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Dairy Queens: The Politics of Pastoral Architecture from Catherine de' Medici to Marie-Antoinette
In a lively narrative that spans more than two centuries, Meredith Martin tells the story of a royal and aristocratic building type that has been largely forgotten the pleasure dairy of early modern France. These garden structures―most famously the faux-rustic, white marble dairy built for Marie-Antoinette’s Hameau at Versailles―have long been dismissed as the trifling follies of a reckless elite. Martin challenges such assumptions and reveals the pivotal role that pleasure dairies played in cultural and political life, especially with respect to polarizing debates about nobility, femininity, and domesticity. Together with other forms of pastoral architecture such as model farms and hermitages, pleasure dairies were crucial arenas for elite women to exercise and experiment with identity and power.
Opening with Catherine de’ Medici’s lavish dairy at Fontainebleau (c. 1560), Martin’s book explores how French queens and noblewomen used pleasure dairies to naturalize their status, display their cultivated tastes, and proclaim their virtue as nurturing mothers and capable estate managers. Pleasure dairies also provided women with a site to promote good health, by spending time in salubrious gardens and consuming fresh milk. Illustrated with a dazzling array of images and photographs, Dairy Queens sheds new light on architecture, self, and society in the ancien régime.
Opening with Catherine de’ Medici’s lavish dairy at Fontainebleau (c. 1560), Martin’s book explores how French queens and noblewomen used pleasure dairies to naturalize their status, display their cultivated tastes, and proclaim their virtue as nurturing mothers and capable estate managers. Pleasure dairies also provided women with a site to promote good health, by spending time in salubrious gardens and consuming fresh milk. Illustrated with a dazzling array of images and photographs, Dairy Queens sheds new light on architecture, self, and society in the ancien régime.
336 pages, Hardcover
First published February 15, 2011
137 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
September 3, 2020
A detailed and exciting book that blends history with architecture with art, "Dairy Queens" is perhaps most exciting for once again highlighting the complex, mostly misogynistic, discourses that surrounded upper-class women like Catherine de'Medici and Marie Antoinette. The connection between women and nature has fascinated me for a while and Martin provides a lot of food for thought in discussing the different ways in which the "return to nature" was seen as a way of returning virtue to a woman. It's a wonderfully interdisciplinary book that reveals a lot on a topic that many THINK they know about, namely because they saw the painting or heard of Marie Antoinette dressing up as a milkmaid and informs and entertains in equal measure.
February 9, 2022
Had to read 4 chapters of this for school so I'm counting it as read. I've never read such a soft perception of Marie!
"Reform-minded authors and critics regarded these buildings as a perverse parody of their high-minded aspirations. They had hoped to purge the pastoral of ambiguity, unfettered pleasure, and effeminacy, and steer the genre toward a more utilitarian and moralizing end, one that emphasized their values of heterosexual productivity and agricultural improvement. Instead, they believed, aristocratic women patrons like Marie-Antoinette were subverting these noble aims by constructing pleasure dairies that seemed to celebrate the feminine, the hedonistic, and the frivolous."
"Reform-minded authors and critics regarded these buildings as a perverse parody of their high-minded aspirations. They had hoped to purge the pastoral of ambiguity, unfettered pleasure, and effeminacy, and steer the genre toward a more utilitarian and moralizing end, one that emphasized their values of heterosexual productivity and agricultural improvement. Instead, they believed, aristocratic women patrons like Marie-Antoinette were subverting these noble aims by constructing pleasure dairies that seemed to celebrate the feminine, the hedonistic, and the frivolous."
September 4, 2011
[I was provided a review copy of this book upon my request by Harvard University Press.]
Meredith Martin delves into more than two centuries of French history in her book Dairy Queens: The Politics of Pastoral Architecture from Catherine de Medici to Marie Antoinette, which seeks to place the French pleasure dairy back in its historical context, shattering the myths and assumptions about the role of pleasure dairies in elite society.
The assumption that pleasure dairies were built by royal women as a way to pretend at being peasants while not actually living like one has permeated books, films and pop culture for years. Marie Antoinette is still accused of pretending to be a peasant while drinking dairy from porcelain cups and milking perfumed cows -- a true example of a "Let them eat cake" (which no, she never said) state of mind. However, Martin puts the pleasure dairy of Marie Antoinette (along with several other prominent French women such as Madame de Pompadour and Catherine de Medici) in their historical context, dismissing the notion that the dairies were there for the frivolous play of the elite class.
