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Well, I’m parked outside Tesco, whilst Teresa does our weekly shop. I stayed in the car, as I wanted to finish reading Treasures of Royal Museums Greenwich.
And literally just now, before I started typing this, I did just that. It’s the kind of easy reading smorgasbord one could potentially read in a single day. Although that might feel rather too much like cramming!
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As it is I’ve spent a very pleasant three or four days reading tranches of the 100 numbered entries. The book starts with the Caird Astrolabe, and finishes with a new ‘fresco’, adorning The Queen’s House, by contemporary artist Richard Wright.
I reviewed this book once already. And gave it five stars. I’ve upgraded that to the rarely bestowed but coveted six stars. It’s just fantastic. A compendium of mostly exquisitely beautiful – and a few apparently mundane – artefacts, all of which have interesting tales to tell.
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A sure-fire sign of an excellent book is when it promotes further exploration, be that purely literary, or in some other form. I’m now very keen to explore ship models further; to study the works of numerous marine artists more deeply (the Van de Veldes, William Hodges, W L Wyllie, and many more*); and perhaps to expand my modelling/wargaming interests to include the Anglo-Dutch naval conflicts?
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The cornucopia of artistic and crafts or engineering brilliance is also very, very humbling and awe-inspiring. Oh, and inspirational, as well. I want to incorporate aspects of things I see here – from intricately worked brass, to art or wall paintings – into our home life.
So I’ve found studying this book – gazing in awe at the objects, and reading with great interest the pithily short accompanying texts – a hugely pleasurable and massively enriching experience.
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And at the current asking price of £10? It’s a no-brainer! This was a real bargain, and is a wonderful addition to our library.
* Some I already knew, some are new to me.
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One of the artists I’d not really know about before – I may have encountered him, by name, but I wasn’t truly aware of either him or his work – was W L Wyllie. That’s him, pictured above (this image is not in the book I’m reviewing), working on an enormous panorama of Trafalgar, in Portsmouth. With his daughter as assistant. In the book he’s represented by a fabulous underwater scene, titled Davy Jones’ Locker!
There are also works by lots of familiar names, such Canaletto, Hogarth, Reynolds, Stubbs, Ravilious, and even Heath Robinson! And of course there’s Turner’s humongous Trafalgar. An amazing work. Not my favourite Turner painting – although I do love it – but a must see.
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NOTES
(1) (2) Neither of these Hodges paintings appear in the book. Their selection is the fantastically dramatic A View Of Cape Stephens. I include these two because they illustrate how reading this book inspired me to explore Hodges’ work further.