Category Archives: Art

The Venice Test!

Posted on 11/05/2016 by carolinemmurray

‘It’s very naughty of me, but I would like to set an examination paper at Dover, and turn back every tourist who couldn’t pass it.’ Thus Miss Eleanor Lavish, the self-described Radical and New Woman, and one of E.M. Forster’s … Continue reading →

Posted in Art, History, Museums and Galleries | Tagged cruises, holidays, tourists, Venice | 1 Comment

My Own Private Robin

Posted on 03/05/2016 by carolinemmurray

A sadly long time ago, my aunt and uncle had their own robin, who would turn up most days at teatime and flit around the veranda, looking increasingly impatient and peremptory, until he was served with either crumbled digestive biscuits … Continue reading →

Posted in Art, Gardens, Natural history | Tagged British birds, folklore, ornithology, robin, Shakespeare | 6 Comments

Capabilities

Posted on 29/04/2016 by carolinemmurray

To the auditorium of the Sainsbury Laboratory in Cambridge (the amazingly heavy door of which was clearly not designed for the demographic of the Friends of Cambridge University Botanic Garden). However, we are stalwart types, and having overcome this obstacle, … Continue reading →

Posted in Art, Gardens, History | Tagged Cambridge, Cambridge Backs, Capability Brown, Dr Laura Mayer, landscape gardening | 2 Comments

The Maker of Devils

Posted on 12/04/2016 by carolinemmurray

I was thinking of calling this piece ’36 Hours in s’ Hertogenbosch’, but some of those hours were spent sleeping, and anyway I then came across the fascinating information that Jeroen van Aken, aka Hieronymus Bosch, was also known as … Continue reading →

Posted in Art, History, Museums and Galleries | Tagged Den Bosch, Hieronymus Bosch, Noordbrabant Museum, painting, triptych | 8 Comments

Maria Dundas/Graham/Callcott

Posted on 07/04/2016 by carolinemmurray

Maria Dundas, later Graham, later Callcott, is another of the cohort of women (Fry, Coutts, Nightingale, Marcet, Caroline Herschel …) who give the lie to the nineteenth-century cliché about the angel in the house. Born on 19 July 1785 near … Continue reading →

Posted in Art, Biography, History, Literature, Museums and Galleries, Printing and Publishing | Tagged art criticism, art history, Augustus Wall Callcott, Brazil, Chile, Maria Callcott, Maria Graham, painting | 1 Comment

1816

Posted on 17/03/2016 by carolinemmurray

After the battle of Waterloo brought an end to the Napoleonic Wars and peace to Europe, everyone lived happily ever after (except Napoleon, obviously). The next thing to happen was the death of George III in 1820, after which the … Continue reading →

Posted in Art, Cambridge, History, Museums and Galleries, Natural history, Printing and Publishing | Tagged 1816, Byron, Fitzwilliam Museum, Frankenstein, J.M.W. Turner, Mary Shelley, year without summer | 1 Comment

Object(s) Of The Month: March

Posted on 14/03/2016 by carolinemmurray

Some of the most ancient artefacts which have survived to grace our modern museums were carved from bone or ivory: hardwearing substances, which survive almost anything except a severe conflagration or a deliberate act of grinding them to shards or … Continue reading →

Posted in Archaeology, Art, Cambridge, Exploration, History, Museums and Galleries, Natural history, Uncategorized | Tagged Scott Polar Museum, scrimshaw, whaling | 2 Comments

A Ceramic Bestiary

Posted on 06/03/2016 by carolinemmurray

Lisbon claims to be the oldest city in the world, on the basis that it was thriving long before Athens, Rome etc. It also claims to have been founded by Odysseus on his way back from Troy: the name used … Continue reading →

Posted in Art, Gardens, History, Museums and Galleries, Natural history | Tagged churches, La Fontaine, Lisbon, pasteis de nata, Portugal, tiles | 2 Comments

Object of the Month: February

Posted on 28/02/2016 by carolinemmurray

I urge you to visit the small but perfectly formed exhibition currently in the Shiba Room of the Fitzwilliam Museum, which contains flower paintings from the wonderful collection of Henry Rogers Broughton (1900-73), 2nd Baron Fairhaven, whose bequest to the … Continue reading →

Posted in Art, Botany, Gardens, History, Museums and Galleries, Natural history | Tagged cakes, Fitzwilliam Museum, frangipani, Lindley Library, plumeria, sphinx moth | 3 Comments

Unlit Candles

Posted on 24/02/2016 by carolinemmurray

What I know about the Tractarian controversy of the nineteenth century could be written on the head of a very tiny pin and is mostly drawn from the fiction of Antony Trollope (though I have no reason to believe he’s … Continue reading →

Posted in Art, Classics, History, London, Music | Tagged All Saints' Margaret Street, church music, Frederick Oakeley, Tractarianism | Leave a comment