Breakfast Links for Week of March 12, 2012

Better late than never! Technical difficulties made these more accurately Brunch Links instead of Breakfast Links today – apologies for the delay. The silver lining to the difficulties is that the links will now appear in a more reader-friendly bold-face format. But the important things haven't changed: you'll still find our favorite links to other blogs, web sites, pictures, and articles collected for your perusal from around the Twitterverse.
• Some truly mad, some simply beautiful: March Hares
• Young soldier in Civil War photo, long unidentified, finally gets his name back.
• A True Lover's Knot, 1801
• A visit to the waxworks run by Mrs. Wright, America's first sculptor, a spy, and "queen of sluts."
• Beau Brummell & Apollo Belvedere: The Turn of the Leg.
• New notes from the trial of Lizzie Borden discovered.
• Very early photographs of the Crystal Palace, 1854.
• "Never correct or rewrite until the whole thing is down"- six tips on writing from John Steinbeck.
• Extreme food recycling in Paris, 1854.
• Grant, Lincoln, & the Jew from Paducah: twists & turns of religious intolerance during and after the Civil War.
• This 1930s satin evening gown gives a touch of elegance to a green St. Patrick's weekend.
• Restoration of 18th c inn at Stowe allows visitors to enter the gardens as originally intended.
• Behind the Mask: The Plague Doctor.
• Gettysburg Natl Park (finally) drops giftshop bobblehead of Lincoln's assassin John Wilkes Booth, complete with handgun.
• Overgrown Church at the Heart of a Lost English Village.
• The Fleet prison: the "largest brothel in the metropolis."
• Hamilton Fish's 1902 "vainglorious" NYC mansion, later used by Adolph Hitler's Consul General.
• Raphael Holinshed, Shakespeare's historian.
• Construction workers discover 18th c wall under Fulton Street, NYC.
• This week in 1812: Charles Lamb publishes his poem "The Triumph of the Whales", a vicious satire on the Prince Regent.
• Oldest veteran of the Crimean War died just 8 years ago (really!)
• An unusual patient goes to the hospital: using x-rays to investigate an 18th c bodice.
• For anyone confused about the phrase "Black & Tans."

• The Lady Anatomist: amazing sculptures of Italian artist-scientist Anna Morandi Manzolini.
• Notorious visionary architect Claude Nicolas Ledoux & the All-Seeing Eye.

The Dog Ate Our Breakfast Links!

Susan reporting:

Well, okay,so  the dog didn't really eat this week's links (though he sure looks as if he did, left, doesn't he?)

But Evil and Mysterious Things did happen to my server, which has stubbornly refused to accomplish the cut/paste/repeat quick-step that creates the Breakfast Links. I'm sorry about this – I know the Links have become a Sunday morning habit with many of you – but I'll try to get the problem solved, and will post on Sunday night instead. Arrrggghhh....

Left: Pug Dog in an Armchair by Alfred Dedreux 

Friday Video: A Portrait of the Regency

William Elmes, Triumph of Love and Folly, 1812

Loretta reports:

Usually on Friday, we offer short video clips.  This one, recommended to me by one of our readers, is definitely not short—and it’s only the beginning of a fine series.

But Lucy Worsley, who’s entertained us before, does a marvelous job of bringing history to life, and—perhaps more important for Nerdy History People—she goes behind the scenes, talks to experts, and even dresses up like a Regency dandy (with the aid of Ian Kelly, the author of one of my favorite biographies, Beau Brummell:  The Ultimate Man of Style).

This is Part One of a three-part BBC series: Elegance and Decadence - The Age of the Regency.

Illustration courtesy Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 USA.  Please click on caption to view the LOC page.

 Readers who receive our blog via email might see only a black rectangle or a square where the video ought to be.  To watch the video, please click on this link to the  Two Nerdy History Girls blog.

Looking West, Looking East: A European Lady & Gentleman by Way of China, c 1740

Susan reporting:

I like pictures, which is why my favorite kind of internet search is one that brings up images. A keyword, a date, and boom! There you are, the exact visual inspiration you needed, in mega-pixels to show every detail.

How very different it must have been for writers, artists, and other such creative folk living in the days before photographs, let alone digital imaging. Imagination took the place of precise representations, and while the results sometimes have a fanciful look (remember the old fable about the blind men and the elephant), they can also be quite wonderful, too.

When direct trading began between Europe and China in the early 16h c, much more was exchanged between countries than just spice and tea. "Foreign" couldn't begin to describe the vast differences between countries and people on the opposite sides of the world. Drawings, paintings, and written descriptions could convey just so much; the elaborate pagodas that sprouted in English gardens and the "Chinoiserie" that decorated London drawing rooms would likely have befuddled a proper citizen of Canton.

The stylistic cross-pollination is evident in this handsome porcelain couple. (Click on the photos to enlarge.) Made in Jingdezhen, China, about 1740, the pair was created for the European market. They're large pieces (about a foot tall), with considerable detail. The unknown Chinese artist most likely had never seen either a European man or woman. Without Google, he had to rely on European prints for inspiration, and when that was exhausted, supply his own interpretation of fashionable clothing. The fluted ruffs, the lady's lace cap and full sleeves and the gentleman's wide-brimmed hat and beard look very much like those seen in Dutch portraits in the 1630s like these, lower left. 

But the porcelain lady also seems to be wearing an early 18th c petticoat, apron, short cape, and little pointed shoes that must have come from a later, more windswept fashion print. (Her apron strings are tied in a neat bow exactly like the mantua-maker's apprentice from Colonial Williamsburg.) Not understanding the construction of a low-cut European decolletage, the glazer has painted the lady's chest yellow, as an extension of her bodice. While the gentleman's stylized sash could be a 17th c English or Dutch style, his long open robe and gown in place of breeches are not. Or is he wearing an early version of a banyan or wrapping gown, garments that were themselves imports from the East? The clothes of both figures are patterned and colored like Chinese textiles, the most fashionable silks that would be imported to Europe – and again East meets West meets East meets West....

Above: European man and woman, made in Jingdezhen, China; c 1740, Winterthur Museum.
Lower left: Detail, Family Portrait, by Frans Hals, c 1635, Cincinnati Art Museum

Window fashions for March 1819

Loretta reports:

It’s been a while since I’ve offered Regency era interior design examples.  Here’s what fashionable windows were wearing in March 1819.

~~~

FASHIONABLE FURNITURE.

PLATE 15.—DRAWING-ROOM WINDOW-CURTAIN AND JARDINIERE

This suite of draperies is adapted to a bow-window with considerable taste and elegance; they are fancifully suspended from carved devices, relating to vintage and the splendour of the year; indicative of which, the central ornament is a golden peacock, whose displayed plumage being delicately coloured in parts, so as to imitate the richness of its nature, the effect is considerably increased.

The swags are arranged with an easy lightness, and the festoons with unusual variety of size and form; they are composed of light blue silk, and lined with pink taffeta.

The jardinière forms a proper ornament for such a situation, and is rendered particularly interesting by a font of gold and silver fish, and by a small aviary for choice singing birds: the style is French, and the article similar in design to those executed at Paris under the direction of Mons. Percier, the architect.

We are indebted for the materials of the annexed plate to the liberality of Mr. John Stafford, an eminent upholsterer at Bath.
—Ackermann's Repository, March 1819