Table

Butterfly

“I stood / Among them, but not of them; in a shroud / Of thoughts which were not their thoughts.”

Lord Byron

Tree

The Indian Lion

“Gone! And you and I quite crestfallen. It’s always like that, you can’t keep him; it’s not as if he were a tame lion.” 
― C.S. Lewis, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader

The Black Pages

'I wore black because I liked it. I still do, and wearing it still means something to me. It's still my symbol of rebellion.' - Johnny Cash

Horse Racing

Horse racing at the Carnival of Rome

Edge

Guard Soldiers Playing Cards

 

'Parisienne cards' and 'History Game' 1840 by O. Gilbert

Most of the soldiers are focused on the card game, but in the background two soldiers chat to a maid who is serving drinks.

Lost Purse

'Suddenly, his hand in his waistband, looking for her purse and, surprised, feels nothing.'

Calédonien Cattle

A Courtroom

President of Haiti

Nicolas Fabre Geffrard was President of Haiti from 1859 -1867. During his presidency many tried to assassinate him.

♦ In the first year of Nicolas's presidency, Guerrier Prophète, began to lay out his plan to overthrow him. Guerrier's plan was overheard by Nicolas's guards and then Guerrier was exiled.

♦ In 1859, Nicolas's daughter was assassinated by Timoleon Vanon. 

♦ In 1861, General Legros tried to take over the weaponry storage but was detained by government forces. 

♦ In 1862, Etienne Salomon encouraged the people in the countryside to fight Nicolas, but Salomon was shot and killed.

 ♦ In 1863, Aimé Legros gathered troops to overthrow Nicolas, but he was shot and killed too. 

 ♦ In 1864, the elite community in Port-au-Prince tried to take over the weaponry storage, but the conspirators were later prosecuted and sentenced to jail. 

Here are some postcards from Port-au-Prince.

♦ In 1867, his bodyguard tried to assassinate him inside the National Palace.

♦ He survived all of the attempts to assassinate him. 

♦ In 1865, Major Sylvain Salnave began his takeover of the North and Artibonite.

♦ Nicolas's troops clashed with the Major's troops. After using the Royal Navy for gunboat diplomacy* with the Major, Nicolas's regime was in ruins, especially financially.

♦ He started fights in the North, West, and South. In 1866, a huge fire destroyed hundreds of homes. The following year Nicolas and his family disguised themselves and fled to Jamaica. 

♦ He died in Kingston on New Years Eve 1878, aged 72.

* In politics, gunboat diplomacy refers to the pursuit of foreign policy goals through displays of naval power. Showing naval power can both imply or constitute a direct threat of warfare. In America they call it big stick diplomacy.  

The Coppersmith and His Wife

This print was based on Schleisner's painting 'In the Coppersmiths'

'Vision is the art of seeing what is invisible to others.' - Jonathan Swift

The engraving twists the woman's features. She is given a very pointy chin and nose which intrude further into her husband's personal space. See how a gentlewoman has been rendered witch-like. 

Perhaps the engraver felt that women ought not interfere with men's work. Her assistance seemed suspicious him, or maybe he just didn't like women much. 

He has only made small changes but they change the feeling of the whole image. 

An Amateur Concert in the Countryside

A Street Lamp

The Schoolboy

The painting was bought directly from the artist by George Greville, 2nd Earl of Warwick (1746–1816)

When George Greville was a boy, he was painted by Sir Joshua Reynolds too. I love the sense of wonder in this painting. A portrait of a future art collector!

Crocodile

Change Alley

These were all details from a coloured print based on this painting -

Edward Matthew Ward 'The South Sea Bubble, a Scene in ‘Change Alley' in 1720' -

exhibited 1847

The South Sea Bubble was 'a period of wild financial speculation, when virtually any scheme, which gullible investors thought could make money, was eagerly seized upon. It was followed by a collapse... In choosing this subject, Ward clearly had in mind the 'Railway Mania' of 1844-5, which, like the South Sea Bubble, collapsed with many fortunes lost.'

This is a self portrait by the artist, in which he is painting a portrait of his daughter.

Both the portrait and the 'The South Sea Bubble' paintings show innocence as viewed from experience. The naivety cannot last and so I think he wanted to keep it in his paintings. 

The Cotton Crisis

In 1861 Manchester used to make 98% of the worlds cotton. 

90% of the people in Manchester worked in the cotton industry. Then the slave trade started to take off and cotton was being sold much cheaper elsewhere. Everyone in Manchester got together at The Free Trade Hall to protest.

They wished to abolish slavery to protect their cotton industry. They expressed support of Abraham Lincoln who also wanted to see an end to slavery. 

This caused a conflict with the Southern States, who provided Manchester with the raw cotton. They stopped selling the raw cotton to Manchester because they had expressed support for Lincoln. 

Then 90% of the people in Manchester had no income. Soup kitchens were set up so that people didn't starve. 

To begin with they wanted to abolish slavery to protect their business, but though the extreme hardships they then directly empathised with the slaves as well. 

Records from 1851 say that 51% of children died before reaching the age of 14. The children would work in the 'dark, satanic mills' and without their parents to protect them they were treated very badly. 

After their hardships many oppressed workers loved the idea of going to America. Some of them made it and when they did they called their towns Manchester. 

They had an extremely difficult time in Manchester but they loved what people had stood for there and wanted to remember their old home. Or maybe they just couldn't think of a new name. 

Anyway 35 new towns called Manchester appeared at this time. 

Pancakes

The family is distracted by the spectacle of pancake flipping. The cat has one paw up on the small table. The table is guarded only by a doll, and the milk and the mix have been placed upon it.

Opportunism is a survival skill!