Uncategorized – Page 143 – Number One London

Video Wednesday – Stately Home Renovations

Dumfries House

Prince Charles – the Royal Restoration of Dumfries House – Documentary 46 minutes.

Tim Wonnacott and Rosemary Shrager visit some of the castles, palaces and stately homes frequented by Queen Victoria during her lifetime. They begin with Chatsworth House in Derbyshire. 30 minutes.

I Own Britain’s Best Home – The Yorkshire Castle, a renovated folly. 10 minutes.

Grand Designs – The Dilapidated Georgian House– 55 minutes.

Tour round the interior of abandoned Berkyn Manor. 4 minutes.

Wentworth Woodhouse – the incredible, sinking stately home. 3 minutes.

Restoration Home – Stoke Hall. 49 minutes

And From Elsewhere On The Web . . . . .

We thought we’d pass along some interesting posts we’ve stumbled upon lately – something for everyone. Enjoy!

The Momento Moriatas – Killed By A Coffin, And Other Tales of Kensal Green Cemetery

The British Library Blog – How Research at the British Library led two authors to challenge 18th
century East End stereotypes and to write three books on the subject.

Views of London, No.5. Entrance from Mile End or Whitechaple Turnpike’. Maps.K.Top.22.6.e – S

The Georgian Gentleman – London’s first gas lights

The Guardian – Inside “Billionaires Row”: London’s rotting, derelict mansions worth 350m

Adventures in Historyland – Lady Butler’s Waterloo

Before We Had Cell Phones

We’re kicking off a new series with an excerpt from Rory Muir’s most excellent new biography, Wellington: The Path to Victory 1769 – 1814 concerning news of the Battle of Salamanca – 22 July, 1812:

“First reports of the battle reached London at the beginning of August in a message from Sir Home Popham. John Wilson Croker (above), the Secretary to the Admiralty, recalled: `I myself passed a few painful hours when a blundering telegraphic dispatch announced the battle of Salamanca as won by the French and `Wellington killed.’ This was a Sunday in August 1812. Parliament was up – no minister in town – nobody at the Admiralty but my single self; and there I was for four cruel hours, sitting on a corner of the Admiralty garden-wall watching the slow telegraph and as Homer says `eating my own heart.’ They were the most painful hours I ever passed, and I had the tremendous secret all to myself – first because I had no one to tell it to, and secondly that it was not tellable to anyone, in the confused and imperfect state in white it was coming up.’

“The mistake was corrected that afternoon, but newspapers the following day could only report the bald fact that the battle had been fought and won, and the anxious public had to wait another fortnight until, on Sunday 16 August, Wellington’s ADC Lord Clinton arrived in London in a chaise bedecked in laurel, carrying the captured French eagles and flags, and the official dispatch giving full details of the victory. An excited crowd assembled outside Lord Bathurst’s house in Mansfield Street and the tidings soon spread. Lady Wellington ran to Lord Bathurst’s from her house in Harely Street to hear the news, and on being told that her husband was safe she nearly fainted. The following night the capital was illuminated and jubilant crowds filled the streets. Lord Wellesley (Wellington’s brother, Richard) ventured out to enjoy the scene and was recognized and cheered wherever he went, basking for a moment in the reflected glory of his younger brother.”

Home Front Daily Life in the Civil War North

Victoria here…I have written earlier on this blog about programs at Chicago’s Newberry Library, and while I am far away at the moment, I want to tell you about an exhibition on display there until late March, if you have the chance to get to Chicago by then.

Views of the Newberry Library in the Autumn of 2013

“Home Front: Daily Life in the Civil War North” marks the 150th anniversary of the U.S. Civil War, 1981-1865. The exhibition is interesting and well organized, and it may be of particular interest to readers of this blog because of the position of Great Britain. Less than a century after separating from Britain, would the USA survive or break apart?

