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Captain Jon Snow

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The Dark Lord 

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Bow down to our queen Harry Styles.

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Recently restored gardens - Chateau de Chambord [1/3] :

The Château de Chambord in Chambord, Loir-et-Cher, France, is one of the most recognizable châteaux in the world because of its very distinctive French Renaissance architecture which blends traditional French medieval forms with classical Renaissance structures. The building, which was never completed, was constructed by King Francis I of France. Chambord is the largest château in the Loire Valley; it was built to serve as a hunting lodge for Francis I, who maintained his royal residences at the Château de Blois and Amboise.

Châteaux in the 16th century departed from castle architecture; while they were off-shoots of castles, with features commonly associated with them, they did not have serious defences. Extensive gardens and water features, such as a moat, were common amongst châteaux from this period. Chambord is no exception to this pattern. The layout is reminiscent of a typical castle with a keep, corner towers, and defended by a moat. Built in Renaissance style, the internal layout is an early example of the French and Italian style of grouping rooms into self-contained suites, a departure from the medieval style of corridor rooms. The massive château is composed of a central keep with four immense bastion towers at the corners. The keep also forms part of the front wall of a larger compound with two more large towers. Bases for a possible further two towers are found at the rear, but these were never developed, and remain the same height as the wall. The château features 440 rooms, 282 fireplaces, and 84 staircases. Four rectangular vaulted hallways on each floor form a cross-shape.

The roofscape of Chambord contrasts with the masses of its masonry and has often been compared with the skyline of a town: it shows eleven kinds of towers and three types of chimneys, without symmetry, framed at the corners by the massive towers. The design parallels are north Italian and Leonardesque.

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Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I 1907 - Gustav Klimt [3/3] :

In 1911 his painting Death and Life received first prize in the world exhibitions in Rome. In 1915 Anna, his mother, died. Klimt died three years later in Vienna on February 6, 1918, having suffered a stroke and pneumonia due to the worldwide influenza epidemic of that year. He was buried at the Hietzinger Cemetery in Hietzing, Vienna. Numerous paintings by him were left unfinished.

Klimt's paintings have brought some of the highest prices recorded for individual works of art. In November 2003, Klimt's Landhaus am Attersee sold for $29,128,000, but that sale was soon eclipsed by prices paid for Willem de Kooning's Woman III and later Klimt's own Adele Bloch-Bauer II, the latter of which sold for $150 million in 2016.

In 2006, the 1907 portrait, Adele Bloch-Bauer I, was purchased for the Neue Galerie New York by Ronald Lauder reportedly for US $135 million, surpassing Picasso's 1905 Boy With a Pipe (sold May 5, 2004 for $104 million), as the highest reported price ever paid for a painting up to that point.

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Portrait of Fritza Riedler 1906 - Gustav Klimt [2/3] :

Klimt's 'Golden Phase' was marked by positive critical reaction and financial success. Many of his paintings from this period included gold leaf. Klimt had previously used gold in his Pallas Athene (1898) and Judith I (1901), although the works most popularly associated with this period are the Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I (1907) and The Kiss (1907–08).

In 1905, Klimt created a painted portrait of Margarete Wittgenstein, Ludwig Wittgenstein's sister, on the occasion of her marriage. Then, between 1907 and 1909, Klimt painted five canvases of society women wrapped in fur. His apparent love of costume is expressed in the many photographs of Flöge modelling clothing he had designed.

As he worked and relaxed in his home, Klimt normally wore sandals and a long robe with no undergarments. His simple life was somewhat cloistered, devoted to his art, family, and little else except the Secessionist Movement. He avoided café society and seldom socialized with other artists. Klimt's fame usually brought patrons to his door and he could afford to be highly selective. His painting method was very deliberate and painstaking at times and he required lengthy sittings by his subjects.

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The Kiss - Gustav Klimt [1/3] :

Gustav Klimt was born in Baumgarten, near Vienna in Austria-Hungary, the second of seven children—three boys and four girls.

Klimt lived in poverty while attending the Vienna Kunstgewerbeschule, a school of applied arts and crafts, now the University of Applied Arts Vienna, where he studied architectural painting from 1876 until 1883. He revered Vienna's foremost history painter of the time, Hans Makart. Klimt readily accepted the principles of a conservative training; his early work may be classified as academic. He began his professional career painting interior murals and ceilings in large public buildings on the Ringstraße, including a successful series of "Allegories and Emblems".

In 1888 Klimt received the Golden Order of Merit from Emperor Franz Josef I of Austria for his contributions to murals painted in the Burgtheater in Vienna. He also became an honorary member of the University of Munich and the University of Vienna. In 1892 Klimt's father and brother Ernst both died, and he had to assume financial responsibility for his father's and brother's families. The tragedies also affected his artistic vision and soon he would move towards a new personal style. In the early 1890s Klimt met Austrian fashion designer Emilie Louise Flöge (a sibling of his sister-in-law) who was to be his companion until the end of his life. His painting, The Kiss (1907–08), is thought to be an image of them as lovers. He designed many costumes that she produced and modelled in his works.

