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Sketches from a journey across Europe in 1817
Two hundred years ago, an English businessman waited nervously at Dover, about to take a leap into the unknown. In July 1817, at the age of 31, Joseph Jackson Lister – a wine merchant and, in his spare time, a… Continue reading
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A shield for espionage: Thomas de Leu’s portrait of Sir Francis Drake
The iconography of Sir Francis Drake is rich and complex (Sugden and Turner). His many portraits arise from his fame as a circumnavigator, as admiral in Queen Elizabeth I’s navy, as English hero in the battle against the Spanish Armada,… Continue reading
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Tales of medical students heading for Paris
British tourists and travellers heading by road for Paris and points beyond for the summer are likely to take the autoroute. Not so long ago however the principal route was the old RN 1 which took the traveller from Calais… Continue reading
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Faux french firefighters with false beards
In the Library collections is this print intriguingly captioned “The false bearded sapeurs-pompiers at Fourneaux”. The caption tells us that the figures are firefighters in a small town on the French-Italian border, but what’s the story behind the false beards?… Continue reading
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Inside the Machinery of War
Archive cataloguing sometimes unearths some previously unknown gems amongst our collections. This is certainly the case with the papers of father and son Dominique and Félix Larrey (MS.8889), formerly in the autograph letters collection. Dominique Jean Larrey, 1st Baron Larrey… Continue reading
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A royal arrival
The arrival of a royal baby was the subject of a massive painting exhibited in Paris in 1827 by a young and then little-known painter, Eugène Devéria (1805-1865). The subject was the birth of the future king Henri IV of… Continue reading
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Gymnastics of the organs
The poster reproduced here advertises the fitness training regime of Professor Desbonnet. Edmond Desbonnet (1868-1953), born in Lille, was a health entrepreneur who opened his first school of physical culture in his native city in 1895, and subsequently created a… Continue reading
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Charles Barbier, Petite typographie privée d’ambulance
At first glance, this image might look familiar. It’s a coded text that uses raised dots to be read by the fingertips. But one group of people who won’t find the code easy to understand are readers of Braille.… Continue reading
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Soyez le bienvenu!
The Wellcome Trust was honoured to receive a visit today by H.E. The French Ambassador, M. Bernard Emié. Among the items shown to him was the most splendid of the Wellcome Library’s recent French acquisitions, the portrait of the… Continue reading
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New article on a portrait of record
Drawing by Pierre Chasselat. Wellcome Library no. 729420i An exceptional neoclassical portrait drawing that was acquired by the Wellcome Library in 2010 is the subject of an article in the current (April 2012) issue of The Burlington magazine. [1] The… Continue reading