{"id":9002,"date":"2023-04-25T20:48:24","date_gmt":"2023-04-25T20:48:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/?p=9002"},"modified":"2024-01-28T00:23:43","modified_gmt":"2024-01-28T00:23:43","slug":"book-review-treasures-of-royal-museums-greenwich","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/?p=9002","title":{"rendered":"BOOK REVIEW: Treasures of Royal Museums Greenwich, Pt. I"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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This book is itself a treasure trove.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Teresa and I visited the Royal Museums, Greenwich, on Friday, 21st April. That was billed as the secondary attraction, with the main event being Salute\u2019s 50th, on the Saturday. But we actually far preferred the museum visits in the end!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m pretty much totally broke right now. To go away at all was pushing the boat out. Buying this book, even though it was only \u00a310 (orig. RRP \u00a320), felt extremely extravagant. But I\u2019m sure glad I did. It was a bargain, frankly. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Pp. 50-51, 1:48 model of the first rate, St Michael. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The contents really are, very<\/em> literally, an embarrassment of riches. I\u2019m currently reading it entry by entry, and I\u2019m only one-tenth of the way in at the time of posting this. The objects are from the RMG\u2019s collections across the National Maritime Museum, Cutty Sark, Royal Observatory and The Queen\u2019s House. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We didn\u2019t visit either the Cutty Sark or the Observatory, on this occasion. The Queen\u2019s House had a temporary exhibition; paintings and drawings by the Van de Veldes. That was a fantastic exhibition in a fabulous setting. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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An incredible example of the naval art of the Van de Veldes.*<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

* Couldn\u2019t find the title, or even which Van de Velde this is!? Prob\u2019 the Younger\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The bulk of what\u2019s in this book is to be seen at the National Maritime Museum, and, as the introductory stuff makes clear, a lot of that – such as the astronomical table clock pictured on the cover – comes from the famous (and enormous) Caird collection. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I had originally wanted to focus any such visit on ship models. And there are lots of unbelievable ship models in the collections. But the truth is that almost everything in these collections is really interesting. And the range, from instruments to baubles, paintings to ship models, books to weapons, clothing to globes\u2026 well, it\u2019s astonishingly rich.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Mercator\u2019s terrestrial and celestial globes.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Some of the most ostensibly mundane things, a pair of breeches and stockings, for example, are revealed to be those worn by Nelson at Trafalgar. His blood still visible in them. Whilst Horatio\u2019s iconic status almost inevitably turns such run of the mill ephemera into totemic relics, the depth of historical interest such things can convey is gradually extending to the ordinary \u2018Jack tar\u2019, and even the ladies he loved and left behind. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I think we have Neil McGregor, The British Museum and BBC Radio 4 to thank for the whole slew of The History of [whatever] in 100 Objects<\/em> type books and shows that have followed in the wake of that epochal exhibition and series of radio and podcasts. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Whilst this book doesn\u2019t title itself in that vein, there are<\/em> in fact 100 \u2018objects\u2019, and it acknowledges that antecedent. And it keeps up that very richly informative and inspiring tradition, with its good old-fashioned Reithian aspirations to educate and inspire. Terrific!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The Golden Leeuw at Texel, 1673, W. Van de Velde the Younger.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I could rave about this entry by entry. And I find it very salutory that things I might\u2019ve initially cocked a snook at, for example the Royalist propaganda of Elizabeth I, The Armada Portrait, can be rendered fascinating by their broader context. My anti-Royalist desire to gloss over what I regard as a very ugly bit of nationalist chest-thumping is made more interesting when I read about how the \u2018calm\u2019 and \u2018storm\u2019 naval scenes can be regarded as \u2018key moments in the development of European Maritime painting\u2026 particularly the focus on and eventual dominance of battle painting from 1600 onwards.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m so keen on the latter genre (perusing the terrific Turner & The Sea<\/em> helped galvanise an already incipient interest!), I\u2019ll be looking for a cheap copy of the same museum\u2019s book on the Van de Veldes:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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I simply must<\/em> have this!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Teresa and I visited the Royal Museums, Greenwich, on Friday, 21st April. That was billed as the secondary attraction, with the main event being Salute\u2019s 50th, on the Saturday. But we actually far preferred the museum visits in the end! I\u2019m pretty much totally broke right now. To go away at all was pushing the … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “BOOK REVIEW: Treasures of Royal Museums Greenwich, Pt. I”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paGwUa-2lc","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9002"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9002"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9002\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10929,"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9002\/revisions\/10929"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9002"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9002"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9002"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}