ONE of the finest portrait busts carved in England during the late 17th century can be seen in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford. Made in 1673, it shows Christopher Wren at the age of 40, with rich curly locks tumbling to his shoulders and a loose shirt beneath the classical robe in which he's swathed. The features are alert, mobile, determined; high eyebrows suggest scepticism, with Wren's somewhat bulging eyes seemingly trained on a distant object that only he can see. Edward Pierce, the stone carver and mason who made this tour de force, perhaps after a lost French original, worked with Wren on several projects and must have been in his company many times. He knew his subject well and brilliantly captures the quality for which Wren has always been known: genius.
Every contemporary description of Wren confirms the evidence of the bust. Although diminutive in stature, he was a handsome man, whose dazzling gifts were recognised from childhood. As an adolescent at Oxford, he would be called 'that miracle of a youth Mr Christopher Wren'. Unlike some other prominent figures in the Royal Society-the uncouth Isaac Newton, the distinctly peculiar Robert Hooke he was invariably courteous and frequently to be seen in Hooke's company in the coffee houses around Whitehall, where he lived and worked.
Denne historien er fra February 15, 2023-utgaven av Country Life UK.
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Denne historien er fra February 15, 2023-utgaven av Country Life UK.
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Save our family farms
IT Tremains to be seen whether the Government will listen to the more than 20,000 farming people who thronged Whitehall in central London on November 19 to protest against changes to inheritance tax that could destroy countless family farms, but the impact of the good-hearted, sombre crowds was immediate and positive.
A very good dog
THE Spanish Pointer (1766–68) by Stubbs, a landmark painting in that it is the artist’s first depiction of a dog, has only been exhibited once in the 250 years since it was painted.
The great astral sneeze
Aurora Borealis, linked to celestial reindeer, firefoxes and assassinations, is one of Nature's most mesmerising, if fickle displays and has made headlines this year. Harry Pearson finds out why
'What a good boy am I'
We think of them as the stuff of childhood, but nursery rhymes such as Little Jack Horner tell tales of decidedly adult carryings-on, discovers Ian Morton
Forever a chorister
The music-and way of living-of the cabaret performer Kit Hesketh-Harvey was rooted in his upbringing as a cathedral chorister, as his sister, Sarah Sands, discovered after his death
Best of British
In this collection of short (5,000-6,000-word) pen portraits, writes the author, 'I wanted to present a number of \"Great British Commanders\" as individuals; not because I am a devotee of the \"great man, or woman, school of history\", but simply because the task is interesting.' It is, and so are Michael Clarke's choices.
Old habits die hard
Once an antique dealer, always an antique dealer, even well into retirement age, as a crop of interesting sales past and future proves
It takes the biscuit
Biscuit tins, with their whimsical shapes and delightful motifs, spark nostalgic memories of grandmother's sweet tea, but they are a remarkably recent invention. Matthew Dennison pays tribute to the ingenious Victorians who devised them
It's always darkest before the dawn
After witnessing a particularly lacklustre and insipid dawn on a leaden November day, John Lewis-Stempel takes solace in the fleeting appearance of a rare black fox and a kestrel in hot pursuit of a pipistrelle bat
Tarrying in the mulberry shade
On a visit to the Gainsborough Museum in Sudbury, Suffolk, in August, I lost my husband for half an hour and began to get nervous. Fortunately, an attendant had spotted him vanishing under the cloak of the old mulberry tree in the garden.