Martin explores the political, social and gender politics behind the pleasure dairies, revealing a surprising role in the lives of the women or men who built and enjoyed them. Pleasure dairies were often ways for aristocratic or royal women to exercise a form of political power, while still working within their gender role by promoting their status as nurturing mothers and worthy estate managers. They were also a way to improve health, employing Rosseau's notion that aristocratic women should retreat to countryside estates and reap the benefits of fresh milk and air. The catch, of course, is that most pleasure dairies were not built in the true countryside but on the outskirts or even within cities, so that a woman could enjoy the benefits of the countryside without giving up her social obligations. However, the female influence on the pleasure dairy was, particularly by the 1780s, often criticized and made suspect. When the dairy at Rambouillet was built in 1787 (without input from Marie Antoinette) it was a noticeably different from her own dairy at the Trianon. Martin believes this was an intentional move by the male designer to, in a way, put Marie Antoinette back in her place. Marie Antoinette may have been the "goddess" at her Trianon, but not so at the 'male' dairy at Rambouillet.
In addition to discussing the historical role of the pleasure dairy from the 17th century through the French Revolution, Martin touches on the impact the pleasure dairy - and its political and gender ramifications - have had on modern society.
Martin's writing is clear, intelligently written and supplemented by many photographs, drawings and paintings. It's worth a mention here that the layout of this book is absolutely wonderful. I'll admit I was expecting a "dry" layout from a University press, but when I opened the book I was pleasantly surprised at the amount of images used. It's really a superb layout, and something that not only compliments Martin's writing but makes the book something worth looking through even after you've finished reading.
Overall, I definitely recommended this book to anyone interested in French history, especially Marie Antoinette and her much maligned pleasure dairy. It's an excellent addition to any library and I think most readers will find the insights about the often ignored pleasure diary interesting. The book was released earlier this year and is available at most online bookstores.
Meredith Martin delves into more than two centuries of French history in her book Dairy Queens: The Politics of Pastoral Architecture from Catherine de Medici to Marie Antoinette, which seeks to place the French pleasure dairy back in its historical context, shattering the myths and assumptions about the role of pleasure dairies in elite society.
The assumption that pleasure dairies were built by royal women as a way to pretend at being peasants while not actually living like one has permeated books, films and pop culture for years. Marie Antoinette is still accused of pretending to be a peasant while drinking dairy from porcelain cups and milking perfumed cows -- a true example of a "Let them eat cake" (which no, she never said) state of mind. However, Martin puts the pleasure dairy of Marie Antoinette (along with several other prominent French women such as Madame de Pompadour and Catherine de Medici) in their historical context, dismissing the notion that the dairies were there for the frivolous play of the elite class.
Martin explores the political, social and gender politics behind the pleasure dairies, revealing a surprising role in the lives of the women or men who built and enjoyed them. Pleasure dairies were often ways for aristocratic or royal women to exercise a form of political power, while still working within their gender role by promoting their status as nurturing mothers and worthy estate managers. They were also a way to improve health, employing Rosseau's notion that aristocratic women should retreat to countryside estates and reap the benefits of fresh milk and air. The catch, of course, is that most pleasure dairies were not built in the true countryside but on the outskirts or even within cities, so that a woman could enjoy the benefits of the countryside without giving up her social obligations. However, the female influence on the pleasure dairy was, particularly by the 1780s, often criticized and made suspect. When the dairy at Rambouillet was built in 1787 (without input from Marie Antoinette) it was a noticeably different from her own dairy at the Trianon. Martin believes this was an intentional move by the male designer to, in a way, put Marie Antoinette back in her place. Marie Antoinette may have been the "goddess" at her Trianon, but not so at the 'male' dairy at Rambouillet.
In addition to discussing the historical role of the pleasure dairy from the 17th century through the French Revolution, Martin touches on the impact the pleasure dairy - and its political and gender ramifications - have had on modern society.
Martin's writing is clear, intelligently written and supplemented by many photographs, drawings and paintings. It's worth a mention here that the layout of this book is absolutely wonderful. I'll admit I was expecting a "dry" layout from a University press, but when I opened the book I was pleasantly surprised at the amount of images used. It's really a superb layout, and something that not only compliments Martin's writing but makes the book something worth looking through even after you've finished reading.
Overall, I definitely recommended this book to anyone interested in French history, especially Marie Antoinette and her much maligned pleasure dairy. It's an excellent addition to any library and I think most readers will find the insights about the often ignored pleasure diary interesting. The book was released earlier this year and is available at most online bookstores.
