perthmuseum.co.uk/inside-the-m... "I am to be executed like a criminal at eight in the morning... . The bearer of this letter and his companions.. will testify to my conduct at my last hour... a queen who has borne the title Most Christian, and who dies a Catholic, stripped of all her possessions"

“Flinging a pot of paint in the public's face.”(Ruskin) Nocturne: Blue & Gold - Old Battersea Bridge, c 1872, by James McNeill Whistler, avant-garde American artist, born #OTD 1834. Pioneer of Aesthetic Movement & proponent of Art for Art, inspired characters in Proust & Henry James. Tate Britain

John Ruskin, Victorian art critic & reformer, champion of JMW Turner, author of The Stones of Venice, born #OTD 1819. Portrait beside Glen Finglas in Scotland, 1854, by John Everett Millais Ashmolean Museum Oxford

“In my end is my beginning…” Mary, Queen of Scots, executed #OTD 1587 at Fotheringhay Castle; reinterred 1612, at Westminster Abbey. Portrait 1558-60, by François Clouet, Royal Collection Trust Alabaster tomb effigy 1606-12 by Cornelius & William Cure, Westminster Abbey

Still Life with Flowers & Fruit, c 1735, by Jan van Huysum, preeminent 18th Century Dutch flower artist; died #OTD 1749; known for loose arrangements of flowers & fruit in terracotta urns, with roses, tulips, drops of dew, insects, luscious peaches & grapes, painted with intensity. Rijksmuseum

After the bustle of London, the lonely fells.

#Heidelberg Baden-Württemberg: a few architectural highlights…..

#Zeus, wearing a gold crown. ca. 360-340 BC. Now in the Cabinet des Médailles, Paris. See Alt. For details.

Luxury Roman scent bottles made of gold-band mosaic glass. 1st century AD. This opulent glass was made by encasing strips of gold leaf between layers of colourless glass. Beautiful example of the skill of ancient glassmakers some 2,000 years ago! The Met. 📷 by me #Archaeology

Visite de l’exposition Trésors retrouvés au ⁦‪Grand Palais‬⁩ où sont exposés pour une semaine les sublimes tapis et tapisseries réalisés pour le palais du Louvre sous Louis XIV. Magnifique.

Interesting on the decline of small-town hotels and how they were sustained by commercial travellers, themselves gone. Reminded of Neil Munro's stories of the middle-aged traveller Jommy Swan, doing his circuits with cases of samples, knowing every hotel, its staff and its Commercial Room.

the sunset furled round the last post, ‘the flamingo colours’ of a fading world - Derek Walcott, Verandah

Dunblane's historic Leighton Library has 1629 edition of "Utopia" by author, statesman, & England's Lord High Chancellor Sir Thomas More, born #OnThisDay 1478 - satire about social, political & religious system & customs of imaginary, ideal island nation

Why sit in a lecture hall when you can go on a field trip? Last week I visited #Antwerp with bright #art #history students in our master's programme! After a brief stop at Antwerp Central Station - the city's famous 'railway cathedral' - we visited Kunsthal Extra City. [1/5]

Timeline cleanse! A Greek Lekythos (a vessel to store and pour scented oil) decorated with an #owl, 470 BC. 🦉 The owl was the sacred animal of Athena, the goddess of wisdom, who was also the protector goddess of Athens. On display at Antikensammlung München 📷me 🏺

New 3D method maps Paleolithic engravings at submillimeter resolution. phys.org/news/2026-02...

#FindsFriday Slightly rarer than hen's teeth, the magical Nesscliffe Iron Age spoons on display in the brilliant Shrewsbury Museum 🥰 Thought to have been used for divination - perhaps by Druids - fewer than 30 pairs have been discovered since 1829....😮 🎥 My own, last week

Our flag shone brightly on the Arco della Pace at the Opening Ceremony of the #MilanoCortina2026 Olympic Winter Games. A symbol of peace and prosperity, a journey defined by cooperation and unshakable solidarity. Let’s go EU athletes! ©️Jamie Squire / Getty Images

”It was the best of times; it was the worst of times...” Charles Dickens, Victorian novelist born #OTD 1812; George Orwell noted “no English writer has written better about childhood...” Portrait by Daniel Maclise, 1839, National Portrait Gallery, London | Cartoon Tom Gauld @tomgauld.bsky.social

Fragmentary versions of David. The original at the Galleria dell'Accademia and its photographic reception that shaped the art historical canon. The photos are part of exhibition "The City as Achive" @khiflorenz.bsky.social.

Canada opens consulate in Greenland in show of support for Arctic island ft.trib.al/qK8uz1m

The Rector's Legacy This second magnificent brass at Balsham (Cambridgeshire, 1401) commemorates John Sleford - a man whose architectural legacy still surrounds his memorial. The inscription proudly states he "ecclesiam struxit" (built the church) and "haec fecit stalla" (made these stalls).

A self-driving car

Gliding our way into the weekend, and the Winter Olympics... ⛸️ This charming photo (MS Kennet D22) from Kathleen Scott’s diaries shows her son Peter ice skating in Switzerland in 1923. Peter later became a renowned naturalist and environmentalist.

