Reana Ashley: History

Friday, December 26, 2025

James Hemings "America's First Chef" tells his story for Kwanzaa 🪔🍾

The life, contributions, and erasure of America’s culinary founding father are explored by food historians, celebrated chefs, experts on race and the African American diaspora. Through their words and the persistence of a curious chef, Ashbell McElveen, the life of America’s missing icon comes into focus. Mac & Cheese, French fries, whipped cream, and many other foodie favorites disseminated from a slave kitchen in Charlottesville from the hands of America’s first master chef, James Hemings.

Art History

Indigenous - NYFW'25🏺🐪🛕𓂀𓁈𓆣𓋹𓀛𓁀𓀾𓀮𓆙

Anne Estelle Rice was a young modernist at work in Paris when she created The Egyptian Dancers, inspired by the 1909 Paris debut of the Ballets Russes with an avant-garde production of Cleopatra. Determined to evoke the ballet’s angular choreography and sensual costumes (by Leon Bakst), Rice employed decoratively simplified forms and unnatural colors inspired by a French modernist aesthetic called Fauvism (fauve means “wild beast”). Several years after its acclaimed European debut in 1910, the painting was among numerous works that Rice left in the care of the American writer Theodore Dreiser when an exhibition planned for New York was subverted by wartime concerns. Untraced for the past sixty years, this recently recovered canvas will stand among the most significant achievements by an American modernist, or by an American woman, at work among the turn-of-the-century Parisian avant-garde.

Anne Estelle Rice (1877–1959). The Egyptian Dancers (Two Egyptian Dancers), 1910. Oil on canvas, 57 × 73 in., 100 lb. (144.8 × 185.4 cm, 45.36kg) frame: 69 1/4 × 87 × 2 1/2 in. (175.9 × 221 × 6.4 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Dick S. Ramsay Fund, 2007.51. © Anne Estelle Rice. (Photo: Brooklyn Museum)

✨ Did you know? ✨
Ballet traces its roots back to Italy in the 1500s, where it was first developed for the Italian royal court. The court wasn’t just about politics—it was the beating heart of culture. Music, painting, fashion, poetry, and dance all flourished there, blending into a lifestyle of elegance and artistry. Ballet emerged as a reflection of this world, combining grace, storytelling, and discipline into a new art form. From these beginnings in Italy, ballet later spread to France and beyond, shaping the foundation of the dance we celebrate today. 🩰👑🎨🎶

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Art History

The Princess of Wales at Windsor Castle - Dinner📜✨

Tonight, the Princess of Wales made a statement in a glimmering, cream-coloured lace couture gown by British designer Phillipa Lepley for a state banquet at Windsor Castle to honour the American president Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump, who have been on their second state visit to the UK this week.

The princess paired it with a sparkling pearl-laden tiara, the Cambridge Lover’s Knot, which is often Kate’s go-to tiara, and which was also a favourite of the late Princess Diana. It was originally created for Queen Mary in 1914 by Garrard, using existing jewellery in the monarch’s collection, and was later lent to Diana on her wedding day in 1981. Read More at British Vogue

Digital Public Library