Richard Burchett

Richard Burchett (1815–1875) was a British artist and educator on the fringes of the Pre-Raphaelite movement, who was for over twenty years the Headmaster of what later became the Royal College of Art.
He was later described as "a prominent figure in the art-schools, a well-instructed painter, and a teacher exceptionally equipped with all the learning of his craft" by his ex-pupil, the poet Austin Dobson. Burchett's pupils included the extremely varied talents of Kate Greenaway, Christopher Dresser, Elizabeth Thompson (Lady Butler), Sir George Clausen, Sir Luke Fildes, Gertrude Jekyll, Hubert von Herkomer, Evelyn De Morgan, William Harbutt and Helen Allingham. Princess Louise, Duchess of Argyll, Queen Victoria's daughter, and a talented artist, was also a student.
As an artist he achieved some reputation for large history paintings, and decorated public buildings including parts of the Palace of Westminster and the Victoria and Albert Museum, but his "View across Sandown Bay, Isle of Wight" is seen by modern art historians as his best work. Burchett published collections of his lectures as text-books for the South Kensington system of art education, which he helped to devise.
Life.
Burchett was born in Brighton on 30 January 1815. He attended the "London Mechanics Institute" in Chancery Lane (founded 1823, the forerunner of Birkbeck College, University of London), before in about 1841 entering the "Government School of Design", founded three years before in 1837, which he was later to head, and which eventually became the Royal College of Art. In 1845 he was a ringleader of students protesting to the Board of Trade about the teaching methods, in what was at the time a controversy that attracted a great deal of public attention, and finally a Parliamentary Committee of Enquiry. He gave evidence to this in 1846-7, by which time he had become a master at the school (the "Master of Form", from 1845), remaining on the staff until his death in 1875, from 1852 as Headmaster.
Burchett spent most of his time throughout his adult life on his work at the school, and that his most highly regarded work today is an atypical landscape subject is an indication of how much his personal painting was neglected for teaching, and public commissions through the school. According to the "Memoirs" of William Bell Scott, who had worked under him, Burchett was: "an able, self-dependent actor in the affairs of life, yet one whose action was rarely to his own benefit, although largely to the benefit of those under him in his official position".
In the mid-1850s Burchett converted to Roman Catholicism; it is presumed that he was influenced by the already-converted Pre-Raphaelite James Collinson, with whom he was living after Collinson's engagement to Christina Rossetti had broken down for the second time. He married twice, and had several children. What appear to be a son and grandson are recorded exhibiting paintings in London. Ebenezer Stanley Burchett (1837–1916) worked at South Kensington and then was Head Master of the Bedford Park School of Arts & Crafts. In 1870 Richard Burchett is described as "formerly of 43 Brompton Square [very near the School], but now of 8 Bedford Road, Clapham." Burchett was in very bad health for the last years of his life, and when he died in Dublin, on 27 May 1875, he was staying with his wife's uncle, Sir Samuel Ferguson, for his health. He had only been in the School for 133 days in 1872, arriving punctually on only seven of these.
In 1870, he began proceedings for bankruptcy, which were still not concluded by his death. Scott says he "took to a sort of farming at considerable expense ... He began to get into deep water, and into the hands of 20 per cent money-lenders. Still he fought bravely with his difficulties, and even when his large salary was placed under trustees, he went on with his historic subjects". His venture was ill-timed, hitting a period of agricultural depression. A series of twelve dividends to his creditors, between 1871 and September 1876, paid off at least 7s 7d in the pound - dividends number 1, 7 & 8 seem not to appear in the London Gazette search results.
His will was probated at less than £200, and Frayling records that a letter from his widow asking for a pension was found unanswered in the school files thirteen years later. Obituaries were published in the "Athenaeum", the "Art Journal", and "The Graphic".
Artist.
Burchett exhibited five works, apparently all large history paintings, at the Royal Academy between 1847, including "The Death of Marmion", "famous in its day" according to Hugh Thomas) and 1873 ("The Making of the New Forest"). These are rather generously described as "in the Pre-Raphaelite style" by the DNB. He exhibited a work at the British Institution in 1855. His best-known work in this genre is "Sanctuary" (RA, 1867), the snappy modern title for "Edward IV Withheld by Ecclesiastics from Pursuing Lancastrian Fugitives into a Church", in the Guildhall Art Gallery, London, showing an incident after the Battle of Tewkesbury of 1471, during the Wars of the Roses.
William Bell Scott has an anecdote of Burchett, who "had chosen the subject as a glorious example of the power of the Church and the faith of the prince at that blessed period in Merry England" failing to sell the painting to an "extreme Radical" shipping magnate: ""I admire the picture, Mr. Burchett, it is excellently painted, and I like it for its subject; these men in full armour won't go in, they won't end the day completely after risking all their lives, because of that old priest with the jack-in-the-box! Superstition, you see, turns them into caitiffs!" This knocked over poor Burchett so much, the transaction came to nothing" Scott comments that Burchett: "gave himself up to historical painting on a rather large scale, just the kind of art which English taste and the R. Academy as the mediocre exponent of the same would like to crush out of existence".
