Explore

@nguthrie.bsky.social Oct 10, 2026, 10:09 AM

'Hans Sloane' botanical plate (Chelsea, c1756), George R Gardiner Museum of Ceramic Art, Toronto. This would be the perfect serving dish for (Canadian) Thanksgiving dinner this weekend #c18 #c18th #18thc

Off-white oval plate with lightly scalloped edge. Painted in green and brown tones - a flowering branch, a large swalow-tailed butterfly, smaller insects. Design based on drawings made by Georg Dionysius Ehret in the Chelsea Physic Garden and published by Philip Miller between 1755 and 1760. Pieces like this are called 'Hans Sloane' dishes after Sir Hans, founder of the Garden.

@c18ah.bsky.social Oct 9, 2026, 2:01 PM

On this day, Ambrose Philips (1674-1749) and Mary Tighe (née Blachford) (1772-1810) born this day.

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

#c18th #poetry #DH #OTD

Mary Tighe (1772-1810) / © National Portrait Gallery, London

@nguthrie.bsky.social Oct 9, 2026, 11:23 AM

Vase for a garniture (Vauxhall, c1764-68), MFA, Boston #c18 #c18th #18thc

Vase in Sèvres blue and gilt painted foliage with a white reserve painted with a scene of a girl in a woodland setting. Two rather ear-shaped white handles with gilding. On the blue and gilt lid is a finial of pink flowers and green leaves. H. 13 cm (5 1/8 in.). Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Jessie and Sigmund Katz Collection. Inv. no. 1988.793a-b.

@c18ah.bsky.social Oct 8, 2026, 2:01 PM

Today marks the 315th anniversary of the birth of John Hoadly (1711-1776).

Poems appear in the #EighteenthCenturyPoetryArchive:
https://www.eighteenthcenturypoetry.org/authors/pers00108.shtml

#c18th #poetry #DH #OTD

John Hoadly (1711-1776), with Maurice Greene (seated) / © National Portrait Gallery, London

@nguthrie.bsky.social Oct 8, 2026, 10:48 AM

Hardstone nécessaire with gold mounts (English, c1760), recently sold at Christie’s (not to me!) for €2,048 (incl. premium; est. €2,000-3,000) #c18 #c18th #18thc

Tapering cylindrical formed of grey striated agate, the gold mounts chased with rococo scrolls and flowers, with diamond push-button, the hinged cover revealing a penknife with steel blade, an ear-spoon / toothpick, a pen's mount and a later gilt-metal spoon, apparently unmarked and with later French control mark for 18 K. Height 10.2 cm (4 1/8 in).

@johnobrien.bsky.social Oct 7, 2026, 7:38 PM

My Substack is issuing a new poem drawn from an eighteenth-century newspaper--where poems abounded--every week. Here's the latest, on a poem published in 1784 about the first balloon flight in London that year.
literatureinc.substack.com/p/the-great-...

#18c #c18 #c18th #poetry #18thcentury

@nguthrie.bsky.social Oct 7, 2026, 11:38 AM

There's a Chamberlain's Worcester vase (c1820) with @magdalenoxford.bsky.social on it, anyway. (Long) #c18 #c18th #18thc

Description from Bernard Rackham, Catalogue of the Herbert Allen Collection of English Porcelain (V&A, 1922), page 83, transcribed in the alt text for the second pic.

Plate 65 from the catalogue, with a B&W photograph of a vase with 'inverted bell-shaped body with two scrolled handles, each topped by a gilt head wearing a winged helmet. Square plinth, domed cover with knob in the form of a gilt conventional cauliflower. The view, of which the title 'Oxford' is written in red on the base of the vase, is painted in colours on one side of the body. The reverse is decorated with a formal pattern of festoons, rosettes, and stars in gold on a pale salmon-red ground. The cover and lower part of the body moulded with acanthus foliage.' The cover is marked 'Chamberlain's Worcester' and '155 New Bond Street London' in red. Heihgt 8 3/4 inches. The scene is adapted from plate i of The Copper Plate Magazine 1 (1792).

@nguthrie.bsky.social Oct 7, 2026, 9:57 AM

Inkstand with view of Merton College (Chamberlain’s Worcester, c1816), LACMA. (Long) #c18 #c18th #18thc. Could there be one with a view of @magdalenoxford.bsky.social ?!

