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neil guthrie @nguthrie.bsky.social · 11m

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.

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neil guthrie @nguthrie.bsky.social · 10h

I think it must be ‘who was that awful woman?’ (Liz Truss)

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Lewis Walpole Library @lewiswalpolelib.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

Applications for the 2027-28 #Fellowship year are now being accepted through November 2. Apply today apply.interfolio.com/186941 Questions? Email walpole@yale.edu info: walpole.library.yale.edu/fellowships/... #Long18thCentury #BritishStudies #CommunityofScholars #LewisWalpoleLibrary @YaleLibrary

Detail from an 18th-century satirical print with 3 people (Louis 16 on Marie Antoinette's shoulders, and she on Edmund Burke's) and the words The Lewis Walpole Library Fellowships & Travel Grants in Eighteenth-Century Studies.

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neil guthrie @nguthrie.bsky.social · 20h

‘No, she’s just Welsh!’

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neil guthrie @nguthrie.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

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).

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Jack Lynch @jacklynch000.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

READER OF THE DAY, 7 OCTOBER 2026 Fragonard, Young Girl Reading, c. 1770

18th-c painting of a young woman (girl?) in a yellow dress reading a 12mo

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neil guthrie @nguthrie.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

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).

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neil guthrie @nguthrie.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

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)

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Dr Liam Sims @liamsims.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

Quite like ‘Sir Dugly* Digges’ as a typo! In the auction catalogue of duplicates from John Moore’s library, sold in Cambridge in 1742 @theulspeccoll.bsky.social Cam.d.742.1(2). *Dudley

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neil guthrie @nguthrie.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

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

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Darren S. Layne @funkyplaid.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

Our new JST #JacobiteStudies Virtual Workshop Series launches Tue, 13 Oct at 5pm UKT with a discussion about academic publishing with @dparrish0.bsky.social (JST) and @siobhanmup.bsky.social (MUP). Make sure to bring your questions, tips, and anecdotes! Full programme: jdb1745.net/events/jstwo...

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Muddy York @muddyyork.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

On this date in 1757, the Toronto shoreline was first detailed on a French map. It identifies the Credit River (Rivière au Credit), the Humber River (R. Toronto), Fort Rouillé on the Exhibition Grounds, and the Scarborough Bluffs (Les Grandes Ecores).

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neil guthrie @nguthrie.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

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

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neil guthrie @nguthrie.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

Isn’t the one in the Louvre a copy by David’s studio?

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neil guthrie @nguthrie.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

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

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Dr Anna Clark @drannaclark.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

Sublime dreams: Giovanni Battista Piranesi, Italian artist, architect & archaeologist, whose views of Rome & imaginary prisons influenced Neoclassicism & Romanticism; born #OTD 1720. Colosseum, Vedute di Roma, etching 1757 | Plate III Carceri d’Invenzione,etching 1761 Princeton University Art Museum

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Alan 🏳️‍⚧️ 🏳️‍🌈 @bows4crows.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

Girl's dress, 1750, Kunstmuseum den Haag I love this. Nearly 300 years old, and the green silk is as vibrant as ever. What a startlingly beautiful thing this must have been back then, and for quite a young (12-14) person too. #fashionsky #dresshistory #fashionhistory #historicalfashion

Museum photo of a rococo (maybe?) style girls dress, primarily in green silk. It has a close fitted bodice, with a very broad scoop neckline. Beneath this, covering the upper chest, is a white fichu. The sleeves are three quarter length, with lace trimming at the ends. The waist is tight and decorated with some 15 or so horizontal bands of fabric in various pastel colours.
There is a small peplum over the hips in the same green silk, and the skirt below this is full length, enlarged considerably at the hips with some underlying structure, and has deep pleats at the top, allowing it to hang very nicely.

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Dr. Peter Paul Rubens @peterpaulrubens.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

Today's artist w/out a known birthday: Luis Egidio Meléndez, brilliant still-life painter from Madrid. Also quite able in other areas, as displayed in his self-portrait w/ an academic drawing, 1747. Plus Historical Hottie du jour.

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Alain Truong ♎🏳️‍🌈🏴‍☠️ @alaintruong.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

Vase à décor d’étoffe nouée, Chine, dynastie des Qing (1644-1911), règne et marque de Qianlong (1736-1795). Porcelaine à décor d’émaux famille rose ; 20,6 × 10 cm. Paris, musée Guimet © GrandPalaisRmn (musée Guimet, Paris) / Thierry Ollivier www.alaintruong.com/2026/10/le-s...

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neil guthrie @nguthrie.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

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.

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neil guthrie @nguthrie.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

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

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neil guthrie @nguthrie.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

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.

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Jonathan Gibbs @jonathangibbs.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

I’m preparing, with joyous anticipation, for my first live experience of Don Giovanni, by listening the hell out of it, and reading the divine Brigid Brophy, in both non-fiction and fictional mode. Mozart the Dramatist is rich stuff (veeery Freudian) but The Snow Ball is an absolute favourite novel.

Two books next to each other. A hardback copy of Mozart the Dramatist, subtitled The Value of his Operas to Him, and his Age, and to Us. Cover is a dark blue vault of sky with stars and a cloaked figure standard on a horned moon recumbent (the Queen of the Night from The Magic Flute).

Second book is paperback copy of The Snow Ball (Superb… Sheer artistic insolence” – Iris Murdoch) with a foreword by ELEY WILLIAMS.

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neil guthrie @nguthrie.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

‘Countless marble fireplaces’ 😂

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neil guthrie @nguthrie.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

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

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Dave Mazella @davemazella.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Love archival doodles

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neil guthrie @nguthrie.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

It was a pleasure meeting you in London the other week!

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neil guthrie @nguthrie.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

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

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neil guthrie @nguthrie.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

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

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Malcolm Wilson @malcolmwilson01.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

For the “Oh everyone was doing it” people, may I offer you Thomas Coram, a sea captain who opposed slavery in the early eighteenth century. coramstory.org.uk/explore/cont...

coramstory.org.uk

Thomas Coram's time in America - Coram Story

Find out how Thomas Coram’s trailblazing work for children was influenced by his time spent in colonial America.

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neil guthrie @nguthrie.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

Registered! Looking forward to it

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neil guthrie @nguthrie.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

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

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neil guthrie @nguthrie.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

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

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neil guthrie @nguthrie.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

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

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neil guthrie @nguthrie.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

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

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neil guthrie @nguthrie.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

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

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neil guthrie @nguthrie.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

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)

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neil guthrie @nguthrie.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

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

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neil guthrie @nguthrie.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

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)

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neil guthrie @nguthrie.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

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

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neil guthrie @nguthrie.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

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

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La Folie XVIIIe @lafoliexviiie.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

Affiche de l'exposition "Marie-Antoinette et Louis XVI à Fontainebleau. Splendeur et douceur de vivre" qui se tiendra du 11 octobre 2026 au 25 janvier 2027 au château de Fontainebleau. 🤗

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neil guthrie @nguthrie.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

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

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