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Mercedes Cerón @mercedesceron.bsky.social · 25/08/2026

Yesterday at Paxton Tower, an early 19thC folly near Llandeilo, with view of the Tywi valley from the opposite side. www.nationaltrust.org.uk/visit/wales/...

View of the fields around Paxton Tower through pointed arch on the ground floor

View of Tywi valley seen through bushes around Paxton Tower

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Mercedes Cerón @mercedesceron.bsky.social · 16/08/2026

Among the things Francis Douce took with him on his holidays, according to his 'Rural memoranda', there were books, prints, boxes for insects, a telescope, and a microscope. These are some of his notes about the water from the pond, a butterfly, and the insects he found on an 'apple leaf':

Page from Francis Douce's notebook Ms. Douce d.87, with his observations on the 'water flea' and three drawings

Watercolour drawing of a butterfly, with Douce's notes on the antennae

Drawings and notes of insects seen by Douce on the leaf of an apple tree in Cheam, London, from one of his notebooks

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Mercedes Cerón @mercedesceron.bsky.social · 11/08/2026

Even the sea feels unusually warm this year

View of the beach in Burry Port, Wales, with leaping waves reaching the sand

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Mercedes Cerón @mercedesceron.bsky.social · 11/08/2026

Visiting family in Wales, and the landscape around here looks almost Castilian in this hot weather

Signalled coastal path in Wales, with blue sky and yellowish fields in the background

View of Llansteffan beach from castle on a clear day

View of fields in Llansteffan from the castle

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Mercedes Cerón @mercedesceron.bsky.social · 01/08/2026

Summer nights in New York, by John Sloan, 1906 www.britishmuseum.org/collection/o...

Nocturnal view the roofs during the summer; man, woman and two children asleep on a matress in the foreground; groups of sleeping people and chimneys seen in distance (description from British Museum website)

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Mercedes Cerón @mercedesceron.bsky.social · 25/07/2026

Valle del Ambroz, Cáceres. We found a swan this time 🦢

Landscape in Valle del Ambroz, with lake and stormy sky in the background

Beach and swan in the water, with hills and stormy sky in the background

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Mercedes Cerón @mercedesceron.bsky.social · 25/06/2026

Insects and reptiles from an ornament print by goldsmith-engraver Virgil Solis (1514-1562), also seen crawling up this amazing goblet and creeping around the lid www.ashmolean.org/collections-... www.britishmuseum.org/collection/o...

Insects, reptiles, snails, and fish on minimal ground with water in foreground, including a snake, turtle, cricket, frog, bee, scorpion, and caterpillar depicted in an ornament print (from Ashmolean website)

Design for a covered goblet with a fish, a snake, a frog and two insects (from BM website)

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Mercedes Cerón @mercedesceron.bsky.social · 13/06/2026

This week I talked at the Folklore on the Move conference on Francis Douce's using images to argue that Morris dancing had its origins in North Africa, from where it would have travelled to Spain and then to France or Flanders before being adopted by the English @folkloresociety.bsky.social

Stained-glass window decorated with Morris dancers at Betley Hall

Engraving by Israhel van Meckenem showing a woman holding a ring surrounded by male dancers, including a jester and a piper, with spectators watching through a window in the foreground, within roundel

Woodcut depicting a woman from Fez dancing with bells round her ankles

"Moorish dance" by Israhel van Meckenem, with a woman holding an apple surrounded by six dancers among arabesques and vegetal ornamentation

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Mercedes Cerón @mercedesceron.bsky.social · 08/06/2026

16thC palace by Juan de Álava for sale here in Salamanca. I like that it says second hand www.altamirainmuebles.com/venta-de-edi...

Facade of Renaissance palace called Casa de las Muertes in Salamanca

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Reposted by Mercedes Cerón

Dr Adam James Smith @elementaladam.bsky.social · 04/06/2026

🚨RADICAL PRINT CULTURE SYMPOSIUM 🚨 The Programme is now live (see 🧵), and the symposium will also feature two amazing keynote speakers, a print exhibition and a handling workshop. Register: docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F... @bsecs.bsky.social @cecs-york.bsky.social @chloewigstonsmith.bsky.social

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Reposted by Mercedes Cerón

Morgan Golf-French @zenothankyou.bsky.social · 14/05/2026

My author copies have arrived! To celebrate, I'm offering a free copy sent directly to your front door. This is your chance to bag what will surely be the beach read of the summer! Just share this post and in two weeks (28 May) I'll choose a name from a hat and pop it in the mail.

5 splayed copies of Race, Culture, and Politics in German Historical Thought by Morgan Golf-French

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Mercedes Cerón @mercedesceron.bsky.social · 23/05/2026

Lovely summery weather for a concert in the early Renaissance courtyard of the local public library last evening, with bagpipes, a guitar, a fiddle, and a tambourine watched over by gargoyles and lions

Musicians playing on a stage in an early Renaissance courtyard, with spectators seen from behind in the foreground

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Mercedes Cerón @mercedesceron.bsky.social · 17/05/2026

Got lost because of the satnav ignoring road closures and diversions, so ended up having a picnic by this pond, followed around by a very sweet dog that came up from nowhere, didn't want to leave, and curled up in the shade next to the car to have a siesta

View of pond full of leaves and frogs, with oak tree and fields in the background, under blue sky on a sunny day

Dog walking among high grass, with trees and pond in the background

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Mercedes Cerón @mercedesceron.bsky.social · 14/05/2026

