iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

James Wallace @jameswallace.bsky.social · 07/06/2026

I do admit though, now that I’ve seen it, I can’t unsee it. In the end, whatever the actual meaning of that visible foot may have been, at the very least the painter has made us look at the detail and workmanship of the rest of the tapestry more closely - and maybe that’s all he wanted… 15/ END

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James Wallace @jameswallace.bsky.social · 07/06/2026

And this concealed emblem would also fit with the possible theme of the portrait - open to marriage, but behind it all remaining watchful and cautious. I’m not claiming any certainty here, just offering up a possibility. You can expand this photo to see the whole of the tapestry. 14/

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James Wallace @jameswallace.bsky.social · 07/06/2026

So, while not being in any way as clear cut as Arcimboldo’s paintings, all the elements - the standing foot, watchful eye, head, beak, neck, body, wing, the raised foot holding the stone - are there and placed where they ought to be. If you want to see it, you can. If you don’t, you won’t. 13/

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James Wallace @jameswallace.bsky.social · 07/06/2026

Because I definitely can - in that reversed white flower, which would represent the stone, and in the green sepals of its calyx, representing the grasping foot. Maybe the right-angle formed by the stem(s) to the right even sketches the crook of the leg. 12/

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James Wallace @jameswallace.bsky.social · 07/06/2026

… is something that would refer to the other significant part of the heraldry - the stone grasped by the crane’s raised foot. Here’s the larger picture again, and another version of the heraldic crane - can you see anything that matches that in the tapestry, below the body and above the foot? 11/

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James Wallace @jameswallace.bsky.social · 07/06/2026

Is that its body outlined in that bunch of dark red grapes? Maybe those two green leaves sticking up above that are its wings? Or perhaps that middle, dark green vine leaf is a single wing folded next to the body? But what an observer would really need to be sure of what they’re looking at… 10/

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James Wallace @jameswallace.bsky.social · 07/06/2026

Tracing the rest of the body is harder, less obvious, more subjective. But with this sort of cryptic puzzle, surely that’s all part of the game? And the first clue - the foot - is clear, which invites you to look closely for the rest. Here’s the bottom half of the tapestry. Can you see it? 9/

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James Wallace @jameswallace.bsky.social · 07/06/2026

In her catalogue essay (p22), Christina Faraday suggests this is a reference to a specific piece of animal heraldry: The Crane in its Vigilance You can download a PDF of the whole catalogue here: philipmould.com/usr/library/... 8/

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James Wallace @jameswallace.bsky.social · 07/06/2026

The head is placed quite high up. So it’s a tall bird, standing on one foot, with an open eye. That’s already enough to make a guess as to what it might be. And it’s also embroidered on her dress in another portrait of Elizabeth in the exhibition, from the 1590s. A crane. 7/

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James Wallace @jameswallace.bsky.social · 07/06/2026

Not as exactly defined, but enough to create a figure if you wanted to look for one. In which case, around the eye should be a head, beak & neck. Can you see a bird’s head? I can. In fact, the way those leaves above and below the eye seem deliberately painted to create that possible outline. 6/

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James Wallace @jameswallace.bsky.social · 07/06/2026

So I wonder if the rest of the bird isn’t hiding within or behind the foliage, fruit and fauna, but is actually made up of it? A bit like those wonderful composite heads painted by Giussepe Arcimboldo (1527-93), made up of vegetables or sea creatures or books? 5/

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James Wallace @jameswallace.bsky.social · 07/06/2026

And that eye Mathew saw in the foliage? Several people think it’s a snail. I agree. But my suggestion is: what if it’s meant to be BOTH? In a reply on Substack, June Girvin thought so too: “That is most certainly an eye. How intriguing. But on closer inspection it is most certainly a snail.” 4/

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James Wallace @jameswallace.bsky.social · 07/06/2026

Several people have suggested that foot might belong to a falcon, referencing the heraldry of Elizabeth’s mother, Anne Boleyn. Maybe. A slightly strange place to put it though. But for now, whatever the species, let’s accept it’s a single bird’s foot. 3/

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James Wallace @jameswallace.bsky.social · 07/06/2026

Here’s the whole portrait, and Mathew explains the circumstances in which it was painted, when the need for an heir - and therefore a possible marriage - had renewed urgency. 2/

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James Wallace @jameswallace.bsky.social · 07/06/2026

Mathew ends his great review of this exhibition with a puzzle contained within the Hampden Portrait of Elizabeth I. What’s with that foot poking out at the bottom of the wall tapestry behind her? Also, is that an eye looking out from the foliage? Maybe there’s a solution to the mystery… 1/15👇

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James Wallace @jameswallace.bsky.social · 05/05/2026

Can I ask how this AI image was generated? Because if it’s *purely* an extrapolation from the Holbein sketch labelled as AB, it means the sitter does actually look enough like the woman in the later, cruder AB portrait for me to believe that they are indeed both representations of the same person.

