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The Boilly exhibition in Lille
For anyone with easy access to Lille – and that includes anyone in London, which is 90 minutes from Lille by direct Eurostar train, at a price – the exhibition of works by the painter Louis-Léopold Boilly (1761-1845) is well… Continue reading
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Mesmerism on show
Franz Anton Mesmer (1734-1815) was the promoter of a form of animal magnetism (named Mesmerism after him), at first in Vienna (1773-1777) and subsequently in France (1778-1784). His unique selling point was the supply of mesmeric fluid that served to… Continue reading
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Music of the blind
Blind musicians in Paris. Detail of lithograph by Martin Sylvestre Baptiste, 1828. Wellcome Library no. 16519i An article by Ingrid Sykes in the latest issue of Medical History considers the blind in Paris from an unusual angle: their sound.… Continue reading
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New acquisition: a portrait of Ange-Bernard Imbert-Delonnes
The great aspirations, dramatic events, heroic deeds and terrible crimes against persons that occurred in France between the first stirrings of the Revolution in 1789 and the end of the First Empire in 1815 remain stamped in the public memory… Continue reading
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Chevalier D’Éon: a bi-centenary
Charles Geneviève Louis Auguste André Timothée Chevalier D’Éon de Beaumont died 200 years ago on 21 May 1810 REQUIESCAT IN PACE Spy: his cloak-and-dagger activity in a world of smoke and mirrors would have baffled George Smiley. He practised this… Continue reading
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Richard Dadd in France – and in New York
“Sketch of the murder of Henry the Sixth in the Tower by Richard Duke of Gloucester, afterwards King Richard the Third … by Richard Dadd, Bethlem Hospital, 1853.” Wellcome Library no. 570213i On 28 August 1843 the painter Richard Dadd,… Continue reading