Come Into My Parlor...Chronicles of the Mayfair Witches

Art

The Anatomy Lesson

This is the painting Rowan sees in her nightmares about being a Dutch surgeon, as if she has been transported into this painting. Note the Dutch surgeon's hat. Rembrandt is also the artist who painted Deborah Mayfair in Amsterdam in the 1660's. This painting was created in 1632.

Self Portrait of Albrecht Durer

This painting by Albrecht Durer was created in 1500. It is the image that comes to Gifford's mind as she takes her first impressions of Lasher in the flesh. This is probably the best example we have of what Lasher actually looked like.

Music

In The Witching Hour, Michael further convinces Rowan that they are a match when he tells her he needs his Vivaldi while he's flying. Later, on the way back from their honeymoon in Destin, Florida, they play Vivaldi on the car stereo. I have provided a link to a music player that has Vivaldi's Four Seasons as well as the Canon and Verdi's La Traviata. Click the link below the references to play.

In Lasher, Julien's ghost brings Michael and Mona to the double parlor by creating an illusion in which the First Street house is transformed to appear as it did while he was living, and in which his Victrola is playing his favorite arrangement of Verdi's La Traviata.

Michael often played Pachelbel's Canon for Rowan while she was comatose, and it is the Canon that Ashlar and Tessa dance to in the tower in Taltos.

As with the Four Seasons, La Traviata and the Canon are in the music player provided here. Below are the sources and arrangements of the songs on this site:

The Four Seasons

Concerto No. 1 in E Major - Spring
Concerto No. 2 in G minor - Summer
Concerto No. 3 in F Major - Autumn
Concerto No. 4 in F minor - Winter

Budapest Strings, Karoly Botvay

La Traviata

Overture
Noi siamo zingarelle
Libiamo ne'lieti calici
Di Madride noi siam Mattadori
La Forza del destino: Overture

Bulgarian National Choir 'Svetoslav Obretenov'

Sofia Philarmonic Orchestra, Georgi Robev (2, 3, 4)

Vassil Stefenov (1, 5)

Pachelbel's Canon

Canon in D Major

Produced by Dirk Freymuth

Below is a link to PBS's site on the violinist Isaac Stern, whom Michael Curry went to see at the Municipal Auditorium when he was a boy. This same concert is also mentioned in Violin, where Triana Becker is inspired by Stern in a similar way that Michael Curry was.

Isaac Stern on PBS

Below is a link to a site that has the poems of Hilaire Belloc on it. It is a free site. Also, here is the short poem by Belloc that Gifford remembers finding in her father's papers after his death. It is interesting that Gifford remembers the poem on the night of her death.

The Catholic Sun

Wherever the Catholic sun doth shine,
There’s always laughter and good red wine.
At least I’ve always found it so.
Benedicamus Domino!

Poems of Hilaire Belloc

Ophelia by John Everett Millais (1852)

Mona's Ophelia

Mona Mayfair's pet name for herself, or rather, her secret name, was Ophelia. Ophelia was a character in Shakespeare's Hamlet. Wikipedia identifies her in the following words:

Ophelia is a fictional character in the play Hamlet by William Shakespeare. She is a young noblewoman of Denmark, the daughter of Polonius, sister of Laertes, and sweetheart of Prince Hamlet.

When Mona Mayfair goes to Blackwood Farm to die in Quinn Blackwood's bed (not knowing he has become a vampire as he has hidden this from her), she goes to several florist shops in New Orleans to purchase flowers for her deathbed. When she arrives at Blackwood Farm, she has the staff there assist her with bringing all the flowers she has bought into the bedroom where she scatters their petals across Quinn's bed. Before she can finally succumb to the illness brought on by her giving birth to Morrigan, however, Quinn arrives, followed by Lestat, to give her the Dark Gift.

Click here for Ophelia on Wikipedia