An old lady from Napoli

March 1, 2023 7:10 PM

World of Interiors: Touring A 16th-Century Italian Palazzo (SLYT in Italian with subtitles) 92-year old Isabella Ducrot talks about a life with art, furniture and travel.
posted by maggiemaggie (6 comments total)

Needs the "There was an old lady from Napoli" tag
posted by Greg_Ace at 8:02 PM on March 1, 2023

If you like this kind of thing, you might also enjoy the videos put out by House and Garden UK. I like them but invariably end up pissed off at the wealth of the people who live like this. A down sofa like the one she's sitting on would cost upward of $20K. She's got great color sense though.
posted by HotToddy at 9:56 PM on March 1, 2023 [1 favorite]

What a perfect post.
That home is her biography and her masterpiece. I adore it, and her most of all.

Gosh so many perfect things -
that indigo shawl that Ducrot says unites textile and word almost made me teary;
the rosy and gold and flax fabric that is a motif of colour and value systems in her mix of Islamic, Baroque, Modernist, Indian, Italian goodies [swoon];
her beautiful melding of paper, fabric, family and ‘fabric is the companion of human beings’ ethos;
the couch she is sitting on during the interview is a mountain of pillowy goodness, and she is like a goddess on it with pastel gold pillows that suggest comfort and don’t distract from the patina’d mirror above her;
that same mirror reflecting a round female form languidly surveying the world, and leads into all the other art pieces she’s created that develop woman as lover, parent, guide, creatrix - argh, too beautiful.

The biography she constructs of her relationships broadening her love of all things - art she discovers on voyages with her partner, that she develops in feminine friendships in mid life, and with watching her sons developing and sharing their family’s ‘exalted passions’ - her calm joy she has in witnessing their growth outwards into the world.

Obviously it doesn’t hurt to have a fuckton of cash in life for this kind of ‘exalted passion’ but strangely, for having obvious wealth to live in the centre of Roma in a such a home, with such objects, her curating of her art and furniture has a homely and inviting, lived in and companionable feel.



I am totally here for this kind of post - thank you maggiemaggie!
posted by honey-barbara at 12:23 AM on March 2, 2023 [3 favorites]

That was a delightful surprise -- I'm glad I clicked the link.
posted by mumimor at 12:57 AM on March 2, 2023 [1 favorite]

I love the timelessness and mixing of styles that comes with the accumulation of objects over decades. Obviously, this is a level of affluence most of us can only dream of, but the aesthetic still gives the feel of a home rather than a museum. I was interested to note that she began her work as an artist in her 50's, and yet has still enjoyed a robust career over another four decades.
posted by amusebuche at 2:04 PM on March 2, 2023 [1 favorite]

There was an old lady of Napoli,
Who spent her whole life very happily,
By filling her home,
In the city of Rome,
With art from all over the mappily.
posted by Paul Slade at 12:18 PM on March 4, 2023