November 14, 2011
Got Milk? The Gender Politics of Pleasure Dairies
France was on the verge of Revolution, the ill-famed extravagances of Marie-Antoinette having poisoned the populace against her and the entire regime. Pornographic circulars featuring the Austrian-born Queen were rife in the streets of Paris as was an engraving entitled “La France Malade” (“France Is Sick”) representing a female allegory of France being bled while Marie-Antoinette, known as “Madame Déficit,” greedily grasps out for her blood. Louis XVI’s reign was in degenerative free fall. Something had to be done. The solution: the construction of a magnificent new pleasure dairy -- a faux-rustic garden building where elite women gathered to consume milk products made on the premises by servants. It was called the “Queen’s Dairy,” built at Rambouillet, a rural royal property near the palace at Versailles. Its intended message was that the monarchy was intent on a policy of regeneration and reform.
Of course, in the end, the Queen’s Dairy couldn’t save the Ancien Régime, even if milk and the pleasure dairy were, by the mid-1780s, as Meredith Martin argues in her brilliant and gorgeous new book, Dairy Queens: The Politics of Pastoral Architecture from Catherine de’ Medici to Marie-Antoinette, embodiments of healthfulness. Moreover, the pleasure dairy symbolized female moral rectitude and was a locus of the domestic feminine virtues of fertility, nurturing, and maternity.
It couldn’t have helped matters much that the Queen’s Dairy was lavishly decorated and included a sixty-five-piece Sèvres porcelain service featuring “the breast cup,” a breast-shaped cup based on the ancient Greek mastos used for Dionysian drinking rituals. With no handles, the flesh-colored cup, culminating in a pert pink nipple, rested on a tripod base. To drink from it, the vessel was cradled in one’s palms, adding to the “reality effect.” An enduring rumor (disproved by Martin) is that the model for the porcelain cups was molded from Marie-Antoinette’s own breasts.
The association between the fertile female body and the pastoral life, still prevalent today, was famously encapsulated by the early modern French statesman the Duc de Sully: “Tilling the land and tending the flock are the two breasts from which France is fed.” Two centuries before Marie-Antoinette’s reign, another foreign-born French Queen, Catherine de’ Medici, found her popularity waning due to her inability to produce an heir. So she built France’s first pleasure dairy at Fontainebleau, “initiating an architectural language of female political agency that would resonate for centuries.”
Read the rest of my review at Bookslut: http://www.bookslut.com/the_bombshell...
France was on the verge of Revolution, the ill-famed extravagances of Marie-Antoinette having poisoned the populace against her and the entire regime. Pornographic circulars featuring the Austrian-born Queen were rife in the streets of Paris as was an engraving entitled “La France Malade” (“France Is Sick”) representing a female allegory of France being bled while Marie-Antoinette, known as “Madame Déficit,” greedily grasps out for her blood. Louis XVI’s reign was in degenerative free fall. Something had to be done. The solution: the construction of a magnificent new pleasure dairy -- a faux-rustic garden building where elite women gathered to consume milk products made on the premises by servants. It was called the “Queen’s Dairy,” built at Rambouillet, a rural royal property near the palace at Versailles. Its intended message was that the monarchy was intent on a policy of regeneration and reform.
Of course, in the end, the Queen’s Dairy couldn’t save the Ancien Régime, even if milk and the pleasure dairy were, by the mid-1780s, as Meredith Martin argues in her brilliant and gorgeous new book, Dairy Queens: The Politics of Pastoral Architecture from Catherine de’ Medici to Marie-Antoinette, embodiments of healthfulness. Moreover, the pleasure dairy symbolized female moral rectitude and was a locus of the domestic feminine virtues of fertility, nurturing, and maternity.
It couldn’t have helped matters much that the Queen’s Dairy was lavishly decorated and included a sixty-five-piece Sèvres porcelain service featuring “the breast cup,” a breast-shaped cup based on the ancient Greek mastos used for Dionysian drinking rituals. With no handles, the flesh-colored cup, culminating in a pert pink nipple, rested on a tripod base. To drink from it, the vessel was cradled in one’s palms, adding to the “reality effect.” An enduring rumor (disproved by Martin) is that the model for the porcelain cups was molded from Marie-Antoinette’s own breasts.
The association between the fertile female body and the pastoral life, still prevalent today, was famously encapsulated by the early modern French statesman the Duc de Sully: “Tilling the land and tending the flock are the two breasts from which France is fed.” Two centuries before Marie-Antoinette’s reign, another foreign-born French Queen, Catherine de’ Medici, found her popularity waning due to her inability to produce an heir. So she built France’s first pleasure dairy at Fontainebleau, “initiating an architectural language of female political agency that would resonate for centuries.”
Read the rest of my review at Bookslut: http://www.bookslut.com/the_bombshell...
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January 15, 2011Just received this book for review -- it looks great! I'm sorry that the cover is not appearing here, because it's a beautiful picture of Marie-Antoinette holding a Wedgwood milk pitcher.
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