Breakfast Links: Week of March 21, 2011

After a week away in Colonial Williamsburg, we’re back with a fresh offering of Breatkfast Links, noteworthy tidbits gathered from other blogs, web sites, news stories, and other curiosities that we've discovered wandering around the Twitterverse:

• Elegant collection of images of 18th c riding habits: http://bit.ly/gX0g4j http://bit.ly/dVZoAf

• La Peregrina: The pearl that belonged to both Mary Tudor and Elizabeth Taylor. http://bit.ly/eJiHU1

• Twice every week Elephants fight before him - early travel writer Thomas Coryat at the Indian Court (1616) http://bit.ly/hV7pLn

• Hungry? How about a fine 18th c salmagundy? Trad. recipie, plus modern version: http://bit.ly/ijZakY

• Possibly the only authentic portrait of Shakespeare painted in his life http://t.co/n6uyQS

• Shoes are so Lady Gaga! Pathe Newsreel of 1930s predicts what women will be wearing in year 2000 http://bit.ly/k4i8O

• Facts and superstitions about the fickle wind today at http://paulinespiratesandprivateers.blogspot.com/

• Digital Scriptorium: an excellent collection of 24,000+ medieval & renaissance manuscript images http://www.scriptorium.columbia.edu/

• Inside a late 18th c style gown: seams, stitching, lining, fastening. Excellent photots: http://bit.ly/fI9HwZ

• Huge discrepancy between $1,000 estimate & $18-million price of Chinese vase. More than 7 bidders. Sotheby's explains. http://bit.ly/hNAx2H

• Richard Burton's description of Elizabeth Taylor will stop your heart: http://bit.ly/eJDaeh

• What would Jane Austen have seen? Some railings in Bath - http://bit.ly/gibQ1F

• Bride made her wedding gown from the parachute that saved her husband's life during WW2: http://bit.ly/ay5hns

• Intriguing! Agatha Christie’s secret life as an archaeologist http://getty.us/dFNqcj Her b/w photos still used by researchers today

• Portraits from Female French Artist Marie-Guillemine Benoist 1768–1826 - http://bit.ly/heihxU

• Historic ladies basketball uniforms. How did they play dressed like that?: http://bit.ly/fbhtHe

• If Lady Gaga were a highwayman, she’d be Sixteen-String Jack http://bit.ly/fudNXu

Above: At Breakfast, by Laurits Andersen Ring, 1898