However the work which has attracted the most attention and praise from critics in recent decades is what appears to be his "only known landscape", "View across Sandown Bay, Isle of Wight" probably of 1855, in the Victoria and Albert Museum, who describe it as a "minor masterpiece". This small painting, which more closely approaches a Pre-Raphaelite landscape style, shows a half-harvested cornfield, with tools and jugs of the farm-workers piled up beside a corn stook. But the only figures visible are two clearly middle-class women, no doubt part of the same party as the artist, one sitting against a stook reading a book, and the other walking with a parasol. Any georgic or realist focus on agriculture is absent "his cornfield is just part of a landscape where middle-class people take their leisure. The corn is no more or no less useful than the beaches which we imagine to be in the distance of this brilliantly coloured painting". Here too a more subtle hint of religious feeling is found: "the church in the distance hints at the source of the bounty represented by the partially garnered harvest in the foreground fields". Treatments of the almost identical view by [[William Dyce]] and James Collinson ("Mother and Child", Mellon Centre, Yale), both Burchett's colleagues at the school, are taken by [[Geoffrey Grigson]] to mean that the three artists were on a visit, or holiday, together. Dyce, like Burchett, was an artist who saw himself as a history painter but is now most often remembered for a single Pre-Raphaelitish landscape, his "[[Pegwell Bay, Kent – a Recollection of October 5th 1858]]".
There are a number of public paintings by Burchett, with help of his students, commissioned through the school. He and his students painted, from Renaissance portraits, a number of full-length portraits of the [[House of Tudor]] for the royal antechamber to the [[House of Lords]] in the [[Palace of Westminster]] (1855-9). He painted other works for the new Palace, including a large [[Spanish Armada]] scene "The English Fleet Pursuing the Spanish Fleet Against Fowey", copying from an 18th-century print a one of a set of tapestries made for [[Charles Howard, 1st Earl of Nottingham|Lord Howard of Effingham]], the victorious admiral. The death of [[Albert, Prince Consort|Prince Albert]] brought the project to reproduce the full set to an end, but it was revived in the 21st century, and finally completed in 2010. Like the works in the Palace by better-known painters like Dyce, these have been generally disliked by critics from their first unveiling; the overall painting of the Palace after its rebuilding was probably the largest public painting commission in England during the 19th century, and, unlike the architecture of the Palace, has been regarded as very disappointing by most critics from the start.
From a number of designs for [[mosaics]] for the exteriors to the south court of the Victoria and Albert Museum he produced [[William Torrell]] (two versions in fact) and [[William of Wykeham]]. The mosaics remain in place, and two of the cartoons are now themselves on display in the staircase on the Exhibition Road side of the building. He and his students decorated large medallions in the dome of the now-vanished [[1862 International Exhibition|Great Exhibition building]] of 1862 at [[South Kensington]], and he painted a window in the [[Greenwich Hospital (London)|Greenwich Hospital]].
The South Kensington system.
[[File:Queen Margaret Tudor of Scots.jpg|thumb|left|"[[Margaret Tudor, Queen of Scots]]", [[Houses of Parliament]]]]
The controversy at the school in 1845 was about the Headmaster and his teaching methods, but reflected wider issues about the aims of the school in terms of the balance between fine art and applied and commercial art and design; these questions were to remain a perennial bone of contention for at least another century, and are a recurring theme in [[Christopher Frayling]]'s 1987 history of the College. The new teaching methods implemented by Burchett were themselves to become a matter of controversy.
The school had been founded in 1837, as the "Government School of Design", occupying part of [[Somerset House]] on [[Strand, London|the Strand]], until the space was needed for the [[General Register Office|Register of Births, Deaths and Marriages]]. It became the "National Art Training School" in 1853, moving to the equally palatial setting of [[Marlborough House]], thanks to [[Albert, Prince Consort|Prince Albert]], leaving a section just for training art teachers on the Strand, and establishing a separate "Female School" in Gower St, from 1861 [[Queen Square, London|Queen Square, Bloomsbury]]. In 1861 the main school moved again to buildings adjoining (and now absorbed by) the [[Victoria and Albert Museum]] in [[South Kensington]], and long after Burchett's death it became in 1896 "The Royal College of Art". It is often referred to as the "Government Art School", and later the "South Kensington Schools", in the 19th century (the school was at various points divided into different sections, such as the "Female School", also under Burchett, and there were also science schools run by the [[Science and Art Department]], hence the plural).
The main art school in London was the [[Royal Academy]] Schools, which made space for the new school by its decision to vacate Somerset House for the new [[National Gallery, London|National Gallery]] building, where it stayed until 1867. They had been established decades before the Government School, to provide a full training in [[Academic art]]; by the 1830s the majority of successful English artists had trained there. The Government School was funded by the Board of Trade, and intended, at least by them, for different purposes, though precisely what these were remained a political battleground for decades. The school was not founded to train academic painters; this at least was clear, although in fact many ex-students became just that. The Government had recognised that British industrial design was falling behind that of the Continent, and believed that the training of designers was worth public subsidy. Later, a national network of schools to train students in applied art and design was established, and the central London school was both to be the flagship of the network, and to train teachers for the rest of the schools.
