It took me a while to get out of my turkey-induced coma, hence my hiatus from the Museum. But my long-awaited Chantecaille Tiger powders have arrived!! The embossing is really stunning. (I have not been able to procure the Bengal palette due to lack of funds, but I'm hoping Santa will provide the final piece in this collection for the Museum. ;))
White Tiger, with flash and in natural light:
Bengali Bronzer:
While I think the design is nice, it may have been interesting to see the entire tiger on the powder, the way Lancôme did with their Elephant bronzing powder earlier this year. Instead of a face product there could have been an eye shadow – a tiger's black stripes would make a good liner, and the rest of the body could be a shadow or bronzer. I guess overall I wanted to the tiger to appear more ferocious, the way it looks in its natural habitat. The more I look at these powders the more I think they look almost like a nice little portrait of a tiger rather than capturing the beauty of the animal itself in all its wild glory. But maybe I've been thinking too much of the work by famed 19th-century animalier Antoine-Louis Barye (1796-1875):
Tiger Walking to the Left, Brooklyn Museum
Tiger Walking, cast after an original, photo from artwansongallery.com
Barye was an established animal sculptor who spent much of his time at the zoo in Paris, and he was able to beautifully capture the movement and power of tigers after a Bengal tiger arrived at the zoo in 1830.1 I think something closer to his work would have made a better palette than a simple "head shot" of a tiger. Still, these are quite lovely and will make for an excellent exhibtion.
1 For more on Barye, check out the exhibition catalogue "Untamed: The Art of Antoine-Louis Barye", available at the Walters Art Museum (which, incidentally, has the largest Barye collection in the world - if you're ever in Baltimore I urge you to check it out!)