The French are passionate about their dogs... I think I adore my dog... I know I do... but not quite in the same way as the French. Look at the 'baby' in this print taking pride of place at the table and being hand fed... Can you imagine my 100kg Apache (thankfully he hasn't gained any more weight) sitting up with us at the dining table being seduced by bite-sized morsels... I am not sure if I am laughing or terrified at the thought...
One of my readers from North Carolina, David Terry, who you may recognise from his charming, funny and very entertaining comments has so generously offered to send you and readers of My French Country Home a printable size file of this gorgeous engraving. All you have to do is click here and follow his lead...
Do you know what I really love most about blogging? It is the chance to meet and make friendships with people from all over the world who share my love of all things French. I wrote a little more about this here today... I am constantly touched by the generosity and thoughtfulness of my readers... I feel as if we are great friends and that we understand each other well. In many cases it is as if we have known each other all our lives and that the physical boundaries are meaningless.
Please visit David Terry Art here to arrange your print...Don't be shy... he is expecting you... I will be having mine printed just as soon as I can... and David... thank you a million times for thinking of us all... xv
P.S from David... a little history behind the print...
"Just for the record? I just got up (6:30 a.m back here in the USA) and was surprised to find that I've received something around twenty emails since last checking before I went to bed at midnight. They're all requests for the dog-print. I'd forgotten about the time-difference between here and France.
As for the "story" behind the print?.....
I first saw it, about 8 years ago, at the fascinating house of my French partner's godmother. Francoise is a fiercely wry, 5' tall (at MOST), retired professor of classical Languages. We always stay at her and her husband's house, out in the countryside beyond Tours, for a few days during our summer and Christmas trips to France. Francoise maintains a large pigeonaire which has always been filled with with fifty or so white doves....terribly stupid, but quite beautiful; I've painted them at least six times over the years.
the house itself is wonderful/fascinating.....a 17th century manoir with an 18th century, 2-story, cottage-like addition (originally a kitchen and housekeeper's quarters) and an enormous, long, 2-story 16th century stone barn which tiny (but wildly energetic) Francoise somehow had moved (don't ask me how) and added on, at a perpendicular angle. She raised three children.....so their bedrooms were upstairs, and they had the entire ground floor for themselves. As Francoise says, locking them in at night, once they turned into teenagers-with-idea-of-their-won, was as simple as locking-in three young heifers.
The print hangs in the large dining-room (the old "cottage"), along with about twenty prints from the same series...all depicting the various follies, eccentricities, and vanities of the haute bourgoisie (the bibliophile, the gourmande, the obese and inept "sportsman",the woman obsessed with shoes or hats, etcetera). they're all quite funny and, for the most part, not in the LEAST outdated in terms of social criticism. La plus ca change?....
Francoise obligingly knocked the original print out of its frame and had the thing deep-scanned for me.
More interestingly/romantically? It's a well-known fact (Francoise's mother knew the woman in question) that the house was inhabited, prior to WWII, by a young woman who was a poet. Her lover was an Englishman...an artist who (to the scandal of the neighborhood) came to live there in the late thirties.
The war came and, of course, he went back to England to join up with the army. On one of the casement panes in the dining-room window, there's a rather large (perhaps 6" by 8") engraving...presumably done with a diamond ring. The engraved poem and it's floral border are dated only a few days after the German invasion of Paris. The woman was evacuating for Bordeaux (I've always relished Adam Gopnik's description of Bordeaux as "the place where French always go to give up"), and she knew that she might never see him again....but that he might, one day, see the poem, even if she were gone. That is, in short, the gist of the poem itself (which she wrote in English for him). She did, eventually and after the war, return...and lived there for many years thereafter. He, however, never did return. She never married.
The story's a bit too romantic for cynical me (or Francoise, for that matter) to believe....but there the engraving (proof) is.
As for these prints? I've given away at least ten (to various friends who, like me, are a bit abashed to admit how thoroughly obsessed they are with their dogs), and folks love them. Be sure to have the print made professionally (Kinko's copy-shop generally isn't up to snuff) at a framers or print-makers. If printed at 10" x 12", the print will be indistinguishable from the original."
"Just for the record? I just got up (6:30 a.m back here in the USA) and was surprised to find that I've received something around twenty emails since last checking before I went to bed at midnight. They're all requests for the dog-print. I'd forgotten about the time-difference between here and France.
As for the "story" behind the print?.....
