On the Victorian era’s fascination with microscopes and all they revealed
In Defense of Ornament
Is less more? Or is too much never enough?
Eminent Victorians
Photography by Alan Kolc | from The Magazine ANTIQUES, September/October 2013. The brick house, handsomely trimmed in brownstone, dates from 1866, one of six identical buildings in the heart of Philadelphia’s historic district. Situated a few streets away from Independence Hall, it was once the home of Brevet General Henry Harrison Bingham (1841-1912), a Congressional Medal of Honor laureate for …
Uncompromising Truth
In 1841 the English art critic and social theorist John Ruskin hired a young valet by the name of John Hobbs. For the sake of propriety Ruskin resolved to address Hobbs as “George,” on the principle that a Victorian gentleman, even one with advanced political beliefs, should not have to share his name with a servant. Hobbs’s duties, although initially …
Guest Blog: Hollister Hovey
As part of our recurring series of guest bloggers (see earlier contributions by Art Inconnu and The Curated Object) today we are pleased to feature Hollister Hovey, a blogger with panache for turn-of-19th-century antiques and collecting. The New York Times recently named her among the “New Antiquarians” shaping the current vogue for vintage Victoriana. We asked Hovey to curate a …
In conversation with…Rosemary Hill, Pugin biographer
An interview with Rosemary Hill upon the US publication of God’s Architect: Pugin and the Building of Romantic Britain