Henry John Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston, ca. 1855

Artist: Francis Cruikshank

British Prime Minister Lord Palmerston (1784-1865) was said to be more sympathetic to the cause of the secessionist states, probably for several reasons, especially including the importance of southern cotton to the textile mills of Britain. Yet, the grains that traveled east across the Atlantic from Northern ports were of equal concern. Most of the controversy was played out in diplomacy concerning the shipping, blockades, embargoes, neutral rights, etc. on the high seas. President Lincoln needed to keep Britain on his side, or at the least prevent the British from directly supporting the Southern States

Samuel Colman Jr., Ships Unloading, New York, 1868

Terra Foundation for American Art, Chicago

From the Library’s Text Labels: “Samuel Colman’s Ships Unloading depicts a busy New York port, where a ship known as the Glad Tidings is docked. The ship’s most important cargo was cotton, the mainstay of the South’s slave economy and New York City’s most important export. But since the early war years, the Glad Tidings had been instrumental in facilitating a free labor model of the cotton trade that aimed to replace slavery with wage work. The crops the Glad Tidings brought to New York had been grown and harvested in the South by wage-earning ex-slaves. Colman’s painting is therefore a reminder of epochal historical change. In the foreground, a black worker and two white counterparts tend to a cotton bale that has spilled open, while a single white worker wrestles with another bale. On the left edge of the painting a banner reads “London and New York,” reminding viewers that the South supplied the vast majority of raw cotton for the English textile industry through the port of New York. Visible only under considerable magnification are the words “New York Petroleum Co.” painted across the head of the barrel facing the viewer, foreshadowing the presence of the commodity that would fuel the engines of American commerce, and warfare, for generations to come.”

Albert Bobbett, Edward Hooper, and Louis H. Stephens, “Principle vs. Interest” from Vanity Fair

New York: Louis H. Stephens, April 13, 1861

Newberry folio A 5 .93 v. 3

Again from the Newberry’s texts: ‘In “Principle vs. Interest,” England’s John Bull casts a sidelong glance at the seated Confederate president, Jefferson Davis, who appears as a cotton broker. Bull turns his back on the black male figure, signaling that England’s abolitionist principles will not stop it from acting on its commercial interests. Characteristic of cartooning style at that time, the slave is literally encased and flailing helplessly in a cotton bale.’

Many other exhibits refer to activities in Chicago and elsewhere in the North during the Civil War.

“Group of Chicago Zouave Cadets” from

Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper, NY, July 28, 1860

According to the exhibition, ‘More than 70 US Army volunteer regiments fashioned themselves “Zouaves,” borrowing the term and the uniform from French Army regiments serving in North Africa during the mid-nineteenth century. Instantly recognizable in their colorful garb, Zouave regiments sported tasseled fezzes, short, open jackets trimmed with braid and baggy pants, often in brilliant red. Sheet music, periodicals, and parades featuring precision drills contributed to the popularity of the Zouave regiments.

This Zouve-style silk dress worn by Sarah Cadwallader Logan Knowland, 1865-66, particularly interested me for the carefully stitched pleating and fine fabric. I find it interesting that military styles often influence women’s fashions.

Dress, based on Zouave Style,

Chicago History Museum,

“Home Front” is open through March 24, 2014. Among other exhibits are paintings by Winslow Homer and Frederic E. Church; first editions by Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, Harriet Beecher Stowe, and Louisa May Alcott; sheet music from Chicago-based music publishers; and displays about changing roles of women and children.

Lilly Martin Spencer, The Home of the Red, White, and Blue ca. 1867-68

Terra Foundation for American Art, Chicago

Lilly Martin Spencer was born in Exeter, England, to French parents; the family emigrated to the U.S. when she was 8 years old in 1830. Her husband, Benjamin Rush Spencer, married in 1844 in Cincinnati, devoted his life to her artistic career. Lily Spencer’s popular paintings focused on daily life, particularly of women. After the Civil War, she was well known for depicting the results of the war and the changes it brought in the American family. In the scene above, the mother in white — said to be a self-portrait — and her daughters in red and blue assist the poor. The man at the left seems to be a wounded war victim. the painting is seen as m allegory of how women are repairing the war-torn nation.

