Chapman later wrote, " Under his guardianship the'white birds'had increased in numbers, which, with aigrettes selling at $ 32 an ounce, made the venture worth the risk ( for there was a risk; as the man who attempted to'shoot out'a rookery while Bradley was on guard would probably have lost his own'plume'); the warden watched and in his absence his charges were slaughtered ."
32.
But the jewels and the ecclesiastical objects in particular do not disappoint, and the rest of the show _ the handsome portraits of Catherine the Great and her descendants, the elaborately embroidered court gowns from the last Romanov family _ swirls around them like gorgeous footnotes . ( The elaborate hair ornaments called aigrettes, for example, are present both in the show and in Alexander Roslin's full-length 1770 portrait of the Grand Duchess Maria Feodorovna .)
