A century and a half ago the ladies of France, their skirts shining like inverted sprays of silver in the light of many candles, looked over their fans at a crumbling world and at gentlemen who took snuff, with elaborate and effeminate gesture, from small, silver boxes. In the rooms where they danced or laughed or whispered were chairs, tapestried in stiff silk, little frivolous statues, the infinitely suave and polished paintings of Watteau or Jean Honore Fragonard. Last week, in Manhattan, snuff boxes, chairs,...
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