Another aftermath of the war is simply and effectively shown below.

William Sidney Mount, Fruit Piece: Apples on Tin Cups, 1864

Terra Foundation for American Art, Chicago

According to the Library text, “William Sidney Mount’s Fruit Piece: Apples on Tin Cups depicts two weathered tin cups, known as “dippers,” each with an apple sitting atop. The tin cups were standard issue for Union soldiers, who often wore them dangling from their belts as they marched, or on their saddles as they rode into battle. These cups were objects of war, yet by placing them in this domestic setting, Mount’s painting suggests that the distance between battlefield and home front could easily collapse. The artist donated his painting to the 1864 Great Metropolitan Fair in Manhattan, where its sale helped the US Sanitary Commission raise money.”

“Home Front: Daily Life in the Civil War North” was organized by the Newberry and the Terra Foundation for American Art. the Library’s website is here. The Digital Exhibition is here.

William Kent: Designing Georgian Britain

William Kent

Whilst in Manhattan recently, I was fortunate enough to be able to take in the current Exhibition at the Bard Gallery – William Kent: Designing Georgian Britain, which will move to the Victoria and Albert Museum in London from March 22 to July 13, 2014.

The Exhibition contains nearly 200 examples of Kent’s elaborate drawings for architecture, gardens, and sculpture, along with furniture, silver, paintings, illustrated books and new documentary films. As most of his best-known surviving works are in Britain’s great country houses, the exhibition is rich in loans from private as well as public collections.

As the Exhibition website tells us: “Kent devised a style that catered to the Grand Tour alumni, recreating the splendors of Roman palazzi. A jovial house guest of his patrons, ‘Kentino’ (as he was affectionately known) and his creations reminded them of the best days of their lives, before they returned, inherited, and dutifully managed their old family estates.” Kent’s notebooks and drawings kept during his own time in Italy form a part of the current Exhibition and it was fascinating to see these items, written in his own centuries ago, up close.

You may recall a recent post on this blog on Devonshire House in London and, if so, you’ll know how delighted I was to find items from the House included in the Kent Exhibition.

Door and surround from the East Drawing Room (later the dining room), Devonshire House

Lord Burlington is the best- known today of several patrons who embraced Kent’s design ideals and Kent lived in his London townhouse, Burlington House (today the home of the Royal Academy) for most of his life and was also, in effect, artist-in-residence at Burlington’s new Italianate villa at Chiswick.

Armchair for Devonshire House William Kent. Armchair for Devonshire House William Kent 1733-40. Carved gilt wood, modern upholstery.

As Victoria reminded me, some of the Devonshire House items were sold as part of the Chatsworth Attic Sale held at Sotheby’s in 2010, which included some 20,000 items from the Duke of Devonshire’s home. You can read all about that sale here. And you will find prices realized here. The sale brought in over six million pounds in total.

Of Kent’s public works, the exhibition examines 10 Downing Street, the Houses of Parliament, the Horse Guards at Whitehall, and the Royal Mews. One section is devoted to Holkham Hall, designed with the assistance of Lord Burlington for Thomas Coke, 1st Earl of Leicester, who was among Kent’s most important patrons. You can read Victoria’s post on her visit to Holkham Hall here.

There is a book that’s been published to coincide with the Exhibition entitled William Kent: Designing Georgian Britain, edited by Susan Weber, and published with Yale University Press,
presents twenty-one essays by leading scholars of eighteenth-century British art and design, including Julius Bryant (co-curator), Geoffrey Beard, John Harris, John Dixon Hunt, Frank Salmon, and David Watkin. The book is richly illustrated with over 600 color images, including the pieces featured in the exhibition. A chronology of Kent’s projects, an exhibition checklist, and an extensive bibliography round out this scholary publication.

You can read more about the Exhibition on the Bard Graduate Center website here.