Mark Gray
@markgray.bsky.social
Deaf, cochlear implant user, annoyed liberal centrist. 18th/19thc art collecting/researching + academic/consultant/government economist. Lots of art.
DMs=block.
#arthistory #19thc #18thc #Britishart #knowledgeexchange
DMs=block.
#arthistory #19thc #18thc #Britishart #knowledgeexchange
Revelling in #HaymansWay from #STV - stunning, stirring north of #Scotland landscapes that leave you in awe and wonder. Genuinely beautiful television.
November 14, 2025 at 11:10 PM
Revelling in #HaymansWay from #STV - stunning, stirring north of #Scotland landscapes that leave you in awe and wonder. Genuinely beautiful television.
Watching #TomHanks in #AManCalledOtto - which I missed when it first came out - and it is just brilliant, isn't it? The man's a brilliant actor.
November 8, 2025 at 4:40 PM
Watching #TomHanks in #AManCalledOtto - which I missed when it first came out - and it is just brilliant, isn't it? The man's a brilliant actor.
Received with a bundle of minor prints was this tired old election poster from 1859 from one Thonas Hawkins. The line 'I smote the dogs of faction dumb' is wonderful.
November 7, 2025 at 12:41 PM
Received with a bundle of minor prints was this tired old election poster from 1859 from one Thonas Hawkins. The line 'I smote the dogs of faction dumb' is wonderful.
Go to the BBC website - the big buddies of #Reform - and search for stories about the party. This is what you get. I haven't edited out anything.
It isn't a party. It's a bad joke.
It isn't a party. It's a bad joke.
November 5, 2025 at 7:20 PM
Go to the BBC website - the big buddies of #Reform - and search for stories about the party. This is what you get. I haven't edited out anything.
It isn't a party. It's a bad joke.
It isn't a party. It's a bad joke.
Any thoughts on who signed a pastel drawing like this in 1927? Struggling to read the name - likely a French artist or resident in France.
November 2, 2025 at 1:54 PM
Any thoughts on who signed a pastel drawing like this in 1927? Struggling to read the name - likely a French artist or resident in France.
Col. Robert Goff...but did Robert Goff *really* make etchings of peacocks?
October 14, 2025 at 8:07 PM
Col. Robert Goff...but did Robert Goff *really* make etchings of peacocks?
#Watercolour sketch with a tiny amount of pencil underdrawing attributed to #WilliamLeightonLeitch (1804-1883).
October 13, 2025 at 8:12 AM
#Watercolour sketch with a tiny amount of pencil underdrawing attributed to #WilliamLeightonLeitch (1804-1883).
Victorian #watercolour by #AndrewBrandishHolte (1829-1907)
October 13, 2025 at 8:11 AM
Victorian #watercolour by #AndrewBrandishHolte (1829-1907)
Annoys me every time I see it: 'While stocks last' or 'While stock lasts' but 'While stock last' is...grrrrr!
October 13, 2025 at 7:58 AM
Annoys me every time I see it: 'While stocks last' or 'While stock lasts' but 'While stock last' is...grrrrr!
Poster on a British train.
#NewYork, I admire your gumption but 'Everything you love' for most of us doesn't include raiding our phones in case we've said naughty things about an ageing orange blob with a liar reflex.
Brits are not going to the #BigApple until that thing goes.
#NewYork, I admire your gumption but 'Everything you love' for most of us doesn't include raiding our phones in case we've said naughty things about an ageing orange blob with a liar reflex.
Brits are not going to the #BigApple until that thing goes.
October 11, 2025 at 5:13 PM
The rape of the #countryside around #Wokingham continues as councils pursue the all too obvious plan of creating a massive Wokingham - #Bracknell conurbation. Horrid.
October 5, 2025 at 11:27 AM
The rape of the #countryside around #Wokingham continues as councils pursue the all too obvious plan of creating a massive Wokingham - #Bracknell conurbation. Horrid.
The most unnerving thing found lying about in my bathroom this morning...
October 5, 2025 at 6:13 AM
The most unnerving thing found lying about in my bathroom this morning...
October 4, 2025 at 7:30 PM
Certifiably insane. We all have to buy US chairs now?
Look, I know he'll back down, forget, change it to 'tariffs on Sweden only' or go off on another mad 'invade X!' rant, but #America, you gave us this idiot. It's your job to get rid of him.
