The Long Eighteenth Century
From the Archives: Independence Lost
I will admit it: it didn’t even occur to me until last week that the 250th anniversary of the United States was the perfect opportunity for a series of blog posts related to the American Revolution, the creation of the constitution, and like that. Or that I could have spent the last six months reading…
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Lord Macartney’s Embassy to China
In my last blog post, I mentioned Lord Macartney’s embassy to China in 1793. It was an aside to a post that was itself not much more than an aside, but, as so often happens around here, one story led me to another. A beautiful copy of the journal Macartney kept about his time in…
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Master Crewe as Henry VIII
A recent rabbit hole in the peculiar world of “Cute Studies” led me to this unlikely and delightful eighteenth century painting by Joshua Reynolds (1723-1792),[1] which was inspired by Hans Holbein’s sixteenth century portrait of Henry VIII. I was temped to share the two images with no commentary, but one rabbit hole led to another.…
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