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The Duke of Marlborough and other attendees - Devonshire House Ball 1897 [2/3] :

While the Queen did not attend, almost all of the British royal family attended the ball and nearly every other European royal family was represented. The New York Times claimed in September 1897 that the ball was, "to a certain degree a duplicate of the Bradley Martin ball" which was held at The Waldorf Hotel in New York City on 10 February 1897.

The Duke of Devonshire invited the London photographic firm of James Lafayette, who had been awarded a Royal Warrant ten years previously, to set up a tent (in the garden behind the house) to photograph the guests in costume during the Ball. In 1899, the studio of Walker & Boutal published 286 of the Lafayette photographs.

Following the ball, The Duchess received a letter from Francis Knollys, Private Secretary to the Sovereign, indicating that the Prince, later King Edward VII, who arrived after 11 o'clock, thought the party a success.

One of the most expensive costumes was worn by Charles Spencer-Churchill, 9th Duke of Marlborough who went as the French Ambassador to the Court of Catherine the Great (see the first picture). The velvet costume was made by the House of Worth and was embroidered in silver, pearls and diamonds with a waistcoat made out of gold and white damask. The price of the costume, which cost 5,000 francs, reportedly even shocked the Duke, who had famously married American heiress Consuelo Vanderbilt in 1895.

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Magnificent costumes - Devonshire House Ball 1897 [1/3] :

In 1897, The Duke and Duchess of Devonshire hosted the Devonshire House Ball at Devonshire House, the London residence (in Piccadilly) of the Dukes of Devonshire in the 18th and 19th centuries. The Duke had served as a Member of Parliament and a cabinet minister as a member of the Liberal Party and the Duchess, known as the Double Duchess, was the widow of the William Montagu, 7th Duke of Manchester. 

Following the death of Prince Albert in 1861, Queen Victoria had withdrawn from social life and "the mantle of royal entertaining" was passed to the Prince of Wales and his wife, Alexandra. During the 1870s, they hosted a costume ball at Marlborough House, their London residence, which was considered a success and carried on the popularity of such events. The Devonshires, who were close friends of the Prince and Princess of Wales, therefore, decided to throw a costume ball thrown to celebrate Queen Victoria's diamond jubilee. The Queen's Diamond Jubilee procession had taken place on 22 June 1897 and followed a route six miles long through London. More than 700 invitations were sent out a month before the event, although some reports of the event stated up to 3,000 invites. By accident, Alfred, Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha and Maria, the Duchess of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha did not receive invitations. When the Duchess of Devonshire saw her at a different jubilee fête and asked if she was coming, "the Duchess of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha freezingly replied, 'Certainly not'".

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Dressed in even more couture - Ulyana Sergeenko [3/3] : 

Model-sized, she could order or borrow samples and designers were happy to have her modelling their creations. In the pictures you can see some of the many designs she wore, balancing a blend of Russian history with Paris haute couture, creating a unique style that made her a topic of conversation among fashion bloggers. It was when she noticed that certain (Russian) designers were beginning to incorporate her suggestions into their collections, without giving her any credit, that she decided to launch her own label. She now own a label that employs over a hundred people and has dresses celebrities and royalties alike. Lady Gaga, Dita Von Teese and Sheikha Mozah just to name a few. The embroidery and lace-making, the painstaking and distinctly Russia feel, combined with the structured-silhouette clothes – her most recent show featured floor-length ruffled skirts, chain main capes – are not for those moments when you want understatement. Her shows and collection are always a sight to see and incomparable to the other designers showing in Paris.

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Dressed in more couture - Ulyana Sergeenko [2/3] : 

At the age of 21 she became pregnant. By then the family had moved to St Petersburg, but it was in Moscow where she would meet her future husband, at the dentist that is. She fell in love with him (Khachaturov, a Russian billionaire) when she saw him playing with her son. When it was time for the wedding she did what many girls dream of: ordering her wedding dress from Paris. However, at that time the rouble fell down and the dress was postponed. Luckily there were other couture purchasers to cheer her up. Her first was a leather corset from Dior. She was so blown away by her introduction to Paris couture at a Givenchy show that she wept. Sergeenko’s initial visits to the shows seemed to entail more elaborate costume changes than a catwalk model, and quite a lot of posing for photographers in precariously high heels. But then again, this seems to be a version of how she has always dressed.

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Dressed in couture - Ulyana Sergeenko [1/3] :

Ulyana Sergeenko is a fabulously dressed Russian woman and a regular sight on many style blogs ever since she appeared, in all her majesty, on the front row of the Paris shows in 2008, the shiny new wife of one of Russia’s shiniest billionaires. She and her fellow tsarinas (as the couture glad Russian woman and her friend were dubbed) became a regular at Paris fashion week, channelling much of their energies – and a significant amount of money into the way they looked. Growing up in Ust-Kamenogorsk, a city of 300,000 people in eastern Kazakhstan, in the dying days of Communism, she wasn’t deprived by Soviet standards. Her father managed a ceramics factory, her mother taught English, and Ulyana, her two brothers and grandmother lived in a five-room apartment. But there wasn’t much in the way of contemporary culture. As a result, the womenfolk of Ust-Kamenogorsk were as groomed as they could be. The first thing she made in her school sewing class was an embroidered skirt. To this day, there’s one in every collection.

