Category Archives: Museums and Galleries

Object Of The Month: September

Posted on 23/09/2016 by carolinemmurray

For one reason and another (one being the Christmas craft fair events for charity, which are looming), I am busier with knitting at the moment than usual. Hedgehogs and Christmas puddings are lining up unseasonably early, though I guess I … Continue reading →

Posted in Archaeology, Exploration, History, Museums and Galleries | Tagged , , , | 3 Comments

Details, Details …

Posted on 05/09/2016 by carolinemmurray

In the Eremitani Museum in Padua the other day, I was struck (as so often) by some of the details in the paintings on display as much as by the overall effect of a particular composition. Take this clog (left), … Continue reading →

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Object of the Month: August

Posted on 22/08/2016 by carolinemmurray

The apotheosis of Nelson was already well under way in 1836, when one George Gunning, of Frindsbury in Kent, presented a snuffbox to the Fitzwilliam Museum. Books, prints, portraits, medals and ceramics preserved the great naval hero in the public … Continue reading →

Posted in Art, Biography, Cambridge, History, Museums and Galleries, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , | 8 Comments

Object of the Month: July

Posted on 29/07/2016 by carolinemmurray

I was planning to follow up on some thoughts generated by a recent interesting talk at the Fitzwilliam Museum about portraits of men with their secretaries/assistants/friends, but I got diverted quite early on to a rather different topic. The Museum … Continue reading →

Posted in Art, Biography, Cambridge, History, Museums and Galleries | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

Toadstone

Posted on 14/07/2016 by carolinemmurray

This all started when I was looking for frogs in art (another story…). A search engine, clearly unable to tell its Batrachia from its Bufones, came up with the three-legged toad of Liu-Hai, of which, as it happens, there are … Continue reading →

Posted in Archaeology, Cambridge, History, Museums and Galleries, Natural history | Tagged , , , , , | 1 Comment

Object of the Month: June

Posted on 26/06/2016 by carolinemmurray

I don’t like, and have never liked, pottery and porcelain figures. I admire the superb craftsmanship that went into making them, but it seems to me a terrible waste of skill and effort to produce these coy and simpering results. … Continue reading →

Posted in Art, History, Museums and Galleries | Tagged , , , , , | 9 Comments

Layers of Paint

Posted on 09/06/2016 by carolinemmurray

The great moment has arrived: Sebastiano del Piombo’s ‘Adoration of the Shepherds’ has gone on display in the Flowers Room at the Fitzwilliam Museum, just outside the Italian Gallery where it may well finally hang.

Posted in Art, Cambridge, History, Museums and Galleries, Venice | Tagged , , , | 3 Comments

Object of the Month: May

Posted on 30/05/2016 by carolinemmurray

This month’s object (coming in just under the wire again – I blame (paradoxically) both my holiday and my new, blissful, part-time job!) may well look familiar. This is because it is one of the ‘Marlay Cuttings’ in the Fitzwilliam … Continue reading →

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The Mystery of Sant’ Eufemia

Posted on 21/05/2016 by carolinemmurray

Of the 118 churches in Venice (that is, the surviving ones, as opposed to the demolished/decayed/collapsed, of which there are about fifty), many are never (in my experience) open. There is a uniform notice on each one, telling you what … Continue reading →

Posted in Art, History, Museums and Galleries, Venice | 3 Comments

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 , , , | 1 Comment