Category Archives: History

Adventure, History, Travel, Videos, Views

Wyoming Views: The Green River Drift Cattle Drive

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Bill Whitaker saddles up for one of the last enduring symbols of the Old West, a Wyoming cattle drive that travels the same route pioneered 125 years ago.

Upper Green River Valley, Wyoming

Predating most federal land management agencies, the Green River Drift cattle trail has been continuously used since the 1890s by the Upper Green River Cattle Association ranchers to get cattle from spring pasture on the desert to summer pasture in the forest. Chilly fall weather causes the cattle to “drift” back out of the forest to return to their home ranches. The trail, 58 miles long with 41 miles of spurs, crosses BLM, State of Wyoming, National Forest, and private properties. It has played a pivotal role in the development of ranching in the area as well as in the development of relationships between Federal agencies that manage grazing allotments and private property owners. The Drift was listed on the National Register in November, 2013. Because it is still being used much as it has for more than 100 years, the Drift was listed as a Traditional Cultural Property (TCP), the first ranching related TCP in the nation.

Art, Arts & Literature, History, Profiles, Reviews, Stories, Videos

Art: 17th Century French Classical Painter Michel Corneille The Elder

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This remarkable painting by Michel Corneille the Elder has been hidden away from view for at least the past 110 years and is a truly exceptional rediscovery for French painting of the 17th century. After a recent restoration, the artist’s signature has been re-exposed so that now this impressive work can be confidently attributed to the early  French  Classicist.

This episode of Anatomy of a work of art, discover The Death of Virginia, taken from Roman historian Livy and recounts the death of Virginia, daughter of a centurion in the Roman army. This rediscovery will be one of the highlights of our sale Tableaux Dessins Sculptures 1300-1900, Session I, Including Treasures from the Antony Embden Collection.

Architecture, Buildings, History, Stories, Views

Blenheim Palace: Britain’s Answer To Versailles

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Blenheim Palace, Oxfordshire — the seat of the Duke of Marlborough — is one of the outstanding palaces of Baroque Europe, and was planned as both a residence and national monument.

Towards the end of the day on August 13, 1704, John Churchill, Duke of Marlborough, exhausted by an intense day of fighting near Blindheim, a village on the Danube, famously scrawled a note to his wife on the back of a tavern bill: ‘I have not time to say more but to beg you will give my duty to the Queen and let her know her army has had a glorious victory.’ The battle of Blenheim — as the name has been anglicised — was, in fact, a confrontation between a Franco-Bavarian army and the forces of a grand alliance of European powers, including the Dutch republic, Austria and Britain, over control of Spain and its empire. It was the first major defeat inflicted on a French army in the field for 50 years and was crowned by the capture of Louis XIV’s commander-in-chief, Marshal Talleyrand, who waited in the Duke’s coach as he scribbled his hasty message.

Although the plans of the building changed considerably over time, something close to the final design was published in the first part of Colen Campbell’s Vitruvius Britannicus (1715). As described by Campbell, ‘the manner is grand, the parts noble, and the air majestick of this palace, adapted to the martial genius of the patron…’ This latter quality was celebrated both in the ornament of the building with military trophies and its original title, ‘Blenheim Castle’.

Fig 5: The Saloon is overlooked by figures representing the four Continents and the marble doorcase is ornamented with an imperial eagle. Blenheim Palace, Woodstock, Oxfordshire, photographed for Country Life Magazine by Will Pryce. ©Country Life

Both Vanbrugh and Hawksmoor were well versed in medieval castle architecture and their knowledge of it shines through the spectacular outline of this building, its great angle towers and the rugged articulation of the masonry. Yet this is really a Classical castle suitable for a general of Britain in its newly assumed character as an Imperial power and second Rome. Borrowing Hawksmoor’s description of Castle Howard, as ‘the seat of one of the chief nobles of Britain, it is both a castle and palace conjoined’.

History, Magazines, Previews, Stories

Preview: Smithsonian Magazine – June 2022

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June 2022

Cover for June 2022

FEATURES

 

Flesh, Blood & Bronze

One sculptor and his team of artists take on the epic project of conveying the century-old conflict through a massive bronze installation

BY JEFF MACGREGOR

PHOTOGRAPHS BY VINCENT TULLO

 

Not Far From Kyiv

To residents of Southern California with ties to the Eastern European nations, the conflict feels close to home

PHOTOGRAPHS AND INTERVIEWS BY STELLA KALININA

 

In a Tight Spot

Conservationists are racing to rescue a delightful coastal animal from rising seas

PHOTOGRAPH BY LAUREN OWENS LAMBERT

TEXT BY MADDIE BENDER

 

The Real Pinocchio

Forget what you know from the cartoon. The 19th-century story, now in a new translation, was a rallying cry for universal education and Italian nationhood

BY PERRI KLASS

PHOTOGRAPHS BY SIMONA GHIZZONI

 

Escape from the Gilded Cage

Even if her husband was a murderer, a woman in a bad marriage once had few options. Unless she fled to South Dakota

BY APRIL WHITE

DEPARTMENTS

Discussion

Ethical Collecting

For more than a century, museum artifacts were acquired in ways we no longer find acceptable. How can we repair the damage?