Look, I know he'll back down, forget, change it to 'tariffs on Sweden only' or go off on another mad 'invade X!' rant, but #America, you gave us this idiot. It's your job to get rid of him.
September 29, 2025 at 6:39 PM
Certifiably insane. We all have to buy US chairs now?
Look, I know he'll back down, forget, change it to 'tariffs on Sweden only' or go off on another mad 'invade X!' rant, but #America, you gave us this idiot. It's your job to get rid of him.
Look, I know he'll back down, forget, change it to 'tariffs on Sweden only' or go off on another mad 'invade X!' rant, but #America, you gave us this idiot. It's your job to get rid of him.
Reading 'Sketches by Boz' again for the first time in years and finding #CharlesDickens is an insufferable pr**k. He scoffs at everyone, the pathetic little twerp. Creations based on real people, invented to make that pipsqueak look good. Yes, by gum he can write - but he's still a stuck up pr**k.
September 27, 2025 at 2:42 PM
Reading 'Sketches by Boz' again for the first time in years and finding #CharlesDickens is an insufferable pr**k. He scoffs at everyone, the pathetic little twerp. Creations based on real people, invented to make that pipsqueak look good. Yes, by gum he can write - but he's still a stuck up pr**k.
September 26, 2025 at 7:36 PM
Seemed like a brilliant idea at the time.
September 17, 2025 at 8:10 AM
Seemed like a brilliant idea at the time.
Intrigued: 2 portraits, presumably copies of extant #ThomasLawrence original paintings, coming up for auction in France. Who made them? French admirer artist?
www.interencheres.com/en//maitres-...
www.interencheres.com/en//maitres-...
September 16, 2025 at 8:06 AM
Intrigued: 2 portraits, presumably copies of extant #ThomasLawrence original paintings, coming up for auction in France. Who made them? French admirer artist?
www.interencheres.com/en//maitres-...
www.interencheres.com/en//maitres-...
Internal monologue in an #Oxford secondhand bookshop:
'Oh look! Two volumes you don't need...except there are artists born in the 19th century in there! So it'll be a useful extra. No, no I won't be buying 20th century art. No. Well perhaps a few, and then it'll be helpful...'.
Weakling.
'Oh look! Two volumes you don't need...except there are artists born in the 19th century in there! So it'll be a useful extra. No, no I won't be buying 20th century art. No. Well perhaps a few, and then it'll be helpful...'.
Weakling.
September 13, 2025 at 1:57 PM
Internal monologue in an #Oxford secondhand bookshop:
'Oh look! Two volumes you don't need...except there are artists born in the 19th century in there! So it'll be a useful extra. No, no I won't be buying 20th century art. No. Well perhaps a few, and then it'll be helpful...'.
Weakling.
'Oh look! Two volumes you don't need...except there are artists born in the 19th century in there! So it'll be a useful extra. No, no I won't be buying 20th century art. No. Well perhaps a few, and then it'll be helpful...'.
Weakling.
This illustration #etching, for Di Tito Lucrezio Caro Della Natura Delle Cose [an Italian translation of #Lucretius' 'De Rerum Natura' made by #AlessandroMarchetti (1633-1714)], was made by Charles Joseph Dominique Eisen (1720-78) in 1754. It is the essence of the #neoclassical distilled. #18thc.
September 9, 2025 at 10:27 PM
This illustration #etching, for Di Tito Lucrezio Caro Della Natura Delle Cose [an Italian translation of #Lucretius' 'De Rerum Natura' made by #AlessandroMarchetti (1633-1714)], was made by Charles Joseph Dominique Eisen (1720-78) in 1754. It is the essence of the #neoclassical distilled. #18thc.
A correspondent complains in verse that perhaps #Edinburgh isn't exactly a stone's throw from #York - and even if it were near, it would hardly benefit theatre goers. (Edinburgh Magazine 7 Jan 1780).
#18thc
#18thc
September 8, 2025 at 3:38 PM
A correspondent complains in verse that perhaps #Edinburgh isn't exactly a stone's throw from #York - and even if it were near, it would hardly benefit theatre goers. (Edinburgh Magazine 7 Jan 1780).
#18thc
#18thc
This must be the #OvertonWindow, then?
September 6, 2025 at 7:48 AM
This must be the #OvertonWindow, then?