Category Archives: Art

The Holwood Oaks

Posted on 22/03/2018 by carolinemmurray

It’s a complete truism that London used to be a relatively small place, with a great deal of naturally occurring ‘green belt’ both between the City and Westminster, and also between London and the surrounding villages, often used for market … Continue reading →

Posted in Art, Biography, Botany, Gardens, History, London, Natural history, Printing and Publishing | Tagged , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Chapmen

Posted on 08/03/2018 by carolinemmurray

Looking the other day at the brief record of the bankruptcy of Christian Schindler, who may have been the ‘Honest Man’ commemorated by his friends at St Martin within Ludgate in 1830, I was struck by how many of the … Continue reading →

Posted in Art, France, History, London, Museums and Galleries, Printing and Publishing | Tagged , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

St Martin within Ludgate

Posted on 24/02/2018 by carolinemmurray

I occasionally potter up and down Ludgate Hill, usually in the context of an event at the St Bride’s Foundation, and never without thinking of that wonderful stanza, ‘The timid, inoffensive tapir / Is never in the morning paper. / … Continue reading →

Posted in Archaeology, Art, Biography, History, London, Printing and Publishing | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 5 Comments

Object of the Month: January 2018

Posted on 28/01/2018 by carolinemmurray

On 21 January, already deeply memorable as a family birthday, I was looking for a picture of a squirrel, since some Power had Decreed that it was also Squirrel Appreciation Day. The photo I found was a rather bad (full … Continue reading →

Posted in Art, Cambridge, History, Italy, Museums and Galleries, Printing and Publishing | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Torcello

Posted on 22/09/2017 by carolinemmurray

Assuming anyone can be bothered to make the trip, I think I’d like my ashes scattered at the Secret Cat Place on Torcello. Though alas, even Torcello is going a bit downhill, since today, for the first time ever, there … Continue reading →

Posted in Archaeology, Art, History, Italy, Venice | Tagged , , , , | 4 Comments

Father of the More Famous

Posted on 01/09/2017 by carolinemmurray

I’m currently reading a book about Sir Joseph Banks as an Enlightenment figure (yes, I probably should get out more), and was struck by this quotation: ‘Mann [the Abbé Mann (1735–1809), a Yorkshire Catholic convert and savant who became a … Continue reading →

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Cats in Art

Posted on 28/07/2017 by carolinemmurray

If you were to be foolish enough to Google ‘Cats in art’ (and I really don’t recommend it) you would get ‘about 37,600,000 results’ – probably more by the time you read this: and a great many would look something … Continue reading →

Posted in Art, History, Literature, Museums and Galleries, Venice | Tagged , , , | 6 Comments

Joseph Was An Old Man

Posted on 23/07/2017 by carolinemmurray

… and a very old man was he, according to the Cherry-Tree Carol, at any rate. William Henry Husk points out, in his note on the carol in Songs of the Nativity, that the description of Joseph as old has … Continue reading →

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A Curious Herbal

Posted on 16/07/2017 by carolinemmurray

In Modena recently, we were having a nice mooch round the Biblioteca Estense in the Palazzo dei Musei, which also houses the Galleria Estense, the Lapidario Romano, the Musei Civici di Modena, and several other collections. (A tasting session for … Continue reading →

Posted in Art, Bibliography, Botany, Cambridge, Gardens, History, London, Natural history, Printing and Publishing | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Object of the Month: June 2017

Posted on 28/06/2017 by carolinemmurray

It may be stretching a point to call a small fragment of a painting an ‘object’ – the more so as the small fragment depicts two apparently living animals who may or may not have actually been alive when they … Continue reading →

Posted in Art, History, Museums and Galleries, Natural history | Tagged , , , , , , | 4 Comments