 August 1936 she married Denis Conan Doyle, a son of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. After Denis's death on 9 March 1955, she married Anthony Harwood, a secretary to Denis Conan Doyle
Rose was an English painter vigorously championed by Gertrude Stein. His wife Frederica, Lady Rose (1910-2002) became a well known travel writer, notably on Corsica, under the name of Dorothy Carrington.
Rose was born in England and took up residence as an expatriate in Paris between 1929 and 1936, where he trained under Francis Picabia and Jose Maria Sert. Francis Rose got his beginning as a set painter for Diaghilev's Ballets Russe. He occasionally collaborated in his work with another English painter, and his sometime lover, Christopher Wood.
In France, Rose became an intimate acquaintance of Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas, the former helping to launch his painting career by commissioning several of his works (most notably a portrait of herself) for her own notable art collection. He also worked as an illustrator for a cookbook by Toklas, The Alice B. Toklas Cookbook.
Toklas was greatly enthusiastic about Rose's marriage to "Frederica" (Carrington), noting that the marriage had done Rose "a world of good." However, Rose was a noted homosexual and the marriage eventually foundered; they divorced in 1966. Rose spent his final years in penury, helped along by friends, among them Cecil Beaton. Some of Rose's paintings today form part of the Yale University Art Gallery (Stein-Toklas collection) and the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco. In 1961, he published a memoir, Saying Life.
Photos form part of the description
Envelope Size: 29 x 12.5 cm approx
