neil guthrie
@nguthrie.bsky.social
1.9K followers 330 following 1.3K posts
Collector. Antiquary. The Material Culture of the Jacobites (2014). Guthrie’s Guide to Better Legal Writing (2017, 2021). Trustee, George R Gardiner Museum of Ceramic Art
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nguthrie.bsky.social
Capability Brown rendered in southern Germany: the English Garden, Munich #c18th #c18 #18thc (and later)
View of lawns and tress with t rut owners of the city in the distance View of a stream with a small artificial waterfall The Monopteros (folly composed of a circle of columns with a green domed roof) on a hillock, seen from a distance, surrounded by trees The Monopteros (completed 1837) seen up close, from below. In the centre of the circle of columns is a shorter column with laudatory inscriptions.
nguthrie.bsky.social
Vive la Deuxième République ! (But if blue states want to return to the Crown and join the socialist monarchy that is Canada, that’s ok too 😉 )
nguthrie.bsky.social
Theatine church of St Cajetan and St Adelaide, Munich (façade, 1765-68; interior largely completed by 1688; badly damaged in WWII and restored) #c18th #c18 #18thc
Façade in yellow ochre with twin towers, completed in 1768. Central pediment with arms of Elector Maximilian II and his wife Theresa Kunegonda, daughter of King John III Sobieski of Poland (aunt of Maria Clementina, wife of the Old Pretender) Frothy white plaster interior with dark wooden baroque pulpit Detail of a barley-sugar twisted columns in a side chapel with jaunty putti riding on vines encircling the columns (completed 1768) Quite modest lead sarcophagi of the Wittelsbach dynasty in the crypt. Here, Maximilian II and Theresa Kunegonda in the middle, hers decorated with tacky bouquets of red and white carnations from the Polish consulate
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glatthorn.bsky.social
A paper model of the Schwarzenberg #theatre (1766) in Český Krumlov. It’s a nice reminder of my last two summers teaching there. I can’t wait to revisit it again.
nguthrie.bsky.social
Fountain (not functioning) on the corner of the Preysing palace (1723-28), Munich #c18th #c18 #18thc
Grey stone sculpture on the corner of a grey stucco building. An urn on a pedestal with a dolphin (heraldic, not naturalistic) at the base
nguthrie.bsky.social
Zachari Logan, Wildman Number 15 (2019). Definite influence of the wodewose and the self-portrait by Dürer (which I'll be seeing tomorrow in Munich! travel snaps to follow). Also Liotard's self-portrait with a beard, and Logan certainly knows his Mary Delaney - so more than a bit #c18th #c18 #18thc
Head of a young man in blue pencil on mylar. The man's beard is a mass of delicate foliage and flowers, with a moth perched on it. The head is placed towards the bottom of the transparent mylar sheet; the head fades out towards the top, so we see the man's forehead but not his hair. Most of the sheet is blank
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georgianlords.bsky.social
On the death of Frederick, Prince of Wales in 1751, a swathe of students and fellows of @ox.ac.uk composed verses of condolence, many in Latin and in English and a smattering in other languages. John Swinton MA of Christ Church showed off by offering two: one in Phoenician and the other in Etruscan.
Reposted by neil guthrie
drbibliomane.bsky.social
With its "medico-electrical apparatus," was Dr. James Graham's "celestial bed" in his "Temple of Health" in 1779 London a prototype for DJT's "med bed"?
There are just too many ways in which the #18thc is a useful guide to the hucksterism of 2025 America.
daily.jstor.org/the-prince-o...
Black and white image showing a nubile woman, in deshabille, reclining on the Celestial Bed, a kind of couch with a canopy over it. Statue of Mercury in a niche behind her.
nguthrie.bsky.social
Tell that to my cousin Henry Victor William Blundell-Hollinshead-Blundell (one of the people I am able remind that they are more Guthrie than Habsburg!)
nguthrie.bsky.social
'Neil in the Yellow Room' (who could that be?) by © Kris Knight (2025)
Portrait of a middle-aged white man seen from the chest up, head tilted to his right. He wears glasses with (from Rapp Optical on College Street in Toronto) and a pale blue shirt (Lord Willy's, NYC), open at the neck, with orange buttons. In the background, glimpses of a drawing (of a young man by Florent Manelli), a light blue and white ceramic plate (repro Hungarian 17C) hung on the yellow wall behind him and a white folding door to a 1950s galley kitchen in midtown Toronto. He's having a good hair day.
nguthrie.bsky.social
If I ever get a tattoo it would be this (maybe with the opening words) - but I won't because my (keloid/cheloid) skin turns bumpy when it scars
The flourish Corporal Trim makes in the air with his stick, graphically represented on the page with a repeatedly curling squiggle in IX.4 of Laurence Sterne's Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman (1759-
nguthrie.bsky.social
On eBay now, a portrait of Sir Henry Raeburn on blue glass by William or Thomas Tassie #c18th #c18 #18thc
White portrait bust of the painter in profile. Oval plaquette appears black when placed on a tabletop When held to the light, the blue colour of the glass is apparent.
Reposted by neil guthrie
rhwhite.bsky.social
A circa 1730-35 du Paquier tureen and stand decorated with Chinese-inspired scenes within fan-shape cartouches, now in the Frick Museum. You have to love those fish handles. (see ALT)
Tureen and Stand