[[File:Dresservanda.jpg|thumb|Botany Diagram, about 1855 by [[Christopher Dresser]] to illustrate his teaching at the school, V&A Museum.]] William Dyce was the first Director, and Burchett studied under him, and then worked with him as a colleague, until Dyce left in 1848. The Isle of Wight paintings from 1855 suggest the two remained friends.
After the internal disputes of the 1840s, the school acquired a firm sense of control and direction when in 1853 the Government placed it under the control of [[Henry Cole]], for whom the Science and Art Department was set up, with a large tract of land, and much of the large profit from the 1852 [[Great Exhibition]] to spend. Cole was an extremely dynamic figure, with some training as a painter, and experience as an entrepreneurial designer of china. He made the young painter [[Richard Redgrave]], master of botany at the school since 1847, responsible for the superintendence of the national system, and appointed Burchett as Headmaster of the London School.
Redgrave, drawing on Dyce's ideas, and propelled by Cole, set out the "[[South Kensington system]]", a highly specific [[syllabus]] for the teaching of art, which was to be dominant in the UK, and other English-speaking countries, at least until the end of the century, and not to entirely vanish until the 1930s. Burchett was the first to implement the course in London, and worked with Redgrave in drawing it up - Redgrave had much less teaching experience. Burchett's published lectures reflected the system, and were widely used as text-books for it; how far he was involved in devising it cannot be said.
The full course was divided into twenty-three stages, most with several sections. Different types of students were to take different combinations of stages: "machinists, engineers and foremen of works" should take stages 1–5, and then skip to the final 23rd stage, "Technical Studies", while designers and "ornamentalists" took most stages.
There were several types of students, pursuing different courses: the "general students", who paid no fees and were given a small living allowance, training to be teachers of art (though many ended up elsewhere), the "National Scholars" intended for industrial designers, and fee-paying students, pursuing a course more oriented to the fine arts. Latterly these were in fact the majority. Women pupils were taught at least partly separately, and their [[life class]]es consisted of drawing a man wearing a suit of armour. The Royal Academy Schools did not accept women students until 1861, although there were other alternatives for women. The female school, under Royal patronage, became a rather fashionable place for young ladies, able to support its expansion by society fundraising.
Author and collector.
[[File:Henry VIII's wives, circle of R.Burchett (1854–1860, Parliamentary Art Collection).jpg|thumb|The Six Wives of Henry VIII, by Burchett and his students, 1854–1860, [[Houses of Parliament]].]]
Collections of Burchett's lectures from the school were published in book form, through [[Chapman and Hall]]: "Practical Geometry" (1855), "Practical Perspective" (1857), which was translated into Chinese, "Linear Perspective for the Use of Schools of Art" (1872).
He appears buying a number of lots for the school ("Marlborough House") and a few for himself in the huge (4294 lot) sale in 1855 of the distinguished collection of [[Ralph Bernal]]. He was also at the studio sale of [[Augustus Egg]], buying two paintings now in the Victoria and Albert Museum, probably on their behalf, although he also sold them works apparently from his collection, as well as his Sandown landscape (in 1861).
Burchett looked after a number of paintings by his colleague, the Pre-Raphaelite [[Walter Howell Deverell]] (1827–54) for a decade after Deverell's early death, before handing them on to [[Dante Gabriel Rossetti]]. These included "Twelfth Night", Deverell's major work, which fetched £600,650 ($957,436) in an auction at [[Christie's]] in 2003. He must have known Deverell as a boy, as his father had been Secretary to the school, and the family lived on the premises until 1852. Deverell joined the staff of the school in 1848, and was there until his death.
Apart from his own students, Burchett encouraged other young artists, sending the [[Royal Academy]] schools a letter of recommendation for the young [[Albert Joseph Moore|Albert Moore]].
Portraits.
Portraits of the heavily-bearded Burchett include a bronze bust by his pupil [[Henrietta Montalba]] in an elaborate bronze frame designed by George Clausen that has followed the Royal College to its new Darwin Building on [[Kensington Gore]], where it is installed in a courtyard. He was painted by [[Val Prinsep]] standing next to [[Lord Leighton]] in his "Distribution of Art Prizes" (1869, Victoria and Albert Museum), and there is a [[wood engraving]] after an unknown artist, very likely a student (above) published with an obituary. His necessarily imagined "portrait" of the medieval metalworker [[William Torrell]] for the Victoria & Albert Museum mosaics (above) shows considerable similarity to his other portraits, and may be a self-portrait.
External links.
[[Category:1815 births]]
[[Category:1875 deaths]]
[[Category:Converts to Roman Catholicism]]
[[Category:19th-century English painters]]
[[Category:English male painters]]
[[Category:People from Brighton]]
[[Category:Pre-Raphaelite painters]]
[[Category:Academics of the Royal College of Art]]
[[Category:Alumni of Birkbeck, University of London]]
[[Category:19th-century painters of historical subjects]]


