Tea at Trianon: Ice Age Art

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Wednesday, April 23, 2025

Ice Age Art

From ARTnews:

The British Museum has announced that it will loan “some of the rarest surviving examples” of Ice Age art to Bradford, the 2025 UK City of Culture.

Around 70 objects from the museum will be shown in the northern city as part of an exhibition titled “Ice Age Art Now.” It is the result of a partnership between the British Museum and Bradford District Museum & Galleries, and is slated to open June 21 at Cliffe Castle Museum in the town of Keighley, West Yorkshire. The museum is 10 miles northwest of Bradford.

The exhibition will showcase works made in Europe toward the end of the last Ice Age, which ended 12,000 years ago. It is being curated by Jill Cook, the keeper of Britain, Europe, and Prehistory art at the British Museum.

“[Between 24,000 and 12,000 years ago], the slow recovery from near extinction caused by climate change stimulated an extraordinary artistic renaissance,” the British Museum said in a statement. “As the climate warmed, there was a vast increase in the production of drawings, sculptures, decorated tools and weapons, jewellery, and complex patterns. These artworks were not crucial to the physical survival of human groups but then, as now, art contributed to people’s psychological and emotional wellbeing, helping to establish the strong social bonds essential to sustaining their ways of life.”

The British Museum said that many of the objects in question are rarely loaned out due to their fragility and age. They include an old flint point found in France that’s 24,000 years old: “It reveals the ability and dexterity of the artisan, as well as the capacity to materialise and communicate ideas through the production of high-quality, non-functional objects.”

Two reindeer engraved on bone, found in France around 13,500 years ago, will also be on show, as well as an engraved bone pendant depicting a wolverine that’s roughly 13,000 years old. It was also discovered in France. (Read more.)