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Picturing a World

Solar system quilt

June 20, 2017
Ellen Harding Baker, "Solar System" Quilt (1876)
Website alert: At the moment, I’m working on a short story with an astronomical motif so this quilt jumped out at me. Wow!

The quilter was born in Cincinnati. An Ohio connection and a date in the mid-1870’s places her and the piece right in my imaginary Palmers’ milieu. Worth  Read More 
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Anna Alma-Tadema

June 17, 2017
Tags: blue-and-white china, rooms, Women artists
Anna Alma-Tadema, Interior of the Gold Room, Townshend House (1883)
Today at an exhibition, Orchestrating Elegance: Alma-Tadema and Design at the Clark Art Institute in Williamstown, Mass., I saw a reproduction of this watercolor by Lawrence Alma-Tadema’s daughter Anna Alma-Tadema. Another portrait without people! As a novelist, I find these 19th C paintings of unpeopled rooms helpful aids to imagination. The suggest a sensibility but leave me free to imagine my own stories.  Read More 
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National Museum of Stockholm

June 7, 2017
Tags: Scandinavian artists, Zorn, nudes
Anders Zorn, After the Bath (1895)
Blog alert! The June 6th post at the invaluable Line and Colors blog announces a Treasure trove of high-res images from Nationalmuseum Stockholm and gives instructions on how to explore it. After visiting the sight, I chose this image by Anders Zorn because  Read More 
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Carolus-Duran, fencer

June 1, 2017
Tags: Carolus-Duran, fencing, illustration
Kendall (?), M. Carolus-Duran (January, 1892)
A recent update from a correspondent who is doing research on Carolus-Duran led me to look over my collection of images by or about the artist. To my surprise, I saw that I have never posted this drawing of Carolus as a fencer. His swordsmanship made him dashing to his students—and to me!

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Manuscript Art

May 29, 2017
Tags: illustration
Bibliothèque de l’Arsenal, Ms-5103 réserve, fol. 1v. Via Manuscript Art
Website alert: This morning, after looking at recent postings at Jesse Hurlbut's terrific Manuscript Art, I went back through my own recent posts on medieval imagery to see whether I had mentioned the site. Looks like I haven't, but by all means you should visit it! Read More 
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Venetian flower pots

May 19, 2017
Tags: Venice, gardens
Francis Hopkinson Smith, Detail, "Over a Balcony," View of the Grand Canal Venice (1897)
The geraniums in this watercolor by Francis Hopkinson Smith caught my eye, as images of flowers in pots always do. It seems both obvious and also somehow wonderful that people have been growing flowers in clay pots ever since antiquity. In a place like Venice,  Read More 
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Woman-Suffrage Map

May 11, 2017
Tags: magazine, Suffrage
Bertha Demaris Knobe, "Votes for Women: An Object Lesson," Harper's Weekly, April 25, 1908, via Cornell University – PJ Mode Collection of Persuasive Cartography.
Since 1908 is my magic year for ANONYMITY, imagine my pleasure in finding this Woman-Suffrage Map while exploring Cornell’s Mode Collection of Persuasive Cartography. The map appears in an article in Harper’s Weekly which reports on the status of the international woman’s suffragist movement with none of the hostility or arch humor that mar too much male journalism of the period. Read More 
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Look of Wonder

May 9, 2017
Tags: illustration
Leerzaame Zinnebeelden, Thus Men Go Safely (1714)
Website alert: Thanks to this post at The History Blog, I arrived this morning at the Cornell University Library’s digitization of P. J. Mode’s Persuasive Map Collection. The image reproduced here could be an emblem for my sense of wonder at discovering this rich resource for Picturing Worlds through maps. For some reason, I'm having trouble with links, but if you click on the image it will take you to the Cornell page or you can enter the Cornell site via the History Blog. Either way, it's worth it—explore! Read More 
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Atget carts

May 7, 2017
Tags: Atget, photograph
Eugène Atget, Carts, marché des patriarches, rue Moffetard (1910)
Follow-up: After the mention of Atget in yesterday’s post, I took another look at some of his work and came across this image at the Princeton University Art Museum. No wheelbarrow or handcart, but good horse-drawn carts!
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Old London

May 6, 2017
Tags: handcart, street views
"Bleeding Heart Yard in Hatton Garden," engraving published 1873
Blog alert: Every morning, I check the blog Spitalfields Life. Today’s post, A Walk in Long Forgotten London is one of several devoted to Walter Thornbury’s Old & New London, an 1873 compilation of engravings of the London that was already disappearing when it was published.  Read More 
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