"Chef-d'oeuvre" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Grand Judge, rising, and with a ring in each hand. "This ring given me yesterday by the Duke of Palma, and by him received from the Salvatori, is an imitation of Benvenuto Cellini's great work. The real ring of the Monte-Leoni, the chef-d'oeuvre, an heir-loom of the family, has just been brought us by an old servant ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 3, February, 1851 • Various
... of vehicles, I returned home in that of the ——- Minister, with him and his attaches; after which, they and C—-n returned to dine with the new archbishop in his palace. A dish of sweetmeats was sent me from his table, which are so pretty, (probably the chef-d'oeuvre of the nuns,) that I send them to you, to preserve as a memorial of the consecration of the first Mexican ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon De La Barca
... vast amount of historical information enshrined in its pages, the archaeological value which it must always possess for the student, and the dramatic interest of its stories, the translator has thought that an English edition of Balzac's chef-d'oeuvre would be acceptable to many. It has, of course, been impossible to reproduce in all its vigour and freshness the language of the original. Many of the quips and cranks and puns have been lost in the process of Anglicising. These unavoidable blemishes apart, ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 1 • Honore de Balzac
... do with Mrs Pearson?" I said. "There's some chef-d'oeuvre of hers waiting for me by this time. She always treats me particularly well on Saturdays ...
— Annals of a Quiet Neighbourhood • George MacDonald
... of fashionable Parisian conversation, which is, says our author, "a prodigious labor of improvising," a "chef-d'oeuvre," a "strange and singular thing, in which monotony is unknown," seems to be, if correctly reported, a "strange and singular thing" indeed; but somewhat monotonous at least to an English reader, and "prodigious" only, if we may take leave to say so, for the wonderful rascality which ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... the elaborate character of the German entrenchments, and of the British genius for comfort developed in our own lines, but it is doubtful whether anything done by either side in that direction has surpassed the chef-d'oeuvre of an ingenious French engineer shown in our illustration. At one point in the French trenches not seven hundred yards from those of the enemy, and within two miles of the German artillery, he constructed an up-to-date bathing establishment, with a heating apparatus and a shower-bath! ...
— The Illustrated War News, Number 15, Nov. 18, 1914 • Various
... twenty frowns, and for one civil word making use of fifty hard expressions, marching in the diplomatic audience as at the head of his troops, and commanding foreign Ambassadors as his French soldiers. I have heard that the report of Count Markof to his Court, describing this new and rare show, is a chef-d'oeuvre of wit, equally amusing and instructive. He is said to have requested of his Cabinet new and particular orders how to act—whether as the representative of an independent Sovereign, or, as most of the other members of the foreign diplomatic corps in France, ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... Mr. Berenson's enthusiastic praise ought to be lavished on the actual picture as it must have appeared in all its freshness and purity. "Je n'hesiterais pas," he declares,[103] "a le proclamer le plus important des portraits du maitre, un chef-d'oeuvre ne le cedant a aucun portrait d'aucun pays ...
— Giorgione • Herbert Cook
... musical composer, thought so highly of the importance of woman as an educator of character, that he described a good mother as "Nature's CHEF-D'OEUVRE." And he was right: for good mothers, far more than fathers, tend to the perpetual renovation of mankind, creating, as they do, the moral atmosphere of the home, which is the nutriment of man's moral ...
— Character • Samuel Smiles
... Voyer d'Argenson was imitated with a truth which did honor to the caligraphers of the Prince de Cellamare. As to the report, it was a chef-d'oeuvre of clearness; and we insert it word for word, to give an idea of the regent's life, and of the manner in which the Spanish ambassador's police was conducted. It was dated two o'clock in ...
— The Conspirators - The Chevalier d'Harmental • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... sister-in-law's look very shabby. It was the first new bonnet she had been trusted to make since she came; she had had CARTE BLANCHE for the materials, and had pleased herself with the style, and Elsie believed it would be her CHEF-D'OEUVRE. The idea of giving Miss Phillips such an unexpected pleasure made her feel quite kindly disposed towards her, though the feeling was not reciprocated, for as Harriett did not know of Elsie's intentions, she could not be supposed to be grateful for them; ...
— Mr. Hogarth's Will • Catherine Helen Spence
... is not only considered as the chef-d'oeuvre of Rigaud, but it has been pronounced to be the finest portrait ever executed within the last century of the French School.[184] It is a whole length; and is well known to you from the wonderful print of it by Drevet. The representation is worthy ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Two • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... the flower of all the beauties, which T. has scattered through his other works. It is a chef-d'oeuvre, which satisfies at once the judgment and the fancy, the imagination and the heart. It is justly proposed as a model of historical eulogy. The praises bestowed have in them nothing vague or far-fetched, they rise from the simple facts of the narrative. Every ...
— Germania and Agricola • Caius Cornelius Tacitus
... We cannot here discuss how this tradition arose; in all likelihood it already expresses the position which the Roman Church very speedily attained in Christendom. See Renan, Orig., Vol. VII., p. 70: "Pierre el Paul (leconcilies), voila le chef-d'oeuvre qui fondait la suprematie ecclesiastique de Rome dans lavenir. Une nouvelle qualite mythique lemplagait celle de Romulus et Remus." But it is highly probable that Peter was really in Rome like Paul (see 1 ...