YOLO (Scandal)

"YOLO" is the ninth episode of the third season of the American television series "Scandal". It premiered on December 5, 2013 on ABC.
Plot.
Huck begins to torture Quinn and is stopped by a phone call from Olivia telling him that her mother is alive. He warns her to leave her apartment with her mother and go to a safe house and goes to join her though not before ripping out one of Quinn's teeth in anticipation of the torture to follow.
At the safe house Huck and Jake realize that Olivia's mother Maya still has a tracker in her body. They rip it out and manage to flee the scene before members of B613 manage to track them down. The gladiators manage to acquire false identity papers for Maya under the name Marie Wallace but before they can get Maya to an airport they realize that the No Fly List has been updated with Maya's fake name.
Olivia calls Fitz and he agrees to help her smuggle her mother out of the country. As Maya waves goodbye from aboard the plane Olivia flashes back to a moment in her childhood where someone called the house asking for "Marie". She realizes that Marie Wallace is her mother's real name and she is a terrorist and her father was trying to protect her from her. She tells this to Huck who warns her they have a problem since after torturing Quinn he allowed her to be found by Charlie if she promised to get close to Rowan Pope and kill him. At B-613 headquarters Quinn holds a needle in her hand while talking to an unsuspecting Rowan.
Meanwhile, Sally Langston has decided to run for presidency even agreeing that midway through the race she will become pro-choice in order to assure her win. She announces her decision to Fitz who rebukes Cyrus for not having stopped her. Cyrus, who was confronted by James for using him as a rent-boy to entrap Sally's husband, decides to use the pictures of James having sex with Sally's husband to threaten Sally. She laughs off his threat but later calls him telling him she has committed a sin while standing beside the inert body of her husband who appears to be dead.
Cultural references.
The title refers to the popular acronym YOLO that stands for "You Only Live Once".
Production.
Speaking on the torture scenes of her character Quinn, actress Katie Lowes remarked that "when I got this script I didn't sleep for three and a half weeks."


Coniston (novel)

Coniston is a 1906 best-selling novel by American writer Winston Churchill.
Background.
The plot of the historical novel concerns New Hampshire politics, where Churchill lived most of his adult life. Churchill was elected to the state legislature in 1903 and 1905, and unsuccessfully sought the Republican nomination for governor in 1906 at the same time "Coniston" was topping the best selling lists. The political boss character in the book, Jethro Bass, was based on New Hampshire politician Ruel Durkee. A former U.S. Senator from New Hampshire, William E. Chandler, felt compelled to defend Durkee, publishing a pamphlet and writing letters to editors to claim that Durkee was a model citizen and not a model of corruption.
Contemporary writers identified the places in the novel with their real counterparts in New Hampshire. The small hamlet of Coniston itself is Croydon, New Hampshire (where Durkee lived), Brampton is Newport, Harwich is Claremont, Clovelly is Cornish, and "Coniston Water", the local river, is the Sugar River. The Pelican Hotel is the Eagle Hotel in Concord.
Reception.
It was the best-selling novel in the United States in 1906, and also included illustrations by Florence Scovel Shinn.
Legacy.
The local market in Croydon is still called the "Coniston General Store" after the book, and a nearby lake was renamed "Lake Coniston" in 1943. The YMCA's Camp Coniston took its name after the lake in 1969.


The Old Curiosity Shop (TV series)

The Old Curiosity Shop is a nine part 1979 BBC TV series based on the 1841 novel by Charles Dickens. It was directed by Julian Amyes, and adapted by William Trevor.


Who Bombed Judi Bari

Who Bombed Judi Bari? is an American historical documentary about an assassination attempt on the life of Judi Bari, an American environmental and labor activist, which occurred on May 24, 1990.
The film premiered at the 2012 Santa Rosa International Film Festival.
Overview.
While driving through Oakland, California on their way to a benefit concert for the Redwood Summer campaign to save California's coast redwood trees, Judi Bari and Darryl Cherney were injured when a pipe bomb detonated under the driver's seat of their car. Bari, who was driving, was critically injured. Oakland police and the FBI approached the explosion as a terrorist incident, arrested Bari and Cherney, and tried to prove that they were transporting their own explosive device which accidentally detonated. The two were never charged with a crime. In 2002 they won a lawsuit and were awarded $4.4 million for civil rights violations by the FBI and Oakland Police Department. The authorities allegedly did not investigate any other suspects. Discovery during the lawsuit revealed crime scene photos that clearly showed the bomb was located under Bari's seat, not in the back seat as investigators had alleged.
In 2012, a federal judge ordered the FBI not to destroy another pipe bomb that had only partially detonated at a lumber mill about a week before the car bombing, which investigators agreed had been built by the same bomber. Attorney for Darryl Cherney, Ben Rosenfeld, had requested that an outside lab perform DNA testing on the Cloverdale bomb, which the FBI claimed it had never performed, a request which the judge upheld.


