One of the many aspects of London that never failed to attract comment from foreign visitors in the late 18th and early nineteenth 19th was the Clubland that sprouted along Pall Mall and St James's. Paris and Vienna had nothing like it.
From its foundation in 1764, Brooks's was accepted as one of the most important manifestations of this new form of London living. From its inception, its membership drew on some of England's wealthiest and most influential families. From its inception, too, the Club had a distinct political flavour. Brooks's became the 'court' of the prominent Whig statesman Charles Jame Fox, reputedly the cleverest man in London, as well as the most genial and the most humorous. Although Brooks's was never exclusively Whig, or later 'Foxite', anyone with a predilection for those political brands would certainly have felt at home there.
To celebrate Brooks's 250th anniversary, this beautiful commemorative volume looks afresh at some historical aspects and the architecture of the club, and presents much original research, including essays on the club's archives - among the most complete in Clubland - and an illustrated catalogue by John Ingamells of the important art collection.
Philip Ziegler explores the nature of Whiggish philosophy and Leslie Mitchell looks at Fox and his influence at the club. Andrew Roberts answers the amusing question of what the 27 original members of Brooks's would make of the Club they founded if they were to visit St James's Street today. Max Egremont has written a witty commentary on the Betting Books, comparing the betting propensities of members of Brooks's with those of their rivals White's. Josh Sutton has studied and examined the outcome of 75 bets between 1775 and 1921, chosen to illustrate the variety of contemporary burning issues which attracted members' attention and provoked them to place bets. Seth Alexander Thévoz has contributed original research in a chapter on the 'MPs of Brooks's, 1832-68', including the intriguing fact that in the Melbourne administration of the 1830s, nearly half the club was made up of sitting MPs. Joe Mordaunt Crook has updated his study of the architecture of Brooks's, setting out how, over the years, it has been altered, re-altered and altered again, but each time in ways that disguise the terrors of novelty. Thomas Heneage has drawn on the archives, diaries and memoirs, to write about how William Brooks purchased food and how it was cooked and served to members. In his chapter 'The Evolution of the Wine Cellar', Hugh Johnson entertains with his legendary knowledge, acquired after fifty years of writing about wines. Lucius Falkland expertly describes the games of cards and dice, Faro and Hazard, and some well-known gambling members.
During the Tudor Age the South West was famed for the innovation and endeavour of its people. Devon sea dogs Drake, Raleigh and Hawkins sailed to 'World's End' in their pursuit of treasure and glory, Exeter's Nicholas Hilliard produced exquisite miniature portraits of courtiers while fellow Exonian Thomas Bodley re-founded Oxford University's library, later named the Bodleian in his honour.
These men lived during the religious turmoil and political intrigue of Elizabeth I's reign - a time of opportunity for the merchants and traders of Devon.
Many grew rich on the fruits of overseas trade and expressed their new status through fashionable houses, fine furnishings, decoration and valuable personal possessions. The demand for goods was met by a network of local craft workers:
Plasterers, masons, carpenters, lace-makers and goldsmiths. Aspects of their lives are revealed in this book, published to accompany the fascinating exhibition at the Royal Albert Memorial Museum, Exeter, which will draw together paintings, artefacts and documents from galleries, museums and record offices to tell the story of the South West and its people set against the backdrop of one of the most evocative periods in British history.
Accompanying the first exhibition in Britain to focus on 16th-century Portugal, this publication celebrates Renaissance Lisbon's position as a truly 'global city', highlighting the cross-cultural influences between Lisbon, Africa, Asia and the Far East, and offering intriguing new insights into daily life in this culturally diverse and cosmopolitan city.
Lisbon in the 16th century became a unique destination for luxury goods. It was an import-free port - an initial stopping point where ships traded their cargo to avoid continuing on long trading routes. The Lisbon authorities sold the goods on to other ships and buyers for a higher price, and as global trade routes and Portuguese networks expanded around the globe, the Lisbon court capitalized on its monopoly over African and Asian luxury goods brought to Portugal.
By the late 1500s, wealthy Europeans had become avid and well-informed shoppers.
Asian lacquers, Ming blue and white porcelain, and ivories, carved crystals, jewels and intricate goldsmith work from Ceylon and Goa were among the products which sold for extraordinary prices at exclusive shops located on the Rua Nova dos Mercadores in Lisbon. Here one could also find medicines, drugs and spices from Portuguese Asia, and exotic animals, including wild turkeys from America. The Rua Nova - the most important commercial street in the city - was the meeting point for everyone from indigenous Portuguese to Jews and black Africans.
New findings from archival research in Portugal will be presented for the first time in this volume. 19 essays by leading scholars (see details overleaf) will be illustrated with a stunning selection of the types of luxury objects which could be bought on the Rua Nova - including ivories, rock crystal carvings and silver, from the Wallace Collection and on loan from leading collections in the United Kingdom and Portugal. A highlight will be one of the Wallace Collection's great treasures, the moving rock crystal figure of Christ as the Good Shepherd, carved in Ceylon and exquisitely embellished with gold and gem mounts, probably in Goa. This stunning object exemplifies both the quality of objects made for the luxury European market and how closely bound East and West were culturally and commercially, even at this early date in our modern history.
Two of the most illuminating objects in the exhibition, the rarely seen late 16thcentury paintings of the Rua Nova from Kelmscott Manor in Oxfordshire (collection of the Society of Antiquaries of London), are the only detailed early depictions of the street to have survived and are one of the most important art historical discoveries for Portugal to have been made in recent decades. With their wealth of fascinating detail - from traders, black and white, from all parts of the known world, down to a vignette of a dog killing an American turkey - the paintings give us an unparalleled view of this lost street, reduced to rubble in the Lisbon earthquake of 1755.