Goya depicted the romería of San Isidro, a popular fête that took place on the meadow by the river Manzanares on May the 15th, in this oil sketch for a tapestry to be hung on the walls of the infantas' bedroom, which was never made. That rowdy crowd looks to me almost impossible to weave

People drinking, dancing and having picnics on a meadow by the Manzanares river on a sunny day, with a view of Madrid in the background, depicted by Goya

Detail from Goya's Pradera de San Isidro, with crowds and carriages gathering by the river

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Mercedes Cerón @mercedesceron.bsky.social · 30/04/2026

When your medievalist friends invite you, an early modern art historian, to see some cool work they're doing on the pigments used in illuminated manuscripts

Dancing jester carved in stone in the university of Salamanca

Staircase in the university of Salamanca

Manuscript open on desk to be photographed

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Mercedes Cerón @mercedesceron.bsky.social · 30/04/2026

This morning I learnt that mss are still kept in these 17thC boxes lined with zinc in our old university library. Zero condensation! And pretty painted doors!

Eight painted boxes in a library, one of the open to show zinc lining and bound manuscripts

Detail from the interior of the old library in the univeesity of Salamanca, with wooden bookcases in two levels and sculpture on top

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Mercedes Cerón @mercedesceron.bsky.social · 14/04/2026

On the train coming back from Zaragoza after giving a talk on this drawing by Goya: Oh holy breeches

A drawing in brown ink by Goya, showing an ecclesiastic holding a pole with a pair of breeches hanging from it and inscription Ó S.te brague below

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Mercedes Cerón @mercedesceron.bsky.social · 05/04/2026

Bored cherubs making faces (from Spanish Easter parade)

Detail from Spanish Easter parade, with gilded decoration showing six cherubs with different facial expressions

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Mercedes Cerón @mercedesceron.bsky.social · 29/03/2026

Early spring, with snow in the mountains

Landscape with olive tree in the foreground and snowy mountains in the background

A fountain with date 1672, sun and religious symbols carved in stone

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Mercedes Cerón @mercedesceron.bsky.social · 24/03/2026

Douce on people fighting snails: "In the interlude of Thersites Friar Tuck attacks a snail with club & sword & compels it to draw in its horns". Snails in the Compost et kalendrier des bergiers and the Ormesby Psalter are, however, either unfazed or winning 🐌 Douce 161 MS. Douce 366

Page from the Compost et kalendrier des bergiers, with text in two columns and woodcut showing two men and a woman fighting a snail resting on a pillar, with city in the background

Scrap paper annotated by Francis Douce: ""In the interlude of Thersites Friar Tuck attacks a snail with club & sword & compels it to draw in its horns"

Detail from the 'Ormesby Psalter', with a man dropping sword and shield being attacked by a snail

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Mercedes Cerón @mercedesceron.bsky.social · 10/03/2026

Teaching Goya today, and No se puede mirar (One can't look)

One of Goya's Disasters of War, showing a group of people about to be shot by soldiers, only the tips of their bayonnets showing

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Mercedes Cerón @mercedesceron.bsky.social · 25/02/2026

Teaching about phantasmagoria this week, so I dug up this 1817 print of a phantasmagoric chimera from my Douce files. Tabs can be pulled to create "extravagant changes of countenance truly diverting"

Phantasmagoric figure showing a scary demonic bearded face with bat ears and open mouth

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Mercedes Cerón @mercedesceron.bsky.social · 22/02/2026

15thC tombs in the Capilla del Contador Saldaña, with lovely details in alabaster carving, but also this funny face suspended from the drop tracery

Sculpture of a lady in 15thC costume holding an open book in her tomb

Face emerging from vegetal decoration in drop tracery carved in stone

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Mercedes Cerón @mercedesceron.bsky.social · 21/02/2026

The storks are back: this one is refurbishing last year's nest and throwing away some old sticks that aren't right for the new one

A storck refurbishing its nest in the bell tower of a monastery

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Mercedes Cerón @mercedesceron.bsky.social · 11/02/2026

In 1826, Francis Douce wrote to George Cumberland about the building work undertaken by "the projectors of the London University" in his neighbourhood, adding "I prognosticate that they will not effect their purpose & this will hereafter turn out another bubble & be called Brougham's folly" #UCL200

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Mercedes Cerón @mercedesceron.bsky.social · 08/02/2026

Spring has arrived when you can put your foot upon twelve daisies (from R. L. Tongue's “Folk-Song and Folklore”, 1967)

Child looking at a patch of grass full of daisies, with trees, houses and cathedral in the background

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Mercedes Cerón @mercedesceron.bsky.social · 14/01/2026

When you are trying to read, but some evil-looking rabbits are chasing a hunter out of a bush www.ashmolean.org/collections-...

Virgin and Child within ornamental border with hunting rabbits chasing a man and tritons

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Mercedes Cerón @mercedesceron.bsky.social · 29/12/2025

Almost time for the barefoot piper www.ashmolean.org/collections-...

A couple in 16thC dress set off for a festival, with two bag-pipers playing under a tree next to a table with drinks at right

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Mercedes Cerón @mercedesceron.bsky.social · 19/12/2025

It's cold, but look, snails and dragonflies www.ashmolean.org/collections-...

Winter represented as a bearded elderly man warming his hands by a brazier, within ornamental oval frame

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Mercedes Cerón @mercedesceron.bsky.social · 25/11/2025

My book on the collections of Francis Douce (1757-1834) was published yesterday. It has been a long time in the making, but I've loved every minute working on such incredible material. link.springer.com/book/10.1007...

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