Lever
The lever (French: se lever = to get up) referred to a morning reception held in the bedroom in circles of the nobility . The opposite in the evening, a reception before bed rest, was referred to as a couch (French se coucher = to sleep). The lever and coucher ceremonies were of particular importance during the period of absolutism in the 17th and 18th centuries. Access to the first and last audience of the day was usually only granted to a select group of people. The receptions held in the intimate-looking bedrooms were considered a privilege for the participants and played an important role in court societies at that time.
The ceremonial at the court of Versailles was considered exemplary for numerous European royal courts .
In William Hogarth's painting The toilet , now often The Countess's Morning Levee (dt.. Lever the Countess ), from the cycle Marriage a la Mode , which originated in the period 1743/1745, no fewer than ten people staying the morning ritual of a Nobles at. Her four-poster bed can be seen in the background of the painting and is in an alcove. Present are a singing Italian castrato , a flute player, a friend, a lawyer (the Countess's lover), a hairdresser, a black page and a black boy pointing to art objects that were bought at auction. The fact that Hogarth caricatured this morning meeting in the bedroom of a noblewoman with his painting is evidence that strangers increasingly felt that entering such an intimate space as the bedroom was inappropriate. The lever was an important part of the day for Louis XIV.
In the arts
An example of a lever can be found in the opera Der Rosenkavalier by Richard Strauss .
literature
- Norbert Elias : The courtly society . (= Suhrkamp-Taschenbuch Wissenschaft. 423). Suhrkamp, Frankfurt am Main 1983, ISBN 3-518-28023-6 .
- Lucy Worsley: If Walls Could Talk: An intimate history of the home. Faber and Faber Limited, London 2011, ISBN 978-0-571-25953-3 .
Individual evidence
- ^ A b Marriage A-la-Mode: 4, The Toilette , the National Gallery, London
- ^ Worsley: If Walls Could Talk: An intimate history of the home. P. 11.
- ^ Worsley: If Walls Could Talk: An intimate history of the home. P. 12.