The Joker King

The Joker King (Italian: Il re Burlone) is a 1935 Italian historical comedy film directed by Enrico Guazzoni and starring Luisa Ferida, Armando Falconi and Luigi Cimara.
It was shot at the Cines Studios in Rome.
Plot.
In Naples, in the time of king Ferdinand II, a girl organized a plot against the monarch to avenge her father who was executed for his political views. The plan, which also involves some officers, includes the kidnapping of the king, but the attempt fails. At the end, the king will set them free to escape to the Papal States.


Empire Earth III

Empire Earth III is a real-time strategy video game developed by Mad Doc Software and published by Vivendi Games, released on November 6, 2007. It is the latest installment of the "Empire Earth" series.
"Empire Earth III" contains five epochs, fewer than other games in the series but covering roughly the same time period. The game features three factions: Middle Eastern, Western, and Far Eastern. Each faction comprises unique buildings, units, and technologies.
The game received widespread negative reviews.
Gameplay.
Similar to its predecessors, "Empire Earth III" is a real-time strategy game. It introduces several new units and weapons, as well as a new free-form campaign structure that is similar in style to other real-time strategy games, such as the "Total War" series. However, unlike "Total War", the player advances through the entire course of history rather than staying in a specific time period.
There are three customizable civilizations to choose from which are Western, Middle-Eastern, and Far Eastern. Each civilization can be customized by the player to their choosing. Furthermore, each civilization features subfactions based on historical nations (e.g. the Far Eastern civilization contains China and Japan). Another new feature in "Empire Earth III" is certain nuclear weapons such as a nuclear cannon. In "Empire Earth III", each region focuses on different styles of game play; for example, the Middle East has mobile buildings, the West has a few powerful units, and the Far East has masses of weak, swarming units combined with powerful mutants in the future.
The game's World Domination mode allows players to battle across a virtual earth which is split into many sections/provinces. While playing this mode, quests give the player optional tasks to accomplish while conquering the globe. The game contains five unique sections, loosely based on historical eras, Ancient, Medieval, Colonial, Modern, and Future.
Development and release.
Development of the game began in 2005, shortly after "Empire Earth II" was shipped. The game engine was built on Empire Earth II's engine using Gamebryo 2.0 middleware, but was almost completely rewritten to allow the developers to create improved visual effects, ragdoll physics, more detailed models and higher resolution textures. Instead of making the units more realistic, Mad Doc Software worked to achieve a more "cartoonish" look.
On April 27, 2007 the American television show "Numb3rs" aired some footage of the game on CBS while it was still in development. The demo of "Empire Earth III" was released on November 1. The retail version of the game was released on November 6, 2007 in the US and November 16, 2007 in Europe.
A patch became available two days after the game's release. "Empire Earth III" is the first game in the series to be a Games for Windows title.
On November 12, 2007, a Gamespy arena portal was added for updates and stats.
Reception.
"Empire Earth III" garnered generally negative reviews, and holds an average of 51% on aggregate web site GameRankings. GameSpot gave it 3.5 of 10 saying "The developer's questionable sense of taste and humor is also on display in the visuals and sound... Empire Earth III has been dumbed down to the point of irrelevance." IGN gave it a 5.4 of 10 saying "the animations aren't very good and the performance leaves a lot to be desired". GameSpy had similar complaints: "bugs, muddled combat, or weak AI aren't things that strategy fans have to live with." Game Revolution gave the game a D-, stating "Honestly, if the game didn't try to make you hate it, it would be perfectly tolerable, maybe even enjoyable." Mad Doc Software has since removed all references to the development of Empire Earth III from their homepage. As of 2017, Rebellion Developments owns the IP.


Iron Lord

Iron Lord is a adventure video game developed by Orou Mama and Ivan Jacot for the Atari ST and published by Ubi Soft in 1989. It was ported to the Amiga, Acorn Archimedes, Amstrad CPC, Commodore 64, ZX Spectrum, and MS-DOS.
Reception.
"Computer Gaming World" approved of "Iron Lord"s graphics but criticized its performance and load times, especially as it could not run from a hard drive. The magazine nonetheless concluded that the game was "an above-average combination of adventure, strategy and action gaming". The game was reviewed in 1990 in "Dragon" #159 by Hartley, Patricia, and Kirk Lesser in "The Role of Computers" column. The reviewers gave the game 4 out of 5 stars.


