The Look of Love: Eye Miniatures from the Skier Collection
Here’s hoping you have had an opportunity to see this outstanding collections of treasures!
All photos, ©Birmingham Museum of Art, Sean Pathasema, photographer
All photos, ©Birmingham Museum of Art, Sean Pathasema, photographer
William Wellesley-Pole (1763-1845)
|
Commuters on the Piccadilly and Northern Line are the richest in London, according to the London offices of Randstad the specialist recruiter.
A survey of 1,000 working Londoners who spend the majority of their commute on the Tube found the average salary of someone commuting on the Piccadilly Line is £56,250. The Northern Line trails close behind at £47,250.
Mark Bull, CEO of Randstad said: “With Bank a key stop on the Northern Line, you might think this would be the wealthiest tube line. While twenty years ago the Square Mile was home to pretty much every financial institution in London, the wealth has now spread east to Canary Wharf and west to the West End. The Piccadilly line, though, runs right through Green Park and Piccadilly Circus – which has become prime private equity territory over the last thirty years. As the gentlemen’s clubs of St James have moved out, the venture capitalists have moved in.
“Perhaps it’s fitting that Piccadilly line is home to the capital’s richest commuters now. During the war, the British Museum stored some of its most treasured antiquities – including the Elgin Marbles – into a disused spur of the Piccadilly line . The capital’s wealth is clearly very at home there.”
“It’s not all bad on the Northern Line though. Bank might have been voted the “Most Disliked” tube station in London – and Kennington might be haunted – but in terms of hard cash, the Northern Line is anything but The Misery Line”
Despite connecting Moorgate and Liverpool Street with the rest of London, the average salary of commuters on the Hammersmith & City Line is just £35,250.
I visited with author Diane Gaston, a long-time friend and fellow traveler to England and elsewhere in search of Georgian/Regency-era delights. Diane was as gob-smacked by the beauty of the Salon Doré as I was and we both snapped picture after picture. She was much faster at blogging about our visit than I was. Click here for her post.
The Corcoran’s Salon Doré is one of the finest examples of French Rococo style from the reign of Louis Quinze (XV). Another such gilded salon from Paris can be found in San Francisco’s Legion of Honor Museum. Read more about it here.
From the Corcoran’s website: The Clock of the Vestals marked the passing of the hours in Queen Marie-Antoinette’s boudoir, or private sitting room, in the Tuileries Palace in Paris, adjacent to the Palais du Louvre. The royal family was forced to move there in October 1789 after a mob of Parisians attacked the palace at Versailles, the official residence of the king for over 100 years. In the Tuileries the king and queen held court in gilded splendor but were state prisoners nonetheless. Their last unhappy days together were passed in this palace before they were permanently separated in the mean quarters where they awaited their executions in 1793…The scene on the clock may depict the moment when the vestals, warned of the approach of the Gauls (c. 389), took the sacred fire and vessels from the temple and fled from Rome to Caere, a nearby city…At least sixteen versions of the Clock of the Vestals are known, each having some variation in materials and secondary elements. The clock in the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris, dated 1788, is closest in appearance to the Corcoran clock.”
Other Salon Dorés can be found in palaces, mansions, and museums. Another I have enjoyed visiting was recently re-furbished at the Palace of the Legion of Honor, part of San Francisco’s Fine Arts Museums. Learn about it here.