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The Venus dress - Two famous Dior dresses [3/3] : 

Amidst the silvery spume-like net resembling sea foam, pearlescent shell-shaped scallops pronounce Venus risen from the waters. But Dior has not only evoked the story of Venus; he has also created an ideal of beauty. The sparkling splendor of such a garment is the dream of a ball gown. For Dior, fantasy was both marvelous and ideal. He strove to make an archetypal evening gown, but he was also creating the confections for the great postwar theme balls. Almost seventy years after their creation the gowns still look show-stopping and have been featured in several big exhibition about dress or the house of Dior. Personally they are one of my favorite dresses of the time period and an reminder of the genius that was Christian Dior. How I wish to see them up-close!

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The Junon and Venus dress - Two famous Dior dresses [2/3] : 

The bodice and skirt of the Juno gown are made of white silk tulle embroidered with iridescent blue, silver, copper, purple and green sequins. The billowing graduated skirt made of horsehair-lined tulle and silk net dwarfs the diminutive bodice. The Junon dress was part of Dior's fall/winter 1949-1950 collection. Junon is French for Juno, Juno being the Ancient Roman goddess who was wife to Jupiter and patron goddess of Rome. Her Ancient Greek equivalent is Hera. Also associated with birth, the Romans called her "the one who makes the child see the light of day". On a side note, the Junon dress was featured in the same collection as the Venus dress, another Dior masterpiece named for a mythological figure (Venus being the Roman goddess of love, her Greek equivalent is Aphrodite). Although it doesn't have the trademark fabric drapery of the ancient world, the Junon dress nonetheless carries references to its ancient namesake. The peacock is often associated with Juno/Hera, and the petals of the skirt are reminiscent of eyeless peacock feathers. The foundation of the dress is made of a pale silk net, a light fabric which invokes a sense of otherworldly weightlessness.

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The Junon dress - Two famous Dior dresses [1/3] : 

In 1947 Christian Dior established his now legendary maison de la couture with a collection that rocked the postwar world through its full-blown romanticism rendered in extravagant amounts of what had been rationed fabric. Creating a new silhouette every six months, Dior went on to be the dominant voice in fashion for ten years until his death in 1957. For his evening dresses of the late 1940′s and early 1950′s, Dior made masterful use of surface embellishments. After the deprivations of World War II, the designer believed that the survival of the haute couture relied on its ability to restore fantasy and luxury to women's wardrobes. By 1949 dresses called “Venus” and “Junon”, or Hera to the Greeks, were among the most coveted of his designs. Dior’s Venus was realized in the delicate eighteenth-century gray that was his signature, frosted with iridescent beading and embroidery. But his Junon is more vividly conceived. The magnificent skirt of ombréed petals, like abstractions of peacock feathers without their “eyes,” obliquely references the bird associated with the Queen of the Olympians. 

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More Highclere Castle interiors - Highclere Castle [3/3] : 

By 2009, the castle was in dire need of major repair, with only the ground and first floors remaining usable. Water damage had caused stonework to crumble and ceilings to collapse; at least 50 rooms were uninhabitable. The 8th Earl and his family were living in a "modest cottage in the grounds"; he said his ancestors were responsible for the castle's long term problems. As of 2009, repairs needed for the entire estate were estimated to cost around £12 million, £1.8 million of which was urgently needed just for the castle. As of late 2012, Lord and Lady Carnarvon have stated that a dramatic increase in the number of paying visitors has allowed them to begin major repairs on both Highclere's turrets and its interior. The family attributes this increase in interest to the on-site filming of Downton Abbey. The family now live in Highclere during the winter months, but return to their cottage in the summer, when the castle is open to the public.

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View of the house - Highclere Castle [2/3] :

The 4th Earl turned to the architect Thomas Allom, who had worked with Barry, to supervise work on the interior of the castle, which was completed in 1878. The 1st Earl had his park laid out according to a design by Capability Brown in 1774–1777, moving the village in the process—the remains of the church of 1689 are at the south-west corner of the castle. The castle became home to Egyptian artifacts after the 5th Earl, an enthusiastic amateur Egyptologist, sponsored the excavation of nobles' tombs in Deir el-Bahari (Thebes) in 1907. He later accompanied archaeologist Howard Carter during the discovery of the tomb of Tutankhamun in 1922. During World War II the castle provided a home for dozens of evacuee children. The estate was the location of several crashes of allied aircraft, including a B-17 Flying Fortress parts of which are now in the possession of Highclere.

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