Du Paquier Porcelain Manufactory  (Austrian, 1718−1744)
DATE ca. 1730–35
MEDIUM Hard-paste porcelain
DIMENSIONS Tureen: 7 × 12 1/2 in. (17.8 × 31.8 cm) Stand: 16 5/8 × 10 3/8 in. (42.2 × 26.4 cm)
CREDIT LINE Gift from the Melinda and Paul Sullivan Collection, 2016
ACCESSION NUMBER 2016.9.07
Reposted by neil guthrie
jessemlocker.bsky.social
Good morning!

[Gaetano Giulio Zumbo, A Soul in Hell, 1670-1700, Wax, 11.5 cm x 10 cm (Victoria and Albert Museum, London)]
A screaming head modeled in wax, surrounded by demons and stylized flames
nguthrie.bsky.social
Thomas Patch, The Golden Asses (1761), Lewis Walpole Library, Farmington, Conn. #c18th #c18 #18thc
Large conversation piece of grand tourists (the asses of the title) in a ballroom hung with green silk wallpaper and portraits. Chequeboard marble floor in brown, white and black. Patch has depicted himself at the right, brandishing his palette and brush, astride a life-sized sculpture of a golden ass. In the foreground, a dog plays on the edge of collection of silver and silver gilt vessels placed on the marble floor. The picture is in the reading room at the Lewis Walpole.
nguthrie.bsky.social
New exhibition at the Lewis Walpole library: Caricaturas, Campagna and Connoisseurs: Thomas Patch and the British Grand Tour in Eighteenth-Century Italy (to 15 December) #c18th #c18 #18thc walpole.library.yale.edu/programs/exh...
Exhibitions | Lewis Walpole Library
walpole.library.yale.edu
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ahmuf.bsky.social
📖 Parution : Bernard Michon (dir.), "Le café en France
(XVIIe-XIXe siècles). Production, commercialisation et consommation
d’une marchandise exotique", La Geste/Presses universitaires de Nouvelle-Aquitaine, septembre 2025.

🖱️ Lien éditeur ➡️ www.gesteditions.com/puna/le-cafe...
nguthrie.bsky.social
Set of three grisaille paintings on leather depicting theatrical figures, possibly from the Commedia dell'arte (French, early #c18th #c18 #18thc), with Matthew Holder, London
The figures have heightened expressions and animated gestrures: one sings from an open songbook, another brandishes a jester's staff and the third plays the bagpipes. Painted in greys heightened with white
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drannaclark.bsky.social
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
nguthrie.bsky.social
I’m hoping to find it under the Christmas tree :)
nguthrie.bsky.social
Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice, 1st ed. (London, 1813), at Christie's, New York (est. US$120,000-180,000 - but will go for more). Long #c18th #c18 #18thc
First edition in a contemporary binding, with ownership inscriptions dated less than eight weeks after publication. In each volume is the ownership inscription, dated 20 March 1813, of Sir Maurice FitzGerald, 18th Knight of Kerry (1774-1849). FitzGerald was the husband of Maria La Touche, a cousin by marriage of Mary La Touche. Austen records in her letters that she visited and was visited by Mary and her daughter Miss East when Austen was in London in 1811, 1814 and 1815, straddling the publication of Pride and Prejudice. The three volumes, standing upright. Volume 1, open at title page with ownership inscription. Volume 1, open at page 1 ('It is a truth universally acknowledged, ...')
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liamsims.bsky.social
A new Archbishop of Canterbury will be elected tomorrow. This image showing four bishops racing for Lambeth Palace illustrated a satirical poem entitled ‘A race for Canterbury: or, Lambeth ho’, published in 1747 (when Thomas Herring succeeded John Potter). @theulspeccoll.bsky.social 7720.d.1680.