— History of Dogma, Volume 2 (of 7) • Adolph Harnack
... knocked down to a tradesman in the same street—twenty-one shillings the price of this door (mock mahogany). While he was working commissions poured in and Robinson's price rose, the demand for him being greater than the supply. The mahogany door was really a chef-d'oeuvre. He came home triumphant with thirty shillings in his pocket, he spread them out on the kitchen table and looked at them with a pride and a thrill of joy money never gave him before. He had often closed the ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... coach-making town, and taking a voiture de remise, we drove down to Antwerp. While the horses rested, we looked at the pictures in Malines. The "Miraculous Draught of Fishes" is thought by many to be the chef-d'oeuvre of Rubens, but, after conceding it a hardy conception and magnificent colouring, I think one finds too much of the coarse mannerism of the artist, even for such a subject. The most curious part of the study of the ...
— A Residence in France - With An Excursion Up The Rhine, And A Second Visit To Switzerland • J. Fenimore Cooper
... there no difference between the chef-d'oeuvre of the great Stickleback, and the town ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLII. Vol. LV. April, 1844 • Various
... verse dans la meme erreur que celui qui apres avoir vante a ses auditeurs l'admirable Annonciation de Vinci, par exemple, s'imaginerait qu'il a fait penetrer dans leurs ames la beaute surnaturelle de cette peinture en reproduisant, en un tableau vivant, tous les details du grand chef-d'oeuvre florentin. ...
— Pelleas and Melisande • Maurice Maeterlinck
... certain passages were struck out of the printed text by the cautious archbishop's reviser. He was one of those French divines who had taken in fuel at Munich, and he welcomed Kirche und Kirchen: "Quant au livre du docteur Doellinger sur la Papaute, c'est, selon moi, le livre decisif. C'est un chef-d'oeuvre admirable a plusieurs egards, et qui est destine a produire un bien incalculable et a fixer l'opinion sur ce sujet; c'est ainsi que le juge aussi M. de Montalembert. Le docteur Doellinger nous a rendu a tous un grand service." This was not the first impression of Montalembert. He deplored ...
— The History of Freedom • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... tuer des enfants et de tuer des femmes, Sous pretexte qu'on fut, parmi les oriflammes Et les clairons, sacre devant le monde entier Par Urbain quatre, pape, et fils d'un savetier? Que voulez-vous qu'on fasse a de tels miserables? Avoir mis son doigt noir sur ces yeux adorables! Ce chef-d'oeuvre du Dieu vivant, l'avoir detruit! Quelle mamelle d'ombre et d'horreur et de nuit, Dieu juste, a donc ete de ce monstre nourrice? Un tel homme suffit pour qu'un siecle pourrisse. Plus de bien ni de mal, plus de droit, plus de lois. Est-ce que le tonnerre est ...
— La Legende des Siecles • Victor Hugo
... profiles project little, and, in spite of their extreme finesse, produce much effect; the buttresses are skilfully planted and profiled. The staircase, which, on the east side, deranges the arrangement of the bays, is a chef-d'oeuvre of architecture." This long panegyric, by Viollet-le-Duc, on French taste at the expense of Norman temper, ought to be read, book in hand, before the Cathedral of Rouen, with photographs of Bayeux to compare. Certain it is that the Normans and the French ...
— Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres • Henry Adams
... occasional dilatations and compressions of time as are required in dramatic composition. And notwithstanding the limited imagination and the too artificial passion which characterise it, Philip van Artevelde is in very many respects a noble work, as it certainly is its author's chef-d'oeuvre. It has been pronounced by no mean authority the superior of every dramatic composition of modern times, including the Sardanapalus of Lord Byron, the Remorse of Coleridge, and the Cenci of Shelley. The portraiture of Philip is one of those elaborate and highly-finished studies which repay ...
— Chambers' Edinburgh Journal - Volume XVII., No 422, New Series, January 31, 1852 • Various
... to the enigma of the play is a second, not so easily explained, enigma: the enigma of the censor, and of why he "moves in a mysterious way his wonders to perform." The play, I must confess, does not seem to me, as it seems to certain French critics, "une piece qui tient du chef-d'oeuvre ... la tragedie des maitres antiques et de Shakespeare." To me it is rather an insubstantial kind of ingenuity, ingenuity turning in a circle. As a tragic episode, the dramatisation of a striking incident, it has force and simplicity, the admirable ...
— Plays, Acting and Music - A Book Of Theory • Arthur Symons
... This chef-d'oeuvre of Titian, so celebrated in the history of art, represents Venus endeavoring to detain Adonis from the fatal chase. Titian is known to have made several repetitions of this charming composition, some of them slightly varied, and the copies are almost ...
— Anecdotes of Painters, Engravers, Sculptors and Architects, and Curiosities of Art, (Vol. 2 of 3) • Shearjashub Spooner |