I first saw it, about 8 years ago, at the fascinating house of my French partner's godmother. Francoise is a fiercely wry, 5' tall (at MOST), retired professor of classical Languages. We always stay at her and her husband's house, out in the countryside beyond Tours, for a few days during our summer and Christmas trips to France. Francoise maintains a large pigeonaire which has always been filled with with fifty or so white doves....terribly stupid, but quite beautiful; I've painted them at least six times over the years.
the house itself is wonderful/fascinating.....a 17th century manoir with an 18th century, 2-story, cottage-like addition (originally a kitchen and housekeeper's quarters) and an enormous, long, 2-story 16th century stone barn which tiny (but wildly energetic) Francoise somehow had moved (don't ask me how) and added on, at a perpendicular angle. She raised three children.....so their bedrooms were upstairs, and they had the entire ground floor for themselves. As Francoise says, locking them in at night, once they turned into teenagers-with-idea-of-their-won, was as simple as locking-in three young heifers.
The print hangs in the large dining-room (the old "cottage"), along with about twenty prints from the same series...all depicting the various follies, eccentricities, and vanities of the haute bourgoisie (the bibliophile, the gourmande, the obese and inept "sportsman",the woman obsessed with shoes or hats, etcetera). they're all quite funny and, for the most part, not in the LEAST outdated in terms of social criticism. La plus ca change?....
Francoise obligingly knocked the original print out of its frame and had the thing deep-scanned for me.
More interestingly/romantically? It's a well-known fact (Francoise's mother knew the woman in question) that the house was inhabited, prior to WWII, by a young woman who was a poet. Her lover was an Englishman...an artist who (to the scandal of the neighborhood) came to live there in the late thirties.
The war came and, of course, he went back to England to join up with the army. On one of the casement panes in the dining-room window, there's a rather large (perhaps 6" by 8") engraving...presumably done with a diamond ring. The engraved poem and it's floral border are dated only a few days after the German invasion of Paris. The woman was evacuating for Bordeaux (I've always relished Adam Gopnik's description of Bordeaux as "the place where French always go to give up"), and she knew that she might never see him again....but that he might, one day, see the poem, even if she were gone. That is, in short, the gist of the poem itself (which she wrote in English for him). She did, eventually and after the war, return...and lived there for many years thereafter. He, however, never did return. She never married.
The story's a bit too romantic for cynical me (or Francoise, for that matter) to believe....but there the engraving (proof) is.
As for these prints? I've given away at least ten (to various friends who, like me, are a bit abashed to admit how thoroughly obsessed they are with their dogs), and folks love them. Be sure to have the print made professionally (Kinko's copy-shop generally isn't up to snuff) at a framers or print-makers. If printed at 10" x 12", the print will be indistinguishable from the original."
Wow Vicki, what a great surprise to be offered this wonderful print. I already contacted David and am looking forward to getting this charming piece framed. Thank you so much for arranging this, I am thrilled!!! ~Jen
ReplyDeleteYour interview with Eye Prefer Paris is delightful. You must miss your daughter in Kenya. Our son has just climbed Mt Kilimanjaro and is now completing some voluntary work at a school in Africa. Fortunately heis not there indefinitely, but I still worry about him!
ReplyDeleteThank you for the contact with David Terry - I've already put in a request for the jpeg.
Warm regards.
Oh too funny, yes I don't think I'll be letting Zahra hop up onto a dining chair anytime soon.
ReplyDeleteHow lovely of David to offer the print ... isn't the maids expression interesting.
I loved the interview.
xxx dj
Oui il est vrai que chez nous le toutou n'est pas qu'un simple animal domestique. Il tient une place similaire à celle d'un enfant et voir plus chez certaine personne seule!
ReplyDeleteJ'adore mes dalmatiens, mais nous avons chacun notre place!... merci pour cette adorable publication...
gros bisous
I know this scene well. Whilst dining at the restaurant at the Lodge at Chambord I asked if my son (aged 8 at the time) could have ice cream with his apple pie. I was advised that it was 'impossible' though meanwhile a little dog sitting at the next table being fed bite size morsels with a fork, - apparently THAT was perfectly fine.... Julie
ReplyDeleteHey Folks,
ReplyDeleteJust for the record? I just got up (6:30 a.m back here in the USA) and was surprised to find that I've received something around twenty emails since last checking before I went to bed at midnight. They're all requests for the dog-print. I'd forgotten about the time-difference between here and France.
As for the "story" behind the print?.....
I first saw it, about 8 years ago, at the fascinating house of my French partner's godmother. Francoise is a fiercely wry, 5' tall (at MOST), retired professor of classical Languages. We always stay at her and her husband's house, out in the countryside beyond Tours, for a few days during our summer and Christmas trips to France. Francoise maintains a large pigeonaire which has always been filled with with fifty or so white doves....terribly stupid, but quite beautiful; I've painted them at least six times over the years.
the house itself is wonderful/fascinating.....a 17th century manoir with an 18th century, 2-story, cottage-like addition (originally a kitchen and housekeeper's quarters) and an enormous, long, 2-story 16th century stone barn which tiny (but wildly energetic) Francoise somehow had moved (don't ask me how) and added on, at a perpendicular angle. She raised three children.....so their bedrooms were upstairs, and they had the entire ground floor for themselves. As Francoise says, locking them in at night, once they turned into teenagers-with-idea-of-their-won, was as simple as locking-in three young heifers.