List of Yes Minister and Yes, Prime Minister episodes

This is a list of "Yes Minister" and "Yes, Prime Minister" episodes.
38 episodes were made in total, running from 1980 to 1988. This includes a one-hour special that aired in 1984. All other episodes were a half-hour in length. The dates listed are when a particular episode was first transmitted on BBC2.
"Yes Minister" (1980–1984).
Christmas sketch (1982).
A two-minute Christmas-themed sketch, featuring only Eddington, Hawthorne and Fowlds, was aired on BBC One as part of a 1982 Christmas special titled "The Funny Side of Christmas".
"Yes, Prime Minister" (2013).
In January 2013, a new series of "Yes, Prime Minister" was launched on the Gold television channel.


Old Ironsides (video game)

Old Ironsides is a 1982 video game published by Xerox Educational Publications.
Gameplay.
"Old Ironsides" is a game in which two players fight each other using ships with six guns per side.
Reception.
"Computer Gaming World" reviewed the game and stated that ""Old Ironsides" (OI) is an excellent example of a game that combines graphic/arcade features with strategic planning."


When Knighthood Was in Flower (novel)

When Knighthood Was in Flower is the debut novel of American author Charles Major written under the pseudonym, Edwin Caskoden. It was first published by The Bobbs-Merrill Company (then the Bowen-Merrill Company) in 1898 and proved an enormous success.
According to the "New York Times", in its third year on the market the book was still selling so well that it was #9 on the list of bestselling novels in the United States for 1900.
The book spawned an entire industry of historical romantic novels and films.
In 1901, playwright Paul Kester wrote the Broadway play and by 1907 "When Knighthood Was in Flower" was still being printed by the reprint publisher, Grosset & Dunlap, when the film rights were sold to Biograph Studios.
It was sometimes known by the title When Knights Were Bold and should not be confused with the 1906 play "When Knights Were Bold" which also inspired several film adaptations.
Plot summary.
Set during the Tudor period of English history, "When Knighthood Was in Flower" tells the tribulations of Mary Tudor, a younger sister of Henry VIII of England who has fallen in love with a commoner. However, for political reasons, King Henry has arranged for her to wed King Louis XII of France and demands his sister put the House of Tudor first, threatening, "You will marry France and I will give you a wedding present – Charles Brandon's head!"
Adaptations.
1908 adaptation.
Although no film copy exists, the book is believed to have been adapted to a 1908 motion picture of the same name or under the title "When Knights Were Bold " by D.W. Griffith and directed by Wallace McCutcheon.
1922 adaptation.
The 1922 version is most remembered as the vehicle for Marion Davies financed by William Randolph Hearst and his company Cosmopolitan Productions. Directed by Robert Vignola and starring Hearst's mistress Marion Davies and Forrest Stanley, it was a big-budget silent film.
1953 adaptation.
In 1953, Major's book was remade by Walt Disney with the title "The Sword and the Rose" in the United States, but released with the original title in the United Kingdom. This version was adapted for the screen by American Lawrence Edward Watkin, but was filmed in the United Kingdom. Directed by Ken Annakin with a British and French cast, it starred Richard Todd and Glynis Johns. In 1955, the film was broadcast on the "Disneyland" television show in two parts under the original book title "When Knighthood Was in Flower".


Great Lake Warriors

Great Lake Warriors is an American and Canadian reality television series on History that premiered on July 19, 2012.
Premise.
The show follows the lives of a number of tugboat sailors in the Great Lakes region. The show features Calumet Fleeting, Heritage Marine, and Thunder Bay Tug Services. The companies are located in Duluth, Minnesota, South Chicago, Illinois, and Thunder Bay, Ontario, respectively.


The Courtship of Morrice Buckler

The Courtship of Morrice Buckler is a novel by the English writer AEW Mason first published in 1896; the full title is 'The courtship of Morrice Buckler, a romance; being a record of the growth of an English gentleman during the years 1685-1687, under strange and difficult circumstances, written some while afterwards in his own hand.'
Mason is best remembered today for the film versions of his novels Fire Over England and The Four Feathers; 'Morrice Buckler' was his second novel and its success allowed him to become a full-time writer. This is a standard drama and romance story of a type popular at the time - similar authors in this field include Stanley Weyman.
Morrice, the narrator, is a student in the Dutch city of Leyden when first met, although the novel is primarily set in the Austrian Tyrol and England in the aftermath of Monmouth's 1685 rebellion. An old friend is executed for sheltering two Monmouth rebels after being betrayed by a villainous foreigner, Count Lukstein; Morrice travels to Austria where he kills the Count in a midnight duel on his wedding night. The rest of the story concerns his relationship with the Count's beautiful widow, who seeks revenge for her husband's death; despite this unpromising start, Morrice finally wins her hand, although the Introduction to the story, set 20 years later, suggests she has since died.


