g.j.hilton
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hltn.bsky.social
g.j.hilton
@hltn.bsky.social
historian of renaissance & em scenography: the material, manufacturers & manufacturing of spectacle - machines, entries, feasts, gardens. (burgundy, you're my favorite.)

(2025) msc bweh, edinburgh medical school

whitby, n.yorks because: goth
Just evicted a scarily large scarily loud insect from the house. Black with a single thick yellow stripe on the abdomen, so depressingly may well have been V. velutina, the yellow legged Asian hornet. Who are of course bastards and I should probably have killed it, but just couldn't bring myself to.
November 9, 2025 at 3:13 PM
"Of all the sets and all the set pieces - a Frankenstein movie I think the key piece is the lab. That's the one obligatory scene." - @realgdt.bsky.social

Set tour: m.youtube.com/watch?v=JRiL...

(Also, the set I wanted so much to design it's how I furnished the bottom floor of my house…)
November 8, 2025 at 8:10 AM
Instagram is an absolute close stool of a website but this post from the legendary Ivan Day on the serving of early modern pies is totally essential

www.instagram.com/p/DQxpkIpDIG8/

(All images are his and are fully described in his post - read more there!)
November 8, 2025 at 7:07 AM
Kate Hawley on gothtuming @realgdt.bsky.social Frankenstein.

www.phantasmag.com/articles/gui...

Irresistible the way this references Vera West's costume for the 1935 Bride - those sleeves!
November 6, 2025 at 6:45 AM
Anybody who has ever struggled to make out the cryptic hand of some recalcitrant textual source will read this with unfolding horror, glee and schadefreude. Quite a delight, quite a plot twist. Glorious.
Omg this is great. The initial reading is so bananas

www.uni-koeln.de/phil-fak/ifa...
November 6, 2025 at 6:01 AM
Oh my goth. Tristwch Y Fenywod ON HALLOWEEN. I am undone.
November 1, 2025 at 9:05 PM
Pair of truly gorgeous Austin Osman Spare watercolours with Bellmans next month. Would part with a kidney in a heartbeat to finance, heck both kidneys if you insist.

The £1000 estimate is the living definition of a put up 'come by me' job unfortunately.

www.the-saleroom.com/en-gb/auctio...
November 1, 2025 at 5:30 AM
1586. George French of Kingsbridge, Devon had the model Elizabethan garden: formal knot garden, parterres, arbour... BIG SURROUNDING WALL.

(Pretty much mouthwatering) detail from a map with Forum Auctions next month.

www.forumauctions.co.uk/157131/Devon...
October 31, 2025 at 4:11 AM
As far as I can tell this hasn't been noticed until I showed my amazing mum - who's spent 2 years working with the Frank Meadow Sutcliffe archive at #Whitby Museum - George du Maurier's Whitby Vikings cartoon from Punch. The FMS picture is "c1885", the cartoon 1881 but that "circa" could be critical
October 26, 2025 at 10:30 PM
Extracurricular obsession with (a) blue food (b) imaginary flavours continues to be a hurdle to e.g. sleep, reintegration into polite society etc.

This via Mr Tee www.instagram.com/mrtee_offici...
October 26, 2025 at 12:49 AM
[Terry Thomas voice] Well hel-lo.
October 25, 2025 at 11:02 AM
In which a throwaway trailing modifier phrase opens up so many more questions than it resolves...

Cressy, David. “Death and the Social Order: The Funerary Preferences of Elizabethan Gentlemen.” Continuity and Change 5, no. 1 (1990): 99–119. doi.org/10.1017/S026....
October 24, 2025 at 4:40 PM
Another day, another post shamelessly fanboying Tamara Deverell, production designer of @realgdt.bsky.social's Frankenstein:

Deverell dumped some juicy reference imagery on Instagram last week - the cropping / reframing she chose lets you follow her eye at work

🧵

www.instagram.com/p/DPqPKrajUGh
October 23, 2025 at 5:36 AM
Problem: You've got a webpage containing an embedded IIIF but what you want is a nice old-fashioned max resolution PNG.

Solution: github.com/gjhilton/Rip...

No warranties, no support. Most of all: people who digitise manuscripts deserve LOVE, not this sort of thing - please don't use for evil.
GitHub - gjhilton/RippyFish
Contribute to gjhilton/RippyFish development by creating an account on GitHub.
github.com
October 23, 2025 at 12:36 AM
Bidding now open for the sale of the Jim Henson company's archive: I am being unfairly personally targeted by the lavish selection of dishes and tableware from the show-stealing Skeksis banquet scene in Dark Crystal.

www.juliensauctions.com/en/auctions/...
October 22, 2025 at 2:57 PM
Google Books captcha generator has a low opinion of vol 2 of the records of the Court of Quarter Sessions of the Peace for the North Riding of the County of York (1612-1620).
October 19, 2025 at 6:54 AM
Were any of my organs so tradeable - if only! - I would hock the dripping lot to Satan in a moment to write a single paragraph like Angela Carter.
October 18, 2025 at 9:37 AM
Here's that diagram showing the Hindi naming of the components of elephant caparison you didn't know you needed.

(From the highly-recommended www.sahapedia.org/elephant-reg... )
October 17, 2025 at 1:15 PM
Astonishingly gorgeous nef (lower left).
A magnificent exhibition: "Nürnberg Global, 1300-1600," showcasing stunning #MedievalSky & #EarlyModern objects—paintings, engravings, goldsmithing & scientific objects, woodcuts, books (of hours), architectural models, sculptures, armor, textiles, coins. It's SO good!
🗃️ #HistSci #ArtHistory 🏛️
October 13, 2025 at 10:46 AM
Reposted by g.j.hilton
Historians of science: any thoughts on this? I'm intrigued by a "recipe" in a 1505 manuscript, which describes what appears to be the Leidenfrost effect, named after Johann Gottlob Leidenfrost, who supposedly was the first to describe the effect in the 18th century 🗃️ #HistSTM #HistSci #EarlyModern 🧪
The Leidenfrost effect! But wow is this ever an early description of it.
October 10, 2025 at 1:11 PM
This concept art for @realgdt.bsky.social 's Frankenstein - and now, my home office - has been hiding in plain sight as part of a Hollywood Reporter preview of the 'Art of…' book. No artist credit unfortunately but Tamara Deverell production designer.

www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie...
October 6, 2025 at 8:52 PM
Seasonally appropriate BTS from Berton Pierce on the models (and sets) of Coppola's Bram Stoker's Dracula.

"… a skeleton ribcage skull head sitting on a throne. And yet it was to look like a castle. Like you've ever seen a castle like that."

m.youtube.com/watch?v=LCqw...
October 6, 2025 at 6:06 AM
Perhaps I mistook it for abandoned, perhaps I came to despise how effortlessly the author pushes at an idea and keeps pushing and pushing: in any case, somehow I forgot BLDGBLOG. In an overnighter tonight I remembered it and fell head & heels hook & line back in love. bldgblog.com/2022/01/molt...
October 1, 2025 at 1:34 AM
Jason Ardizzone-West's work may tbh not be my cup of tea but his process documentation is truly outstanding and fascinating.

www.jawstudiony.com/design-proce...
jesus christ superstar live . process — jason ardizzone-west | stage designer
www.jawstudiony.com
September 30, 2025 at 5:34 AM
Exhausted by the continual effort to resist buying this well-provenanced (thoroughbred?) 1920s-vintage pantomime horse. Might be prudent to yield to it.
September 29, 2025 at 7:19 AM