The print hangs in the large dining-room (the old "cottage"), along with about twenty prints from the same series...all depicting the various follies, eccentricities, and vanities of the haute bourgoisie (the bibliophile, the gourmande, the obese and inept "sportsman",the woman obsessed with shoes or hats, etcetera). they're all quite funny and, for the most part, not in the LEAST outdated in terms of social criticism. La plus ca change?....
Francoise obligingly knocked the original print out of its frame and had the thing deep-scanned for me.
More interestingly/romantically? It's a well-known fact (Francoise's mother knew the woman in question) that the house was inhabited, prior to WWII, by a young woman who was a poet. Her lover was an Englishman...an artist who (to the scandal of the neighborhood) came to live there in the late thirties.
The war came and, of course, he went back to England to join up with the army. On one of the casement panes in the dining-room window, there's a rather large (perhaps 6" by 8") engraving...presumably done with a diamond ring. The engraved poem and it's floral border are dated only a few days after the German invasion of Paris. The woman was evacuating for Bordeaux (I've always relished Adam Gopnik's description of Bordeaux as "the place where French always go to give up"), and she knew that she might never see him again....but that he might, one day, see the poem, even if she were gone. That is, in short, the gist of the poem itself (which she wrote in English for him). She did, eventually and after the war, return...and lived there for many years thereafter. He, however, never did return. She never married.
The story's a bit too romantic for cynical me (or Francoise, for that matter) to believe....but there the engraving (proof) is.
As for these prints? I've given away at least ten (to various friends who, like me, are a bit abashed to admit how thoroughly obsessed they are with their dogs), and folks love them. Be sure to have the print made professionally (Kinko's copy-shop generally isn't up to snuff) at a framers or print-makers. If printed at 10" x 12", the print will be indistinguishable from the original.
Level Best
David Terry
www.davidterryart.com
This print is just too adorable Vicki; I also love the hand-maiden sitting in the corner and watching! Very sweet! Very generous of David!
ReplyDeletexoxo
Karena
Art by Karena
Such a great idea and I went over and gave him my email. I don't feed Daisy at the table but I do feed her grapes and Kiwi which is bad enough. Love the print and thank you for sharing this with us Vicki. Much love XO
ReplyDeleteAdorbs!
ReplyDeleteApache is beautiful.
ReplyDeleteI enlarged the print.
Couldn't stop laughing. That dog looks human..
yvonne
SO fun and charming and so very nice of David. And I totally agree about the amazing people and friendships we make through blogging!!
ReplyDeleteGood Lord....it's 10:30 in the morning, and I've just finished sending off (doing so wasn't that difficult, actually....just keep copying/pasting and hitting "send later") exactly 87 jpegs of the print while I took a shower and walked the dogs.
ReplyDeleteDo you know, Vicki, how many readers you have?????????
Most folks (and, yes, almost all of them female)added a short note (a lot of which stated " I usually just 'lurk', but I want to respond)....and I realized that this has received responses from everywhere EXCEPT Antarctica and South America.
apparently, your blog has fond/constant readers in Japan, Croatia, the further reaches of Canada, Kenya, Capetown, Indonesia, the Carribean (sp?), etcetera...not to mention the preditable France, USA, England, and Australia/New Zealand. If Iwere you, Vicki, I'd be a bit daunted by that.
It is awfully nice though (and I'm being sincere) to consider "Oh, Vicki goes out of her way, practically every day, to write a blog that folks enjoy...and here's something free for everyone...and , so, the good karma just goes around a bit more".
I was (sincerely) pleased to read how many folks who weren't necessarily "canineomaniacs" themselves wanted the print so that they could make a copy/copies for a friend.
As I said?....good karma all around (during some markedly tough financial times for most folks)....and thanks again for your rather obviously invigorating blog.
sincerely
david terry
www.davidterryart.com
Vicki, how lovely and what a nice surprise! Thank you...as always, for sharing with us our love of all things French! Such an adorable print and post!
ReplyDeleteThank you Vicki + David your generosity is beyond the beyond. Isn't this blogging just the best! The print is just beautiful. xxpeggybraswelldesign.com
ReplyDeleteHI Vicki
ReplyDeleteWhat a lovely post you did about David's prints, he is so talented and this offer of a print is very generous. I smiled trying to imagine your 'tiny' dog sitting up on a chair to be fed.
