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@c18ah.bsky.social Sep 29, 2026, 2:01 PM

On this day, birth of Dr Henry Harington (1727-1816) and John Duncombe (1729-1786).

Poems appear in the #EighteenthCenturyPoetryArchive:
https://www.eighteenthcenturypoetry.org/

Henry Harington (1727-1816) / © National Portrait Gallery, London

@nguthrie.bsky.social Sep 29, 2026, 9:41 AM

Henry Wallis, Chatterton (1856). Horace Walpole was (unfairly) vilified in his lifetime over the Chatterton affair; the 19C Chatterton revival didn’t help his reputation. Tate Britain #c18 #c18th #18thc

Melodramatic portrait of the dead poet on a bed in a garret, a casket of papers by his bedside

@c18ah.bsky.social Sep 28, 2026, 2:01 PM

This day 291 years ago: William Julius Mickle (1735-1788) born this day.

Poems appear in the #EighteenthCenturyPoetryArchive:
https://www.eighteenthcenturypoetry.org/authors/pers00237.shtml

#c18th #poetry #DH #OTD

William Julius Mickle (1735?-1788) / © National Portrait Gallery, London

@stephanieoffer.bsky.social Sep 28, 2026, 1:11 PM

Reading his will on there made me realise my mistake. I've got some re-writing to do, but I'd rather find the mistake now while I can correct it.

I really appreciate the sheer amount of work these researchers have put into this database. 🗃 #C18th

@stephanieoffer.bsky.social Sep 28, 2026, 1:11 PM

I've stopped catastrophying &done some research into the correct branch of the St Barbe family, which is also interesting.

It really shows the value &importance to research of databases like the British slave traders

This is the wrong St Barbe britishslavetraders.org/individual/p... #C18th 🗃

@nguthrie.bsky.social Sep 28, 2026, 9:32 AM

William Hogarth, scene from John Gay’s Beggar’s Opera where Polly Peachum and Lucy Lockit plead for the release of Macheath, each believing she’s his wife (1735). Mack the knife … Tate Britain #c18 #c18th #18thc

Inside a prison, a group of figures. In the centre, a man dressed in a scarlet coat and black Twickenham. To his right, a kneeling young long wiman in white pleads with the gaoler. The gilt wood frame has a dark wood carved portrait of Hogarth in an oval surrounded by trophies of the arts

@nguthrie.bsky.social Sep 27, 2026, 9:59 AM

Room 4 at Tate Britain: #c18 #c18th #18thc pictures hung salon-style. Joseph Highmore’s Mr B Discovering Pamela Writing should be here (or nearby) but is in storage 😥

Pictures hung from the top of the knee-high dark green marble running around the room up the green walls to the white plaster cornice

Pictures described here: https://www.tate.org.uk/visit/tate-britain/display/historic-early-modern-british-art/1760-room?utm_source=signage&utm_medium=qr_code&utm_campaign=DIG_Exhibition-Age

@nguthrie.bsky.social Sep 26, 2026, 3:01 PM

Joseph Wright of Derby, Sir Brooke Boothby (1781), Tate Britain #c18 #c18th #18thc

Sir Brooke, dressed in brown with white stockings and a black broad-brimmed hat, reclines languorously in a woodland setting, one arm propped up against a tree trunk. In the other he holds a volume that says ‘Rousseau’ on the spine

@nguthrie.bsky.social Sep 26, 2026, 2:16 PM

Henry Fuseli (Füssli), Titania & Bottom (c1790), Tate Britain #c18 #c18th #18thc

Scene from Shakespeare’s Midsummer Night’s Dream showing the Queen of the Fairies enchanted by the ass-headed Bottom, surrounded by a crowd of fairies

@nguthrie.bsky.social Sep 26, 2026, 9:57 AM

Chinese blue and white ceramics (late 17C to #c18 #c18th #18thc) from the collection of James Abbott McNeill Whistler, on loan to Tate Britain from The Hunterian, Glasgow

