Map of Guadeloupe — and La Réunion? Slightly odd choice, until I spotted the little note: 'Although this Island is about 3,000 Leagues from Guadeloupe, I have put it here to fill the big Gap which remained' (Georges-Louis le Rouge, 1753)

Today with staff and volunteers at St Alfege’s in Greenwich finding out how they ran their award-winning, volunteer-led social history project on the 1718 Pew List - lots of great ideas for how we @brunelmuseum.bsky.social could do similar with our lists of Thames Tunnel investors

in amongst the versailles exhib at the science museum, particularly liked these one page bulletins printed and distributed daily to provide updates on the progress of the royal family’s smallpox

Have to assume I will never convene a seminar series somewhere quite so dramatic as this for the rest of my life!

“I beg to say that the prices of my pictures are regulated by the amount of work, rather than by their size. […] I cannot execute any oil painting for less than £50.” - John Martin, 1853, yet another impoverished artist striking a hard bargain

Classical civil engineering? Persian king Cyrus the Great diverting the river Euphrates to enable the capture of Babylon, tapestry c. 1670 from the workshop of Gillis Ydens. Now Art Institute, Chicago, 1938.1311 www.artic.edu/artworks/278...

Writing something about John Martin so went to the Tate specifically to see his The Great Day of His Wrath; obviously it was all the way up in the ceiling as is always the case when you go looking for something specific

Also loved these crumbling 17C italian vernacular prints out in the courtyard (!) of the franciscan monastery in Nice, with a bit of tinsel for the festive season

also this 12th century capital with a tiny horse

in ventimiglia, loved this fresco + graffiti recording a bit of early modern extreme weather (‘1606 a dì 19 di luglio a l’ora 23 cascò una saetta che spicò la croce del pinacolo’)

“To counterfeit is Death” not that far off what was on French assignats 15/20 years later thebrunelmuseum.com/collection/f...