Two miniatures of a young Marie Antoinette by an unidentified artist.

Ensemble 

1790s

France

This young man’s tailcoat, with its high turned-down collar, narrow back, and wide lapels, exemplifies the exaggerated silhouette fashionable in post-revolutionary France. Striped textiles, modish from the 1760s, were ubiquitous in the dress of both sexes by the end of the century. In menswear, stripes served as a decorative substitute for the ornate, polychrome embroidery of earlier suits. The trend reflects the influence of the Islamic world and neoclassical taste; in earlier centuries, stripes had pejorative connotations in the West and were associated with the clothing of socially marginalized groups.

The MET (Accession Number: 1999.105.2)

Armchair

c.1720

France

MFA Boston (Accession Number: 48.1354)

1711 Carlo Frasa - Portrait of Elena Visconti Borromeo

(Ospedale Maggiore di Milano Art Collection)

A Companion of Diana by Jean-Louis Lemoyne (1724)

ab. 1723 Attr. to Antoine Pesne - The dancer Marianne Cochois

(Alte Pinakothek)

Recreation of British regulars playing baseball during the 1745 Jacobite rising. Base-ball, a predecessor of rounders, was described in John Newbery's Pretty Little Pocket Book, published in England in 1744.

▪︎Chess set.

Artist/Maker: Johann Joachim Kändler  (1706-1775)

Manufacturer: Meissen porcelain factory

Medium: Porcelain

~ Wax model of a decomposing body in a walnut coffin.

Date: 1774-1800

Place of origin:  Italy

The New Practical Navigator,was the most popular navigational text of the late 18th century and was written by John Hamilton Moore 1795

This work contains the various methods of lunar observations, all the important tables for calculating course, time and position. But also other important aspects of navigation at sea. This book was a popular textbook among the midshipmen to learn navigation.

Botanical illustrations taken from ‘Recueil de Plantes Coloriees’ by  Jean-Jacques Rousseau.

Published 1789 by Libraire Poincot.

Missouri Botanical Garden.

http://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/permissions

archive.org

Lady's Slipper Orchid & Insects from the Natural History Cabinet of Anna Blackburne (1768) - James Bolton

The Princess by Christian von Mechel (1780)

Blackburn's Earth Boring Beetle, Seven-Spotted Ladybird Beetle & Purple Emperor from the Natural History Cabinet of Anna Blackburne (1768) - James Bolton

Kitchen Scene by Pehr Hilleström, 18th century.

ab. 1702 Possibly Jonathan Richardson the Elder - Abigail Bayly, Lady Elton

(Clevedon Court)

Mariner’s Compass, by Reverend Jonathan Fisher, from his Mathematics notebook, 1791

Fisher was not a seafarer, but he was an extremely educated and multi-talented man from Maine who was interested in everything, especially languages and mathematics. And since navigation also includes mathematics, he included it in his notebook.

Pocket watch in a silver case, by James Richards, London 1793 

This beautiful piece shows a Sailor’s Farewell scene. In it, a Sailor says goodbye to his beloved while his ship is already waiting for him. The silver case was made later and seems to replace the original one. Possibly the owner had to sell it to get money again, which often happened. And later bought this replacement case, which is from a mass production, because this interior scene of a gentleman with his servant is not of great quality.

1770-1780 Man’s formal three-piece suit (England)

fulled wool tabby with embroidered sequins and silver fil��

(Royal Ontario Museum)

The Anatomical Machines, Giuseppe Salerno, c. 1756-64

In the Underground Chamber of the Sansevero Chapel, housed in two glass cases, are the famous Anatomical Machines, or Anatomical Studies, i.e. the skeletons of a man and a woman in upright position with their arteriovenous system almost perfectly intact. The circulatory system depicted on the anatomical machines was artificially fabricated with waxes, an iron wire and silk fibers, probably following techniques commonly used by anatomists of that time

These disquieting objects were kept in a room in the palace of the Prince of Sansevero called “the Apartment of the Phoenix”, as a number of travellers and the Breve nota di quel che si vede in casa del principe di Sansevero, an anonymous eighteenth-century guide to the Palace and the Sansevero Chapel, attest. This source describes the Machines in detail, from the blood vessels of the head to those of the tongue and adds that at the feet of the woman was placed “the tiny body of a foetus”, alongside which there was even the open placenta, connected to the foetus by the umbilical cord. The two anatomical studies were moved to the Chapel, and in this way saved from destruction or loss, long after the death of the Prince. The remains of the foetus were still visible up to a few decades ago, when they were stolen.