Philippe Jullian Interior Drawings and Watercolors

Elegant & fabulously rare, original Philippe Jullian (1919-1977) (ink signed LR) watercolour depicting a lavish Moorish opium salon interior with a reclining nude portrait on the wall and two monkeys with their turban clad handler. Sagittarius Gallery, NY label inscribed Jullian No. 18 on verso Art Sz: 8 3/4"H x 11 1/8"W Frame Sz: 16"H x 18"W w/ Hermes orange mat & antique bamboo frame Provenance: The estate of D. D. Ryan (1928-2007), noted fashion editor at Harper's Bazaar, an associate of Halston and a regular on best-dressed lists! Another widely appreciated achievement is her association with the creation of Eloise, the fictional little girl who lives at the Plaza Hotel. Eloise began as a character that Kay Thompson, a cabaret singer, portrayed to amuse her friends, of whom Ms. Ryan was one. Ms. Ryan urged her to write a book, put her together with Hilary Knight, the illustrator, and never stopped pushing her to finish the job. The result was “Eloise,” published in 1955 and a best seller the next year, and its popular sequels. “The book would never have existed without D. D. Never,” Mr. Knight said in an interview Thursday. “She would have just dropped it and gone on to something else.” Beyond her historic Eloise moment, Ms. Ryan thrived at the crossroads of New York’s fashion and artistic worlds, seeming to make a statement every time she dressed, almost always in clothes she made herself, always recognizable with her famous precisely stylized eyebrows. Her first job in Manhattan was as an assistant to the photographer Richard Avedon; she was photo editor at Harper’s Bazaar under the legendary editor Diana Vreeland, and she designed the costumes for Stephen Sondheim’s 1970 Broadway musical “Company.” Her social circle included Cole Porter, Andy Warhol, Mr. Sondheim and Truman Capote. When she recommended a new pair of sandals or a piece of costume jewelry — only “really good costume jewelry...