The Face in the Moonlight

The Face in the Moonlight is a 1915 American silent historical drama film directed by Albert Capellani and starring Robert Warwick, Stella Archer, and H. Cooper Cliffe.


The Tangled Skein

The Tangled Skein was Baroness Orczy's second novel. First published under the title In Mary's Reign in 1901, it was re-released under the title The Tangled Skein in 1907, following the success of "The Scarlet Pimpernel".
The book is a period romance and is dedicated to "my little son Jack" (who was born in 1899).
Plot summary.
In "The Tangled Skein", Queen Mary is characterized as a loving woman with a strong sense of justice.
The "tangled skein" arises from Mary's love for the fictional character Robert d’Esclade, fifth Duke of Wessex, said in this book to be the people's choice as King Consort. Wessex is chivalrous and charming, but semi-betrothed to Lady Ursula Glynde, whom he has not seen since her infancy. Wessex is repelled by the idea of having his wife thrust upon him and purposely avoids Lady Ursula. Unknown to Wessex, the Queen jealously guards him against Ursula, who is extremely beautiful.
As soon as she realizes the Queen is keeping her away from Wessex, Ursula is angered. She believes she loves Wessex, for his nobility and goodness, and she is invested heavily in the betrothal. On her father's deathbed, Ursula promised to go into a convent if she did not marry Wessex. Although Ursula does not want to lose her independence by marrying, she seeks to frustrate the Queen's plans and make Wessex notice her; however, the arrival of Cardinal de Moreno, and his henchman Don Mignel, Marquis de Saurez, shifts the scene.
The Cardinal is in England to negotiate the marriage between Philip II of Spain and Mary. To end the Queen's love for Wessex, the Cardinal tries to marry Wessex and Lady Ursula. But when the Queen discovers the ruse, she declares that his Eminence should leave England immediately; she will not marry Philip. Then the Cardinal has to set to work to part the lovers, a far more difficult and intricate business than bringing them together.
It costs a life, Wessex his freedom, and Lady Ursula her good name before it can be effected. The skein is more hopelessly tangled than before, and still Mary remains obdurate. The Queen loses her dignity, will and love. The Cardinal's victory is gained at the expense of his own career.


