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Narcissus Washstand
The Narcissus washstand is a piece of painted furniture made by the Victorian architect and designer William Burges in 1867. It was originally made for Burges's set of rooms at Buckingham Street and subsequently moved to his bedroom at The Tower House, the house he designed for himself in Holland Park in London. John Betjeman, later Poet Laureate and a leading champion of the art and architecture of the Victorian Gothic Revival, was left the remaining lease on the Tower House, including some of the furniture, by E. R. B. Graham in 1961. He gave the washstand, which he found in a second-hand shop in Lincoln, to the novelist Evelyn Waugh who featured it in his 1957 novel, ''The Ordeal of Gilbert Pinfold'', mirroring a real-life incident when Waugh, in the grip of bromide poisoning, became convinced that an ornamental tap was missing from the washstand. The washstand is part of the collection of The Higgins Art Gallery & Museum in Bedford. The Higgins museum acquired it from Auberon ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
William Burges
William Burges (; 2 December 1827 – 20 April 1881) was an English architect and designer. Among the greatest of the Victorian art-architects, he sought in his work to escape from both nineteenth-century industrialisation and the Neoclassical architectural style and re-establish the architectural and social values of a utopian medieval England. Burges stands within the tradition of the Gothic Revival, his works echoing those of the Pre-Raphaelites and heralding those of the Arts and Crafts movement. Burges's career was short but illustrious; he won his first major commission for Saint Fin Barre's Cathedral in Cork in 1863 when he was 35. He died in 1881 at his Kensington home, The Tower House aged only 53. His architectural output was small but varied. Working with a long-standing team of craftsmen, he built churches, a cathedral, a warehouse, a university, a school, houses and castles. Burges's most notable works are Cardiff Castle, constructed between 1866 and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood
The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood (later known as the Pre-Raphaelites) was a group of English painters, poets, and art critics, founded in 1848 by William Holman Hunt, John Everett Millais, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, William Michael Rossetti, James Collinson, Frederic George Stephens and Thomas Woolner who formed a seven-member "Brotherhood" modelled in part on the Nazarene movement. The Brotherhood was only ever a loose association and their principles were shared by other artists of the time, including Ford Madox Brown, Arthur Hughes (artist), Arthur Hughes and Marie Spartali Stillman. Later followers of the principles of the Brotherhood included Edward Burne-Jones, William Morris and John William Waterhouse. The group sought a return to the abundant detail, intense colours and complex compositions of Quattrocento Italian art. They rejected what they regarded as the mechanistic approach first adopted by Mannerism, Mannerist artists who succeeded Raphael and Michelangelo. The Broth ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Auberon Waugh
Auberon Alexander Waugh (17 November 1939 – 16 January 2001) was an English journalist and novelist, and eldest son of the novelist Evelyn Waugh. He was widely known by his nickname "Bron". After a traditional classical education at Downside School, he was commissioned in the army during National Service, where he was badly injured in a shooting accident. He went on to study for a year at Oxford University. At twenty, he launched his journalism career at the Telegraph Group, and also wrote for many other publications including '' Private Eye'', in which he presented a profile that was half Tory grandee and half cheeky rebel. As a young man, Waugh wrote five well-received novels, but gave up fiction for fear of unfavourable comparisons with his father. He and his wife Lady Teresa had four children and lived at Combe Florey House in Somerset. Origins He was born at Pixton Park, near Dulverton in Somerset, his mother's ancestral home. He was the eldest son of the novelist E ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Higgins Art Gallery & Museum
The Higgins Art Gallery & Museum is the principal art gallery and museum in Bedford, Bedfordshire, England, run by Bedford Borough Council and the trustees of the Cecil Higgins Collection. Overview The Higgins Art Gallery & Museum is in the Castle Quarter which occupies the site of Bedford Castle to the east of the High Street on the north side of the River Great Ouse embankment. The quarter also has the Castle Bailey gardens, the Castle Quay development of flats, restaurants and shops, the Castle Mound, and the John Bunyan Museum. The Art Gallery & Museum reopened after an extensive refurbishment in June 2013. The Higgins re-branding and development A £5.8m project allowed the buildings to be joined and redeveloped throughout, uniting on one site three previous cultural venues: Cecil Higgins Art Gallery, Bedford Museum and Bedford Gallery. It was felt within the organisation and the council that the new single building needed a new name that encompassed the history of the sit ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bedford
Bedford is a market town in Bedfordshire, England. At the 2011 Census, the population of the Bedford built-up area (including Biddenham and Kempston) was 106,940, making it the second-largest settlement in Bedfordshire, behind Luton, whilst the Borough of Bedford had a population of 157,479. Bedford is also the historic county town of Bedfordshire. Bedford was founded at a ford on the River Great Ouse and is thought to have been the burial place of King Offa of Mercia, who is remembered for building Offa's Dyke on the Welsh border. Bedford Castle was built by Henry I of England, Henry I, although it was destroyed in 1224. Bedford was granted borough status in 1165 and has been represented in Parliament since 1265. It is known for its large Italians in the United Kingdom, population of Italian descent. History The name of the town is believed to derive from the name of a Saxon chief called Beda, and a Ford (crossing), ford crossing the River Great Ouse. Bedford was a marke ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Tower House
