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Orchestra of Exiles 1936 - getting Jewish musicians out of Germany
“Orchestra of Exiles” is a fine film that premiered in Dec 2011, directed by Josh Aronson.Bronislaw Huberman (1882–1947) had been a child violinist in Poland who was exploited and pushed by his father,...
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Wakefield's colonial dream - Australia, Canada, New Zealand
The colonising exploits of Edward Gibbon Wakefield (1796-1862) were not part of Australian history curricula for primary school students. But recently a favourite blog, The Resident Judge of Port...
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Bayeux Tapestry pornography?
Once the Normans left Scandinavia and settled in Northern France, they made Caen, Rouen and Bayeux their most important towns. Their administrative and taxation systems were well organised, and they...
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Johannes Vermeer and the Golden Age of Dutch Art
Johannes Vermeer and the Golden Age of Dutch Art is an exhibition showing in the Scuderie del Quirinale Rome until January 2013. It is displaying eight works by Vermeer (including The Girl with a...
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Anna Pavlova: meringue with cream, strawberries and passionfruit
Anna Pavlova (1881-1931) was a Russian ballerina who grew up at a time when Russia was producing the best dancers, choreographers, costume designers, artists, composers, writers and every other...
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Arcadia in Philadelphia USA
The theme of an earthly paradise, or Arcadia, has been popular in literature, music and art for a very long time, starting with the valley of Arcadia in ancient Greece. If we had to summarise the...
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Spanish Civil War 1936-9: brave artists
The Second Spanish Republic was the democratically elected government of Spain from April 1931 on. It was pro-workers, anti-Church and luke-warm on monarchy. The new constitution established women's...
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Palladio's architecture: Inigo Jones and the Whig taste makers
The architectural style of Andrea Palladio (1508–1580) and his Renaissance villas was set out in his 1570 book Quattro Libri, showing a style that was calm, simple, sophisticated, bound by the rules of...
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Jacobites, politics and treasonous alcohol: 1688-1745
In 1688 James II, the recently converted Catholic king was ousted by parliament in the Glorious Revolution. He sent his second wife and baby son to Catholic-friendly France, then fled himself into...
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Remarkable Sassoon family: the English branch
In reviewing Peter Stanksy’s book, Sassoon: The Worlds of Philip and Sybil (Yale UP, 2003), we need some historical context. The Sassoon family were Iraqi Jews who specialised in silk and cotton,...
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Pope Urban II and his Norman knights: the first crusade 1096
In examining the First Crusader to liberate the Holy Land from Muslim infidels, my students had to discover why almost all the first responders were Frenchmen and why the majority of these Frenchmen...
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Crystal Palace, 1851 and the world's greatest jewel
The World Fair was a very large public exhibition, held every 4 years or so in different countries. It was a tradition that started in the mid-19th century and has continued ever since. Since it cost...
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Rare Adventures and Painful Peregrinations: William Lithgow
Scottish writer-traveller-explorer William Lithgow (1582-1645) travelled extensively throughout the Levant in three substantial journeys between 1610 and 1622. He completed his major work, The Total...
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Virginia Woolf's rural idyll: Bloomsbury Set
There is no doubt that Virginia Woolf spent a great deal of time in Charleston Farmhouse, East Sussex with her sister and brother in law, Vanessa and Clive Bell. We can see Bell's portrait of Virginia...
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Anglo-Jewish art collectors
Since I returned to university in 1990 to do history and art history, my interests have been very broad. But if I had to specify which subjects appeal most, the key labels in the blog return again and...
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Women Against the Vote: 1908-1918
We expect that Edwardian women would have either supported universal suffrage or been neutral on the topic. Women might have been too busy running a home and caring for their children, for example, to...
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Recruiting British adolescents to work in Australia: 1922-4
The Australian states federated into a nation in January 1901. From 1910 on, the Australian Government, churches and a range of private and philanthropic institutions sponsored a dozen migration...
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Russian composers, playwrights and tennis players?
To my mother’s certain knowledge, Russians and their neighbours were born and educated to be composers, instrumentalists, painters, sculptors, doctors, academics, scientists, writers, dancers, theatre...
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Goethe's home in Weimar: 1782-1832
The Duke of Sachsen Weimar Eisenach was clearly besotted with the famous author, Johann Wolfgang Goethe (1749–1832). and invited him to move to Weimar and to lease rooms in the Duke’s lovely summer...
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Right wing Mothers in war time USA
Glen Jeansonne 's book Women of the Far Right is powerful. When World War Two broke out in Sept 1939, a mass movement of American women was outraged not by Hitler’s atrocities, but by the possibility...
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