Four shelves of blue and white ceramic plates and vessels

@nguthrie.bsky.social Sep 26, 2026, 9:57 AM

Torii Kinoyaga, scenes from Twelve Months in the South (1780s), from the collection of James Abbott McNeill Whistler, on loan to Tate Britain from the British Museum #c18 #c18th #18thc

Two scenes of women, some standing and some seated, in a anterior with a vview of a sailing ship seen through a window

@nguthrie.bsky.social Sep 25, 2026, 8:31 PM

The temple in the gardens at Chiswick House #c18 #c18th #18thc

Temple with Ionic columns, framed by trees, overlooking a pond with an obelisk in the middle. Note the brown grass left by the summer’s drought)

@nguthrie.bsky.social Sep 25, 2026, 5:12 PM

One of John Cheere’s original lead sphinxes (1749), preserved from the elements inside Chiswick House; the garden has stone replicas #c18 #c18th #18thc

@nguthrie.bsky.social Sep 25, 2026, 3:06 PM

Chiswick House: portrait of Alexander Pope (1735) by William Kent above a door (validating Horace Walpole’s observation that Kent was a mediocre painter) #c18 #c18th #18thc

View of a white doorway with gilding and pediment, oval portrait above with supporting gilt merboys (putti with fishtails)

@nguthrie.bsky.social Sep 25, 2026, 12:06 PM

Chiswick House: interior views (photography strictly verboten!) #c18 #c18th #18thc

The Blue Velvet Room, with rich silk wall hangings and masses of gilding. The photography police were too passively aggressively vigilant to allow me to take snaps of the Red Velvet Room, where the interpretive guides have gone pretty heavily into the ‘Lord Burlington was a crypto-Jacobite’ theory promoted by Jane Clark (which I’m not sure I buy)

Doorway in the Blue Velvet Room with gilt pediment and over door portrait flanked by gilt putti

Under the central octagonal dome , hung with large paintings over Roman marble bust on gilt brackets

Curved white marble fireplace with gilding

@nguthrie.bsky.social Sep 25, 2026, 6:18 AM

Chiswick House (completed 1729) exterior views #c18 #c18th #18thc

The Earl of Burlington’s Palladian villa in white with a columned portico and dome, yellow stone wing to the right, seen from the gravel forecourt

Stone sphinx on a plinth in the garden (replacing John Cheere’s lead original of 1749)

View of the main block from an allée lined with cypresses

Stone gatepost topped by a (replacement) lead sphinx

@nguthrie.bsky.social Sep 24, 2026, 3:27 PM

John Smart, portrait of an unknown gent (c1770). V&A #c18 #c18th #18thc

Oval portrait of a young man in a blue suit with a black silk collar, white shirt, hair powdered. The frame is set with sparkly brilliants

@c18ah.bsky.social Sep 24, 2026, 2:01 PM

In eighteenth-century literary history: birth of Horace Walpole (1717-1797) and William Lisle Bowles (1762-1850).

Poems are included in the #EighteenthCenturyPoetryArchive:
https://www.eighteenthcenturypoetry.org/

#c18th #poetry #DH #OTD

Horace Walpole (1717-1797) / © National Portrait Gallery, London

William Lisle Bowles (1762-1850) / © National Portrait Gallery, London

@nguthrie.bsky.social Sep 24, 2026, 1:35 PM

James Smart, portrait miniature of Abdul Khaliq Sultan (c1792), eldest legitimate son of the Tipu Sultan of Mysore. V&A #c18 #c18th #18thc

Oval portarit miniature of a young Indian prince with an inquisitive look. White coat, pale red turban. He and his younger brother were taken hostage by the East India Company, which wanted concessions from Tipu Sultan. The portrait was probably intended to show that the prince had not been mistreated

@goldenageofpiracy.bsky.social Sep 24, 2026, 12:28 PM

Archaic word of the day:

levant - abscond leaving unpaid debts; to leave secretly or hurriedly to avoid paying debts (First recorded in 1750; British slang; possibly derived from Spanish 'levantar el campo' meaning to break camp)

#englishlanguage #history #c18th