Tag: Netherlands
Anna Maria van Schurman
One of the most useful things an historian can do is to restore to us people from the past who have unjustly slipped from our collective memory. Until recently an outstanding figure of early European science had vanished from sight almost completely, except in his home country. In his lifetime, the second half of the […]
The assassin waits
In my lockdown tour of Europe I’m still enjoying my virtual stay in the city of Delft. I’ve walked a little way from the Nieuwe Kerk to the Prinsenhof in Sint Agathaplein. Today the Prinsenhof is a museum, and a very good one, but in the late sixteenth century it was the government headquarters of […]
Alma-Tadema’s uncarnal classics
Alluring women in chiffon and sandals, bright marble benches, azure seas, flower petals falling like rain. This was the recipe Lawrence Alma-Tadema hit on for his paintings of scenes from ancient Rome. Thousands were drawn to buy them, or at least reproductions of them, in late Victorian and Edwardian England. It was all a long […]
Delft in four colours
Orange Orange is the Dutch colour. But to see it in Delft you need to lift your eyes above the roads and canals to the tops of the buildings. Big bright orange pantiles run in vertical rows down the small hipped roofs of many houses, each of which is different in size and height from […]