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James Wallace @jameswallace.bsky.social · 09/04/2026

An extraordinary actor, and I’ve loved all four of his films that @filmsradiance.bsky.social have released so far - fingers crossed for more…

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James Wallace @jameswallace.bsky.social · 05/02/2026

In John Lyly’s Endymion (Act 2 Sc 2), one of the two court ladies, either Favilla or Scintilla, carries a pet squirrel in a chain, like Anne Lovell? in Holbein’s portrait. (There’s also the pet monkey that Beatrice leads onstage in Eastward Ho 2.2…)

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James Wallace @jameswallace.bsky.social · 14/01/2026

Lastly, why was Pallas called Pallas? My guess is that he was named after Prussian zoologist Peter Simon Pallas (1741-1811), whose book Zoographia Rosso-Asiatica (1811, St Petersburg) contains this illustration of a walrus.

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James Wallace @jameswallace.bsky.social · 14/01/2026

Here’s another postcard from the period, this time with Carl Hagenbeck himself (in his initialled cap) sat next to a walrus. Is it Pallas? I don’t know…

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James Wallace @jameswallace.bsky.social · 14/01/2026

Pallas the Walrus also features in this enormous painting (2.71m x 2m) from 1911 with the zoo’s owner Carl Hagenbeck, by German painter Lovis Corinth. It was acquired by the Hamburger Kunsthalle the same year.

Portrait of Carl Hagenbeck with the walrus Pallas

1911 - Painting - 2.71m x 2m

The Portrait of Carl Hagenbeck with the Walrus Pallas is a painting by the German painter Lovis Corinth. The picture shows the well-known director of the Hamburg Tierpark Hagenbeck, Carl Hagenbeck, together with the walrus Pallas, who was very well known at the time of the creation of the picture. The painting was created in 1911, a few months before Corinth's first stroke, and was acquired by Alfred Lichtwark in the same year for the Hamburger Kunsthalle.

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James Wallace @jameswallace.bsky.social · 14/01/2026

Back from the rabbit hole with their names: Barry the Keeper and Pallas the Walrus. Pallas was captured in Novaya Zemlya, Russia, and arrived in Tierpark Hagenbeck 15 Sept 1908 when he was 3 or 4 years old He died of starvation there during WWI, in 1915.

Black and white postcard with Pallas the Walrus and Barry the Keeper leaning lovingly on him cheek by cheek while both are sat next to Pallas’ pool in Carl Hagenbeck’s Tierpark in Hamburg.

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James Wallace @jameswallace.bsky.social · 12/12/2025

A few - this one is by François Gérard

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James Wallace @jameswallace.bsky.social · 14/11/2025

I’d recommend: Lighting the Shakespearean stage, 1567-1642 by R. B. Graves (1999)

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James Wallace @jameswallace.bsky.social · 05/11/2025

Yes, I see - in which case, if it was filmed earlier, my first thought was to wonder if it might possibly be Richard Wordsworth, who I see was in the 1939 Stratford season. www.theatricalia.co.uk/01smt/smt293... Here’s a comparison with him in the 1955 film of The Quatermass Xperiment:

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James Wallace @jameswallace.bsky.social · 28/09/2025

Sir Henry’s body was whisked down to London by train, and the sculptor Sir George Frampton was employed to make a death mask. I’ve traced 9 copies of it - back in 2019 I bought one of them at auction that had belonged to the Irving family. It hangs on the wall and is looking over me now.

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James Wallace @jameswallace.bsky.social · 08/08/2025

Here he is on the cover of The Sphinx magazine in 1944 (for sale on eBay)

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James Wallace @jameswallace.bsky.social · 22/07/2025

Production photo from a modern revival? Obvious choice: Sejanus (William Houston; Will & Peter de Jersey. Dir. Greg Doran 2005 RSC)

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James Wallace @jameswallace.bsky.social · 26/06/2025

David Lynch’s personal theramin, recently sold at auction for $10,400

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James Wallace @jameswallace.bsky.social · 18/04/2025

The Moorfields section of the 1550s Copperplate Map shows two windmills in that part of Finsbury Fields now called Bunhill [Bone Hill] Fields, just north of what became The Artillery Ground, now the home of London Cricket Club.

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James Wallace @jameswallace.bsky.social · 26/02/2025

I’m guessing it’s actually a satire of his crazed genocidal property developer fantasies that he’s been pranked into posting… I mean, he dreams of bearded-belly dancers?

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James Wallace @jameswallace.bsky.social · 16/01/2025

Love this! William Charles Macready (1793-1873) by William Etty (1787-1849), 93x70cm At auction 11 Feb Lot 101, est. £6-8,000 Dreweatts catalogue says ‘apparently in the role of Hamlet’, but given the toga, I’d guess Coriolanus, which he played in 1838 & invited Etty to see. Any better guesses?

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James Wallace @jameswallace.bsky.social · 15/01/2025

If you doubt the quotation on this is actually by Shakespeare, bear in mind he’s personally signed it

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James Wallace @jameswallace.bsky.social · 03/11/2023

If you’ve been feeling a bit misty-eyed & nostalgic listening to the new Beatles song ‘Now and Then’, just IMAGINE how Shakespeare fans felt in 1634 when Thomas Cotes followed up his remaster of the folio two years earlier by printing the FIRST EVER release of his final play, The Two Noble Kinsman…

Title page of the 1634 first quarto of Shakespeare & Fletcher’s play The Two Noble Kinsmen

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