The Tower House, 29 Melbury Road, is a late-Victorian townhouse in the Holland Park district of Kensington and Chelsea, London, built by the architect and designer William Burges as his home. Designed between 1875 and 1881, in the French Gothic Revival style, it was described by the architectural historian J. Mordaunt Crook as "the most complete example of a medieval secular interior produced by the Gothic Revival, and the last". The house is built of red brick, with Bath stone dressings and green roof slates from Cumbria, and has a distinctive cylindrical tower and conical roof. The ground floor contains a drawing room, a dining room and a library, while the first floor has two bedrooms and an armoury. Its exterior and the interior echo elements of Burges's earlier work, particularly Park House in Cardiff and Castell Coch. It was designated a Grade I listed building in 1949. Burges bought the lease on the plot of land in 1875. The house was built by the Ashby Brothers, w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Holland Park
Holland Park is an area of Kensington, on the western edge of Central London, that contains a street and public park of the same name. It has no official boundaries but is roughly bounded by Kensington High Street to the south, Holland Road to the west, Holland Park Avenue to the north, and Kensington Church Street to the east. Adjacent districts are Notting Hill to the north, Earl's Court to the south, and Shepherd's Bush to the northwest. The area is principally composed of tree-lined streets with large Victorian townhouses, and contains many shops, cultural tourist attractions such as the Design Museum, luxury spas, hotels, and restaurants, as well as the embassies of several countries. The street of Holland Park is formed from three linked roads constructed between 1860 and 1880 in projects of master builders William and Francis Radford, who were contracted to build and built over 200 houses in the area. Notable nineteenth-century residential developments in the area in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
London
London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a major settlement for two millennia. The City of London, its ancient core and financial centre, was founded by the Romans as '' Londinium'' and retains its medieval boundaries.See also: Independent city § National capitals The City of Westminster, to the west of the City of London, has for centuries hosted the national government and parliament. Since the 19th century, the name "London" has also referred to the metropolis around this core, historically split between the counties of Middlesex, Essex, Surrey, Kent, and Hertfordshire, which largely comprises Greater London, governed by the Greater London Authority.The Greater London Authority consists of the Mayor of London and the London Assembly. The London Mayor is distinguished fr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Betjeman
Sir John Betjeman (; 28 August 190619 May 1984) was an English poet, writer, and broadcaster. He was Poet Laureate from 1972 until his death. He was a founding member of The Victorian Society and a passionate defender of Victorian architecture, helping to save St Pancras railway station from demolition. He began his career as a journalist and ended it as one of the most popular British Poets Laureate and a much-loved figure on British television. Life Early life and education Betjeman was born John Betjemann. He was the son of a prosperous silverware maker of Dutch descent. His parents, Mabel (''née'' Dawson) and Ernest Betjemann, had a family firm at 34–42 Pentonville Road which manufactured the kind of ornamental household furniture and gadgets distinctive to Victorians. During the First World War the family name was changed to the less German-looking Betjeman. His father's forebears had actually come from the present day Netherlands more than a century earlier, setting ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Evelyn Waugh
Arthur Evelyn St. John Waugh (; 28 October 1903 – 10 April 1966) was an English writer of novels, biographies, and travel books; he was also a prolific journalist and book reviewer. His most famous works include the early satires ''Decline and Fall'' (1928) and ''A Handful of Dust'' (1934), the novel ''Brideshead Revisited'' (1945), and the Second World War trilogy ''Sword of Honour'' (1952–1961). He is recognised as one of the great prose stylists of the English language in the 20th century. Waugh was the son of a publisher, educated at Lancing College and then at Hertford College, Oxford. He worked briefly as a schoolmaster before he became a full-time writer. As a young man, he acquired many fashionable and aristocratic friends and developed a taste for country house society. He travelled extensively in the 1930s, often as a special newspaper correspondent; he reported from Ethiopian Empire, Abyssinia at the time of the Second Italo-Ethiopian War, 1935 Italian invasi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Ordeal Of Gilbert Pinfold
''The Ordeal of Gilbert Pinfold'' is a novel by the British writer Evelyn Waugh, first published in July 1957. It is Waugh's penultimate full-length work of fiction, which the author called his "mad book"—a largely autobiographical account of a period of hallucinations caused by bromide intoxication that he experienced in the early months of 1954, recounted through his protagonist Gilbert Pinfold. Waugh's health in the winter of 1953–54 was indifferent, and he was beset with various personal anxieties that were stifling his ability to work. He was also consuming alcohol, bromide and chloral in large amounts. In search of a peaceful environment in which he could resume writing, he embarked on a sea voyage to Ceylon, but was driven to the point of madness by imagined voices that assailed him throughout the voyage. These experiences are mirrored in the novel by those of Pinfold, a successful writer in the Waugh mould who, as an antidote to his lassitude and chronic insomn ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bromism
Bromism is the syndrome which results from the long-term consumption of bromine, usually through bromine-based sedatives such as potassium bromide and lithium bromide. Bromism was once a very common disorder, being responsible for 5 to 10% of psychiatric hospital admissions, but is now uncommon since bromide was withdrawn from clinical use in many countries and was severely restricted in others. Presentation ;Neurological and psychiatric Neurological and psychiatric symptoms are widely varied and may include the symptoms of restlessness, irritability, ataxia, confusion, hallucinations, psychosis, weakness, stupor and, in severe cases, coma. ;Gastrointestinal Gastrointestinal effects include nausea and vomiting as acute adverse effects and anorexia and constipation with chronic use. ;Dermatological Dermatological effects include cherry angiomas, acneiform, pustular and erythematous rashes. Cause High levels of bromide chronically impair the membrane of neurons, which progressi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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