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Constructing Eve—Rethinking Fairy Tale Heroines through the Printing Press
What if the fairy tale heroine wasn’t just born from imagination—but from the printing press? In my new project, Constructing Eve , I return to a neglected 1697 poem by Charles Perrault— Adam ou la création de l’homme —to excavate how the figure of Eve was materially crafted at the intersection of theology, technology, and gendered design. Preparatory drawing by N. Coypel for Charles Perrault. Adam ou la création de l'homme. Though Perrault is best known as the father of th
La Chambre Bleue
5 days ago2 min read
The Room that Spoke: Charles Perrault's Cabinet des Beaux Arts
In 1690, Charles Perrault published a book so unusual that it demanded more than a reader—it required a visitor. Le Cabinet des Beaux Arts is not simply a text. It is a three-dimensional intellectual interior. Designed as the artistic heart of a private home, the Cabinet offers itself as a total environment—one that fuses word and image, allegory and architecture, intimacy and ideology. "Doorway to Le Cabinet." Pierre Lepautre, engraver. In Le Cabinet des Beaux Arts. 1690. [
La Chambre Bleue
Dec 82 min read
A Material World | A Fairy Tale Defense of Women: The Iconography of Charles Perrault
In May 2024 I gave a talk as part of the Warburg Institute's Material World Series . In this presentation, I discuss the art form that was foundational to Perrault's studio practice. Starting with the symbolic portrait of Princess Elizabeth Charlotte D'Orleans in the dedication letter for his Tales of Mother Goose , I also examine the iconographic programmes for two other projects: the Labyrinthe de Versailles and Le Cabinet des Beaux Arts. Both works are set in an Edenic spa
La Chambre Bleue
Dec 11 min read
The Child as Rose: A Device of Noble Lineage and Character
Unknown artist. Charles Perrault. Contes de ma mère l'oye. 1695. Morgan Library & Musuem. For Digital Childhoods, the official blog for the Society for the History of Children and Youth, I wrote about how symbolic portraiture could act as a way to compliment and reinforce gendered performance for children in 17th century France, expanding it beyond the binary within the boundaries of class. You can read the post here .
La Chambre Bleue
Dec 11 min read
Upcoming Book Insights: What to Expect from Designing Women
What if we viewed 17th-century aesthetics not as static ornament but as dynamic sites of gendered meaning? My upcoming book, Designing Women: The Iconography of Charles Perrault , begins with this question. Chapter One uncovers how design—visual, poetic, and rhetorical—shaped ideas of sex, power, and perfection in the court culture of Louis XIV. Perrault, long celebrated as the father of the literary fairy tale, emerges here in a different light: as a court designer whose poe
La Chambre Bleue
Nov 283 min read
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