Pink and white scrolly inkstand with gilding the central panel has a naturalistic view of Merton chapel in brown tones. Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Gift of Mr. Walter T. Wells, photograph © Museum Associates/LACMA (56.30.13a-d)

@stephanieoffer.bsky.social Oct 6, 2026, 1:31 PM

Has anyone got any idea what this name is? Is it really "Potty Vaughan"? Context is Sarah Grizzell Apthorp's will in 1833 #C18th #Skystorians 🗃 #C19th

A section of an will from 1833 with a name that is hard to read highlighted

@nguthrie.bsky.social Oct 6, 2026, 10:09 AM

Teapot (Wedgwood, c1770), at Bonhams, NYC (est. US$2,00-3,000) #c18 #c18th #18thc

Catalogue description:

Attributed to the Rhodes Workshop, the globular shape perfectly suited for a concentric 'target' pattern painted in chestnut-red and centred on each side with a five-pointed pinwheel floret in black and chestnut, the leaf molded spout and scroll handle mottled in a similar palette, 5 1/2 in. (14cm) high, both cover and base marked with numeral '4' in red

@nguthrie.bsky.social Oct 5, 2026, 10:19 AM

Wish I could get to this! URL in the alt #c18 #c18th #18thc

Poster for Lewis Walpole Library symposium on Hogarth: His Art, Life and Times - A Tribute to Ronald Paulson

https://walpole.library.yale.edu/programs/hogarth-symposium-2026

@nguthrie.bsky.social Oct 4, 2026, 11:05 AM

Jewel cabinet (Sèvres, 1825-26) given by King Charles X of France to King Ferdinand I of the Two Sicilies, Cooper Hewitt, NYC. (Long) #c18 #c18th #18thc

Neoclassical cabinet with double doors mounted on a table-like stand with two lapis columns. On the panels of the doors are Sèvres plaques in pink and red with medallions depicting classical scenes surrounded by garlands. The case of the cabinet is mounted in gilt bronze and surmounted by a gilt peacock displaying its tail

@nguthrie.bsky.social Oct 3, 2026, 10:25 AM

Gilt bronze medal (c1712) with Queen Anne on one side & her elder half-brother, James, the legitimist claimant, on the other, at Spink (est. £500-600) #Jacobite #c18 #c18th #18thc

Cast and chased medal with portraits based on medals by John Croker and Norbert Roettiers. Obv. Anne, laureate, draped and looking left, inscription ANNA AVGVSTA. Rev. 'James III', in armour and mantle, looking left and periwigged in the style of Louis XIV, with the inscription CVIVS EST ('Whose [kingdom] is it?]. The medal would have appealed to High Church Tories who were dismayed by the events of 1688 but who accepted the reign of Anne and were yet persuadable to accept her elder brother as her successor instead of the German distant cousin waiting in the wings.

@c18ah.bsky.social Oct 2, 2026, 2:01 PM

On this day (313 years ago), Jonathan Shipley (1713-1788)’s birth date.

Featured in the #EighteenthCenturyPoetryArchive:
https://www.eighteenthcenturypoetry.org/authors/pers00126.shtml

#c18th #poetry #DH #OTD

Jonathan Shipley (1713-1788) / © National Portrait Gallery, London

@nguthrie.bsky.social Oct 2, 2026, 11:22 AM

Large hard-paste porcelain tray/plateau à baguette (Sèvres, c1775), with E&H Manners, London #c18 #c18th #18thc

Painted with a central classical trophy against a ground of cornflowers and roses in a gilt trellis. The flowers are by Jean-Nicholas le Bel le jeune (1765-93), and it is gilded by Henri-Martin Prevost (1757-97). The painting of the trophies is attributed to Louis-Gabriel Chulot (1755-1800).40.0 cm across. Marks: Crowned Interlaced ‘L’s in red; LB for Jean-Nicholas le Bel le jeune; HP for the gilder Henri-Martin Prevost

@defoesociety.bsky.social Oct 2, 2026, 5:59 AM

New Publication Alert

Zetterberg-Nielsen, Simona. "It is Impossible to Describe–Apophasis and Degrees of Fictionality in the History of the Early Novel." Degrees of Fictionality/Degrés de fictionnalité 1 (2026): 218.

#danieldefoe #defoe #18thCentury #C18th #18thC #defoesociety

@nguthrie.bsky.social Oct 1, 2026, 10:17 AM

Turner, self-portrait (1799), Tate Britain #c18 #c18th #18thc

The young artist portrays himself with a steady gaze. His hair is short and looks quite grey. He wears a dark coat, loosely fastened grey waistcoat, white chief and loosely tied cravat. Too-shiny gilt wood frame, purple wall.

@johnobrien.bsky.social Sep 30, 2026, 1:32 PM

A new (free) Substack post, this one on Samuel Johnson's final work, first published in the *Public Advertiser.* Subscribe if you'd like new posts like this every Tuesday. #c18 #18th #c18th

literatureinc.substack.com/p/samuel-joh...

@nguthrie.bsky.social Sep 30, 2026, 10:17 AM

Sir William Beechey, The children of Sir Francis Ford giving a coin to a beggar (1793), Tate Britain #c18 #c18th #18thc

A thin young beggar takes a coin from the rather nervous-looking daughter, dressed in pink and white with a matching bonnet. Her brother , in a red suit with trousers and a large black hat with a black ostrich plume, stands between them with a questioning gaze at the beggar. A spaniel looks up at the poor boy

@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/

#c18th #poetry #DH #OTD

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