This is a bit niche, but some of the best stuff is! My favourite church pews, a thread… 🤩 No.1 - the crooked, rough & ready pews that are built around columns, at St. Mary’s, Shelton, Bedfordshire 😍

Gouda, Sint Janskerk, Day 21, window 23. Designed and made by Wouter Crabeth, 1561-63. Given by Margaret of Parma, half-sister of Philip II of Spain, & Governor of the Spanish Netherlands. South transept window, 20m tall. 2 parts: Jesus Washing the Disciples' Feet; & Elijah & the Prophets of Baal.

I was reading this old post from 2011 about Emilie Flöge, her salon, and friendship with Klimt only a couple of days ago, on the great arts blog The Blue Lantern. It features some great photos of her. thebluelantern.blogspot.com/2011/09/two-... The blog hasn't been updated, sadly, since 2024.

Sir Guenter Treitel came to the UK on the Kindertransport. He became the foremost authority on English contract law. Famously, he held the Rolling Stones to their contract to play the Magdalen Ball in 1964 for £100 - they had suddenly become superstars after being booked as unknowns in 1963.

Subjugué par le Duomo de Monreale et ses mosaïques du XIIe siècle (époque normande).

In 1981, when I was ten, I visited Christchurch, New Zealand with my parents. I loved birds, especially albatrosses, and learned that tantalizingly close—360 km to the south—was the royal albatross colony in Dunedin. It was not meant to be that trip. But 44 years later, I finally made it happen.

The south transept doorway of St. Magnus Cathedral at Kirkwall in Orkney, with its alternating sandstone stonework. 📸 My own. #AdoorableThursday #Kirkwall #Orkney

They are #curling in Bruegel’s Hunters in the Snow!

Yesterday and today are bookended by the first @bsrome.bsky.social @researchual.bsky.social arts fellowship exhibition by Eva Sajovic at Chelsea Space, and my last research fellowship meeting at the Horniman Museum. I’m proud of being involved in getting these research fellowships off the ground.

$27.2m for Michelangelo’s foot at Christie’s. That’s $1.15m per square inch.

One of the Lewis Chessmen - currently on display at the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh. Found in 1831 on a beach at Uig on the Isle of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides, the Chessmen dates to the late 12th or early 13th century. 📸 My own. #FindsFriday #LewisChessmen #NMS

A little bear figurine carved out of amber some 6,000 years ago 🐻❤️ A hole runs through the bear’s torso suggesting it was threaded on a cord, perhaps worn or carried as a protective charm. Found in a peat bog near Słupsk, Poland, in 1887. 📷 National Museum in Szczecin #FindsFriday #Archaeology

Grönland 📷 Evgeniy Maloletka-AP

Le Forum romain au clair de lune

England’s greatest gardener: Lancelot ‘Capability’ Brown, landscape architect & Royal Gardener to George III, died #OTD 1783; landscaped estates of great country houses, including Blenheim Palace and Chatsworth House.

Portrait of Emilie Flöge, avant-garde Viennese couturière, painted in 1902, by her companion Gustav Klimt, Austrian Symbolist painter, founder of Vienna Secession, died #OTD 1918. She is thought to have inspired Klimt’s famous work The Kiss 1908. Wien Museum | Österreichische Galerie,Belvedere, Wien

Man with blue quilted sleeve c 1510, masterpiece by Titian, greatest Renaissance artist of Venetian school (c.1488- 1576) inspired Rembrandt’s self-portrait of 1640. Titian’s projecting sleeve on stone sill or parapet with artist’s monogram, is reflected in Rembrandt’s work. National Gallery London

Bodiam Castle, Sussex.

4th century silver spoon with swan or duck handle from Roman Canterbury. The spoon was part of a hoard buried beside the London Gate in the city walls. Now part of the collections at Canterbury Roman Museum. 📸 My own. #RomanBritain #Canterbury

Excited to be heading to the Old Vic for the press night performance of Arcadia - the play on which I've been maths/science consultant. If you want to know more about the Maths and Science in the play before you go then check out my latest substack:

A chink of light falls across the wall of the caldarium (hot room) in the women’s section of the Stabian baths in #Pompeii.

Absolutely 👍 our digital atlas of Edward I towns is archived with @ads-update.bsky.social archaeologydataservice.ac.uk/archives/vie...

A Knight with jousting helmet, iron foot brace & rapier, painted 1554-58, by Giovanni Battista Moroni, Italian Mannerist artist of restrained, subtle portraits with silvery tonality, influenced by Titian & Lotto; died #OTD 1578. National Gallery London (See Alt Text)

The first decadent: J.K. Huysmans, born #OTD 1848, French fin-de-siècle writer, whose yellow book À Rebours inspired Oscar Wilde. Bibliothèque nationale de France

”La mémoire est dans le coeur.” Queen of letter writers, Madame de Sévigné, born #OTD 1626; friend of Jean de la Fontaine and La Rochefoucauld, supporter of Fouquet, she inspired Proust’s À la Recherche du Temps Perdu. Portrait by Claude Lefèbvre c. 1665 Musée Carnavalet