Popular Wisdom

The world’s largest book repository has expanded far beyond its original scope to include sound recordings and digitized collections

Van Gogh in the Grove

A new exhibition of lesser known works during a pivotal time sheds light on his budding genius

Role of a Lifetime

An unpublished memoir reveals how the world’s most famous child actress became a star of the environmental movement

A Brief History of Red Drink

The obscure roots of a centuries-old beverage that’s now a Juneteenth fixture

The Next Clone

Forget Dolly the Sheep. The birth of a mouse named Cumulina 25 years ago launched a genetic revolution

History, Homes, Tours, Travel, Videos, Views

Tours: Bellosguardo In Santa Barbara, California

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Built in the 1930s, high above the Santa Barbara coast, the mansion known as Bellosguardo was the summer home of reclusive heiress Huguette Clark, who instructed her staff to never change a thing – and they didn’t. Jane Pauley pays a visit to a fabled home constructed from a Gilded Age fortune (made famous from the bestseller “Empty Mansions”), which will open its doors to public tours for the first time later this year.

Geography, History, Politics, Travel, Videos, Views

Africa Views: Ethiopia And Sudan’s Disputed Borders

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Recent events have revived a century-old border dispute between Ethiopia and Sudan over al-Fashaga—a fertile region that both countries claim as their own. Could these tensions throw the entire region into conflict?

Timeline: 00:00 – The border dispute: Sudan and Ethiopia 00:58 – The history of the dispute 02:33 – How does Abiy Ahmed worsen tensions 03:55 – Trouble in Tigray 04:38 – The return of civil war in Ethiopia 05:07 – Sudan reclaims al-Fashaga 06:27 – The dispute over the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance dam

Archaeology, Exhibitions, History, Museums, Tours, Videos, Views

Louvre Exhibits: ‘Pharaoh Of The Two Lands, African Kings of Napata’ In Paris

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PHARAOH OF THE TWO LANDS – The African Story of the Kings of Napata

28 April – 25 July 2022

OVERVIEW

In the 8th century BC, a kingdom grew up around the Nubian capital, Napata. In about 730 BC, the Nubian king Piankhy conquered Egypt and founded the 25th Dynasty of Kushite kings, who ruled for more than fifty years over a kingdom stretching from the Nile Delta to the confluence of the White and Blue Niles. The most famous of those kings is the pharaoh Taharqa.

The exhibition highlights the importance of this vast kingdom, located in what is now northern Sudan. It is organised in connection with the Louvre’s archaeological campaign in Sudan, which focused for ten years on the site of Muweis before moving some 30 kilometres northwards to El-Hassa, not far from the pyramids of Meroe.

Books, History, Reviews, Stories

History Books: ‘The Castle’ By John Goodall (2022)

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John Goodall’s The Castle: A history is the much slimmer companion to his magisterial The English Castle, (2011). Partly an attempt to bring the fruits of his research to a wider audience, Goodall’s new book uses extracts and quotations as the foundation of a historical account: each short chapter features an excerpt from a primary source that seeks to illustrate a particular moment. Rather than offering an architectural or conventional narrative history, Goodall explores the concept of the castle as it has been imagined, remade and contested over time. Important castles such as the Tower of London, Kenilworth and Windsor feature throughout.

Culture, Documentaries, History, Tourism, Tours, Travel, Videos

Travels: History Of The Orient Express & Istanbul

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Gavin Stamp retraces the route of the old Orient Express, from London, via Paris, Vienna, Budapest, Belgrade, Bucharest, to Istanbul, in search of the treasures of ‘Old Europe’. Stamp’s adventures on and off the train are punctuated by his candid, entertaining reflections on life, the world, and the strange and wonderful people he meets.

Culture, Documentaries, History, Stories, Travel, Videos, Views

Celebrity Culture: History Of The Côte d’Azur, France

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The Côte d’Azur stands for glamour and luxury, for film festivals and stars, for yachts and villas. The most famous personalities of the last century met here. The Côte owes its unique mythos to their loves and passions.

The Côte d’Azur boasts a breathtakingly gorgeous landscape. But its mythos is more than the sum of it beautiful parts. The whole world associates the narrow coastal strip on the French Mediterranean coast with sun, stars and scandals. In Saint Tropez, a former fishing town, a new and newly sensual art of living was popularized thanks to the young Brigitte Bardot.

On the eastern part of the coast, Oscar winner Grace Kelly conquered the principality of Monaco with her marriage to Prince Rainier. The matchmaker? The Greek shipowner Aristotle Onassis, who wanted to burnish the dwarf state’s image. One of the most glamorous film festivals in the world was established in Cannes. After that, it seemed everyone came to the Côte. At the Hôtel du Cap-Eden-Roc in Antibes, the paths of the famous crossed again and again.

For 150 years the hotel has been home to artists, queens and kings, divas and stars. Since 1969, the hotel has been owned by the German industrialist family Oetker. Maja Oetker describes her personal memories of the past 50 years. To this day, the Côte d’Azur has lost none of its appeal. It is more than just a place: it is an entire mythos.