Art and Museums
Paul Delaroche: A Painter Whose Subjects Meet Untimely Ends
Lady Jane Grey was Queen of England for just 9 days until she was driven from the throne and sent to the Tower of London to be executed. Painter Paul Delaroche found many of the doomed to be his subjects - Joan of Arc, Marie Antoinette - or did he especially seek them out? more »
An Armchair 'Grand Tour' of Italy, A Room With a View and Letters Written in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark
"If ever there was a book calculated to make a man in love with its author, this appears to me to be the book. She speaks of her sorrows, in a way that fills us with melancholy, and dissolves us in tenderness, at the same time that she displays a genius which commands all our admiration." more »
Mirror Mirror: Self-portraits By Women Artists & On The Nature of Women: Tudor and Jacobean Portraits of Women
Maggi Hambling: 'She works all the hours she can, waiting, working, until the muse arrives, as she puts it. If the muse doesn't show up, Hambling destroys the canvas she's working on' ". more »
V&A's Costume Cleaning Conundrum, Manchu 'Horse-Hoof' Shoes and The Invisibles
"The condition of the costume at the time of purchase was startling. The hem of the skirt was black inside and out. All parts were soiled. There was extensive water-borne staining throughout; the proper left sleeve of the jacket and front of the skirt both had large stains down their entire length that had hardened to the consistency of cardboard. The whole ensemble was very heavily creased and misshapen. The waist of the skirt had been taken apart and cobbled together again in haphazard gathers. As one of my colleagues succinctly put it — it was a mess!" more »