William Hogarth , Chiswick House, 1741
Chiswick House is a Palladian villa in Burlington Lane, Chiswick, in the London Borough of Hounslow in England. Set in 65 acres, the house was completed in 1729 during the reign of George II and designed by Lord Burlington.
The Pantheon at Stourhead -at the source of the River Stour near Mere, Wiltshire, England. The estate includes a Palladian mansion, gardens, and woodland. The gardens were designed by Henry Hoare II and laid out between 1741 and 1780 in a classical 18th-century design set around a large lake, achieved by damming a small stream. The inspiration behind their creation were the painters Claude Lorrain, Poussin and, in particular, Gaspar Dughet, who painted Utopian-type views of Italian landscapes. It is similar in style to the landscape gardens at Stowe.
Included in the garden are a number of temples inspired by scenes of the Grand Tours of Europe. On one hill overlooking the gardens there stands an obelisk and King Alfred’s Tower, a 50-metre-tall, brick folly designed by Henry Flitcroft in 1772; on another hill the temple of Apollo provides a vantage point to survey the rhododendrons, water, cascades and temples. The gardens are home to a large collection of trees and shrubs from around the world.
Easton Neston, the 1702 masterpiece by Nicholas Hawksmoor, an ingeniously inventive architect who also had a hand in Blenheim Palace and Castle Howard. From its stone lions marching along the roofline to its wildly attenuated windows, the ashlar building represents the domestic high point of the English Baroque, a flamboyant style that flowered briefly before Palladian stateliness became all the rage. Architectural historian Nikolaus Pevsner called it “perhaps the finest house of its date” in the nation, adding that the edifice, commissioned by Sir William Fermor, first Baron Lempster, “combines grandeur with urbanity to a degree rare in England and perhaps only matched at Chatsworth” .
Easton Neston’s motto carved above its main entrance—is “Hora e Sempre”, archaic Italian for “Now and Always”.
Pictures and text by the Architectural Digest here
Dining room from Kirtlington Park, Oxfordshire, 1742–48
Designed by John Sanderson (English, active from 1730, died 1774)
Wood, plaster, and marblemetropolitan museum
“Burns’ Coffee House, in which the first non-importation agreement of the colonies was signed on the 31st of October, 1765, by the merchants of the City of New York.”
From the archives of the New York Public Library.
From an article on Phi Beta Kappa, America’s oldest honors society, which was founded in Colonial Williamsburg in December of 1776.
Bacchanale
Alessandro Magnasco
Italian, about 1720 - 1730
Oil on canvas
Nymphs and satyrs participate in an ancient pagan feast celebrating Bacchus, the god of wine. Twisting, dancing, singing, and playing musical instruments, the small figures engage in unrestrained revelry at odds with the staid background of classical ruins. The dancing figures convey a sense of irrationality, as if the classical statuary had come alive to re-live the bacchanalian rituals of the past.
Alessandro Magnasco used monochromatic colors for his painting, adding blue accents to represent swirling drapery. He created figures using quick, agitated strokes of paint with daubs of white for highlights. Magnasco made this painting and its pendant, The Triumph of Venus, in Milan early in his career. His collaborator Clemente Spera probably painted the architectual ruins.
