I found these beautiful and evocative photographs of India under British rule on a remarkable website created by a consortium of research libraries called the Digital South Asia Library. The photographs themselves appear to be from the British Library’s Oriental and Indian Office Collection. I’ve added the original captions or collection titles when they’ve been […]
Photographs of Imperial India Read More »
Lawrence Alma-Tadema, Phidias Showing the Frieze of the Parthenon to his Friends, 1868, (72 x 110.5 cm) Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, Birmingham, UK. Continuing the theme of the previous entry a bit, here are some fascinating images created by the German archeologist Vinzenz Brinkmann and his research team. (For more on Brinkmann and his
The True Colors of Classical Sculpture Read More »
These beautiful screen tests from 1922 were posted to Kodak’s Thousand Words blog in March of this year. Although color motion pictures had been made earlier (see 1908’s “A Visit to the Seaside”) these tests used a new process that yielded some haunting results. There’s something disorienting about seeing the past in color that I
Color Film from 1922 Read More »
This remarkable map was produced by the cartographer João Teixera Albernaz the Elder (d. 1662) as part of his 1631 atlas Estado da Brasil (The State of Brazil). Lavishly illustrated in watercolors, the map meticulously depicts the recapture of the city of Salvador — the old colonial capital of Brazil — from an invading Dutch
Image of the Week 5: The Restitution of Bahia, 1631 Read More »
I was surprised to find that these images exist, but I’m glad they do. Apparently produced as part of a visual ethnography of the world’s cultures written by a Japanese interpreter for the Dutch merchant community in Nagasaki named Nishikawa Joken, they depict “people from each of the 42 barbarian countries outside of Japan.” (My
Japanese Ethnographic Portraits of South Americans, 1720 Read More »
The Wellcome Image Collection is one of the best digitized archives of rare, unusual and old images I’ve found on the internet. Here’s a selection of images relating to magic, witchcraft and sorcery. A figure holds a scythe as winged creatures fly above him, three figures approach on a horse, and another figure approaches from
Witchcraft and Magic Images from the Wellcome Library Read More »
I recently came across this image while browsing through the website for an exhibition entitled “Lost at Sea: the Ocean in the English Imagination, 1550-1750” that is currently being held at the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C. This artifact is one of those things that makes me love history — an object infused with
Image of the Week 4: Elizabethan Shipwreck "Poesy Ring" Read More »
I leave today for three weeks of research in the UK. In preparation I’ve been poking around the British Library’s online catalogs, and found that they have apparently digitized sample images from all of their illuminated manuscripts. Below are a few of the more interesting: Randle Holme, John Holme,“Man in Profile,” Sketchbook and household ledger.
Images from the British Library Illuminated Manuscripts Read More »
Greetings from Brazil! More to follow on the fascinating city of São Paulo. For now, I present some images of eighteenth century Brazilian army uniforms, courtesy of the excellent Portuguese-language blog Arquivo Histórico, : Note the ‘auxilaries’ in the bottom left of this last image — apparently mestizo and African-descended soldiers, sporting uniforms with much brighter
Uniforms of the Brazilian Army Read More »
I leave for Brazil (S.P. and Rio) today and will be there until the end of the month. While traveling I plan to use this blog as a clearinghouse for the interesting history-related things I find there, and for the occasional photo I take with my friend’s fancy DSLR camera. Inspired by my impending visit,