Sharon
x
Quelle Monday bounty! The beautiful print (and very generous offer from David). The captivating stories. I love the etched message with the diamond ring. My grandmother's French friend held me spellbound with many stories about living in occupied France that I completely can 'see' and believe the touching tale.
ReplyDeleteYes, good karma all around. I'm off with a lighter heart and smile. Happy Monday everyone!
ADORE the print and adore you blog!
ReplyDeleteThanks !!!
Hi Vicki, I did teach my huge rottie to eat with a fork and soup from a spoon. Jones isn't quite so well mannered--I just couldn't make him any more foo-foo than he already appears. Mary
ReplyDeleteWow, Vicki-
ReplyDeleteSuch a feast of wonder and delight today on FRENCH ESSENCE.
I love it all.
David story of architecture and redemption and French history is riveting...how divine. I am going to get the print made...professionally.
A note: the title of the print is LA CANINMANIE...which means 'dog mania' or 'dog obsession'...and there is the little poodle at the table and what appears to be his/her 'nanny' politely sitting in the chair nearby.
Pure delight.
cheers, DIANE
www.thestylesaloniste.com/
Love your blog! What a generous offer. Have already contacted David. Your books have a special place in our family room so that anyone and everyone can open them and enjoy! Merci beaucoup!
ReplyDeleteVicki, what a totally adorable print and engaging story. Thank you so much for your thoughtfulness, and to David for his generosity !
ReplyDeleteDear Vicki,
ReplyDeleteYou have such a lovely blog. I am new to the world of blogging but I am already addicted to yours.
What a lovely print!
I truly enjoyed your "overheard in the French restaurant" post.
I am your new follower.
Gorgeous as always, and I know the perfect place to hang it. thanks lisa
ReplyDeleteWhat a wonderful thing to happen to all of us today!! How generous and thoughtful of you, David and Francois! I've written to thank him, and I have received the jpg, so I'd say this was a pretty good Monday all around! You never fail to delight us, Vickie!
ReplyDeletexx
dawne
What a beautiful idea, and such generosity! Everytime I go to France I pick up a print like this one to take back home. They're lovely and even more so with a romantic story behind them! x
ReplyDeletewww.thingsthatmakemesmiledaily.blogspot.com
OMG...this is how my parents fed their toy poodle Sunday. He had his place at the table during the family meals, he hated dinner parties with guest as he had to resume to standard dog begging behavior for food. I gave my parents their first poodle on my 16th birthday (my dad had sworn he would never have a dog). Once Sunday died, my parents were unconsolable and have refuse to this day to ever have a dog again.
ReplyDeleteWhat a lovely generous thing for him to do! I love the pup in the engraving, but just maybe not 'on' the table;) I do love the memory of sitting in a wonderful, very nice French restaurant (in Paris) and looking around the room and there sitting in a chair at a nearby table was the diner's dog- the pup was as well mannered as could be!
ReplyDeletexojoan
Mille mercis Vicki and David ! this is such a cute engraving and i love the story behind it. My elder sister lives near Tours and i'm very fond of this area. I've just read David's comment above...I think he'll be busy sending jpg files all week ! :-)
ReplyDeleteThank you so much for your generosity !
xx
Lala
What a kind and generous offer. It is such a charming and beautiful print. I loved even more the story behind it. Talk about romantic...wow! I would love a poem etched in glass in my honor:)
ReplyDeleteHow wonderfully fun...it's a charming print!
ReplyDeleteMerci Vicki et David!!!
xoxo,
- Irina
What an adorable story I bet that house is full of them, Tee Hee yes the French & the pooches I remember when in Cairns a few lady's were out for lunch they had lovely handbags with a cute little dog's head pocking out:))
ReplyDeleteI had heard a restaurant had opened some were in france too that you could go with your dog & they could have a meal with you, very bazzar but this was quite a few years ago now wether it took off?
well I am off to pop over to David now thanks so much for that Vicki :)
with all the respect DUE YOU....
ReplyDeleteand there is quite a bit....
'DOGS RULE & Horses' rule my HEART.
what can i say?
xxx
As David's No. 1 Aussie fan, this very generous offer has just elevated him to the Right Royal Order of Bonza Blokes! Puppy Lulu would love to be in a similar situation as the puppy in the print, but we were at the end of a stern lecture from Dr. Sophie at the Vet's recently about Lulu's rapidly expanding tummy, so on the puppy diet she's gone!
ReplyDeleteMillie xx
thanks for the print
ReplyDeleteand please considere that "french people" is not an unique person, we are differents units (as you ,americans, are) and we have all differents ways to love our dogs ;-)
Lots of love
Marie