Category Archives: Networks

Douce’s dream

Posted on May 8, 2013 by mercedes-c

In a previous post, I referred to Douce’s accounts of his dreams in his Book of Coincidences. In an undated entry probably written in 1817, Douce explained: I had a strange dream about eating a cross-bow as a broiled fish. … Continue reading →

Posted in Antiquaries, Collections and Collectors, Everyday life, Networks, Prints, Sports | Comments Off on Douce’s dream

Amateur drawings

Posted on April 28, 2013 by mercedes-c

Among Douce’s drawings in the Ashmolean there are many by amateurs like Francis Cohen (1788-1861). In 1823, Cohen changed his name to Palgrave and married one of Dawson Turner’s daughters, Elizabeth. Douce and Cohen became close friends and they met … Continue reading →

Posted in Antiquaries, Collections and Collectors, Drawings, Engravings, Networks, Physicians, Prints, Travel | Comments Off on Amateur drawings

Interior design

Posted on April 8, 2013 by mercedes-c

The drawing below was made by Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres, an artist renown, among many other things, for getting his props right: Like other history painters working in the early decades of the nineteenth century, Ingres would have appreciated Douce’s … Continue reading →

Posted in Antiquaries, Drawings, Everyday life, Fashion, Furniture, Networks, Paintings, Romanticism | Comments Off on Interior design

We are five

Posted on March 6, 2013 by mercedes-c

I have just started cataloguing Douce’s prints of fools -the engraving below belongs to the popular type depicting a group of foolish figures that numbers one fewer than the title, so that the viewer makes up the total: On the … Continue reading →

Posted in Antiquaries, Collections and Collectors, Engravings, Fools, Networks, Paintings, Popular prints, Prints, Satirical prints | Comments Off on We are five

The Juggernaut Debt

Posted on February 22, 2013 by mercedes-c

In 1832, The Ballot published a series of “Sketches in Church and State”. The proofs for the anonymous wood-engravings can be found among the satirical prints that the British Museum purchased from the estate of Douce’s friend Edward Hawkins. As … Continue reading →

Posted in Collections and Collectors, Networks, Prints, Religion, Satirical prints, Tax, Uncategorized, Wood-engravings | Tagged , | Comments Off on The Juggernaut Debt

At Rochester Cathedral

Posted on February 14, 2013 by mercedes-c

Douce counted among his friends not only Thomas Stothard (1755-1834), but also two of his sons, Charles Alfred and Robert. Many works by the former, who was historical draughtsman to the Society of Antiquaries, are kept with Douce’s topographical prints. … Continue reading →

Posted in Antiquaries, Drawings, Networks, Prints, Religion, Sculpture | Comments Off on At Rochester Cathedral

The cook’s oracle

Posted on January 18, 2013 by mercedes-c

In December 1826, Douce wrote to his friend George Cumberland:  If you will write a book of cockery for your Bristoldians & other gormandizers, you will get as rich as Dr Kitchener, who told me that he has sold 20,000 … Continue reading →

Posted in Books, Cookery, Everyday life, Feast, Literature, Networks, Physicians, Wood-engravings | Comments Off on The cook’s oracle

Britannia Excisa

Posted on December 5, 2012 by mercedes-c

This satire on Robert Walpole’s 1733 Excise Bill was misplaced (maybe by Thomas Dodd, who did some rearranging after Douce’s death) and kept among Douce’s wood-engravings, which I have been cataloguing this week: The print has been cut from a … Continue reading →

Posted in Ballads, Broadsides, Collections and Collectors, Networks, Prints, Satirical prints, Tax, Woodcuts | Comments Off on Britannia Excisa

Douce’s Persian manuscripts

Posted on November 12, 2012 by mercedes-c

Among Douce’s portraits of ‘Learned Foreigners’ there is a plate from the European Magazine depicting the traveller Mirza Abu Talib Khan Isfahani (1752-1806): Douce wrote under the portrait: “This gentleman paid me a visit in Gower Street”. Their meeting must have … Continue reading →

Posted in Books, Collections and Collectors, Manuscripts, Networks, Paintings, Travel | Comments Off on Douce’s Persian manuscripts

Scandinavian Noir

Posted on May 1, 2012 by mercedes-c

Long before subtitled Danish drama reached these shores*, Douce was already championing Scandinavian story-telling of a different sort, as transcribed by his friend the Danish scholar and antiquary Grímur Jónsson Thorkelin (1752-1829). On 28 April 1819, Douce wrote in his … Continue reading →

Posted in Literature, Networks, Poetry, Prints, Uncategorized, Witchcraft | Comments Off on Scandinavian Noir