Advanced Squad Leader Modules

Modules for the game Advanced Squad Leader (ASL) contains all the equipment needed to actually play the game. There are fourteen official so-called "core" modules that contain the essential components for a complete order of battle of all major nationalities to participate in the Second World War. Ownership of all core modules is not a prerequisite to playing the game, and as few as one module can be used. In addition to core modules, other products are also available and may be loosely referred to as "modules", or in the more specific terms as Deluxe ASL Modules and Historical ASL Modules. These required previous ownership of some of the core modules in varying combinations, or at least the components of them (rules sections and counters, and sometimes mapboards).
Each module generally contains the complete order of battle for at least one nationality, including 1/2" counters depicting infantry squads, crews, and single man counters (SMCs) as well as infantry support weapons. Some modules expanded coverage with 5/8" counters depicting vehicles and ordnance. Those modules with vehicle and ordnance counters generally also contain pages for Chapter H of the ASL Rulebook, which gives detailed notes and information on each type of vehicle or piece of ordnance.
Some modules also contain chapters specific to certain theatres, such as North Africa or the Pacific, where special rules for nationality distinctions, terrain and weather are required.
When the Finnish module "Hakkaa Päälle" was released, the Advanced Squad Leader became the first tactical level wargame in history to be able to portray the armies of every nationality that participated in hostilities in the Second World War.
Core modules.
Beyond Valor.
This initial game features all system counters necessary for playing ASL, as well as the complete infantry, vehicle and ordnance counter mix for the Germans, Russians and Finns. (A new edition published by MMP many years later added the HASL Module "Red Barricades"). The scenarios were sometimes decried as lacklustre, and mainly centered on urban combat, in keeping with the four new mapboards issued with the game. Mapboard 1 from SL and mapboard 8 from GI were necessary to play four of the ten printed scenarios as well.
Scenarios: ASL1-ASL10
Scenarios (V.3): 123-136
A 2nd Edition included additional counters for rules added in Chapter E (which was included with the 2nd Edition Rulebook), as well as changing the colour scheme for Finnish counters, and included the otherwise out of print Red Barricades HASL module, including two mapsheets, informational counters, and rulebook Chapter O).
A 3rd Edition released in December 2005 contained 10 geomorphic mapboards (done in the lighter style of the ASLSK boards), being reprints of the original Squad Leader boards 1, 2, 3 and 4, a reprint of the Cross of Iron board 5, and a reprint of board 8 from GI: Anvil of Victory, as well as reprints of the original Beyond Valor mapboards 20, 21, 22, and 23. The game also included 20 ASL scenarios and 4 six-sided dice in addition to 13 sets of counters for the complete Russian and German order of battle as well as the main system counters.
Paratrooper.
This game was the least expensive offering of the initial modules, containing a skeleton order of battle for United States parachute troops in Normandy and their German opponents, a small sampling of system markers, and just one mounted mapboard. The game was billed as a self-contained introductory module, and came with a rulebook chapter (Chapter K) written in conversational style that contained examples of play and a basic grounding in ASL rules for newcomers to the system. The chapter was written as a "basic training" story and included Days 1 to 6 (other days were released as part of other modules). Unfortunately, boards 1 to 4 from the original SL was still a necessity for play of all eight scenarios contained in the game, so either ownership of SL was required, or the boards had to be ordered separately by mail. Ownership of the ASL Rulebook was also a requirement.
Scenarios: ASL11-ASL18
A 2nd Edition deleted the Chapter K pages, as they became available with the 2nd Edition Rulebook, and added dice as well as boards 2 and 4, reissues of the boards from SL.
Yanks.
After the disappointment among SL fans when GI: Anvil of Victory contained no Design Your Own (DYO) unit purchase values for American forces, the third module of Yanks made up for this, for those who could afford the steep cost of this module, which had both the ASL Rulebook and Beyond Valor as prerequisites, as well as board 2 from SL, board 7 from COD and board 12 from GI (if one wanted to play the preprinted scenarios). The entire order of battle for US forces in Europe (and North Africa) was included, along with Chapter E which contained "miscellaneous" rules for amphibious landings, night fighting, air support, weather, parachute drops, glider landings, boats, convoys, swimming, ammunition vehicles, and special barrage rules for OBA (Off Board Artillery). Unfortunately, for those not interested in US forces, Chapter E would have to be purchased separately by mail order if one wanted to simulate any of these aspects with any of the other nationalities (and many printed scenarios in future modules would in fact have ownership of Chapter E a prerequisite.) Chapter H pages for US forces were also included (with DYO values and special vehicle notes describing any special in-game characteristics for each vehicle and ordnance type, as well as a brief history of each). Note that only European and North African theatre forces were included, not US forces from the Pacific theatre.
Scenarios: ASL19-ASL26
Partisan!
Partisan! also required the ASL Rulebook, boards 1, 2, 3 and 4 from SL, and Beyond Valor as prerequisites to play the printed scenarios, as well as providing some counters for "Partisan" or irregular forces that could represent western European Resistance members, Yugoslavian guerrillas, or Soviet partisan troops. These partisan counters were already provided in the Beyond Valor module. The countersheet provided in Partisan! mostly gave infantry forces for Axis Minor nations (see Armies of Oblivion below) omitting any heavy weapons. A redo of board 10 from the original Rogue Series boards was included in this module, with the new artwork up to the usual high standards of the mounted mapboards of every game in the series to date, as well as a brand new board.
Scenarios: ASL27-ASL34
West of Alamein.
West of Alamein brought the complete order of battle for British forces to ASL, and unlike COD/GI covered the entire war, both British and US manufactured vehicles and weapons. However, the scenarios focused on North Africa, and five new mapboards as well as a large number of cardboard terrain overlays were included, along with Chapter F with several pages of special rules for simulating combat in a desert environment. Only one printed scenario included with the game required a board from a previous module (Yanks) in order to play (as well as the Chapter E rules for parachute landings), though both the rulebook and Beyond Valor were prerequisites. The module was popular for the new terrain types it brought to the game, many veteran players describing this as the "long awaited desert module." Chapter H pages for British forces were also included (with DYO values and special vehicle notes describing any special in-game characteristics for each vehicle and ordnance type, as well as a brief history of each).
Scenarios: ASL35-ASL42
Overlays: "D1-D6", "E1", "H1-H6", "S1-S8", "SD1-SD8", "W1-W4", "X1-X5".
A proposed 2nd Edition was meant to reorganize the content of this module. The 2nd Edition was to contain Chapter F for the rulebook, associated information counters, and the 5 mapboards contained in the 1st Edition. "For King and Country" replaced this 2nd edition.
The Last Hurrah.
The Last Hurrah brought a complete set of infantry counters for the so-called "Allied Minor" nationalities to generically represent soldiers from Poland, Norway, Belgium, The Netherlands, Greece, and some Yugoslavian forces. Prerequisites for the printed scenarios included with this module included the rulebook, Beyond Valor, and boards 2, 3 and 4 from SL. Also necessary for two of the scenarios (and not mentioned on the original packaging) was Yanks, or at the least, Chapter E which was included in that module. Another of the Rogue boards was re-released, again with updated artwork to ASL standards, as well as a new board. The third mapboard in the game was a new offering. Some unique matchups were included in the scenarios, including Polish cavalry versus. German armoured cars and tanks, Yugoslavian cavalry versus German motorcycles, and Polish cavalry versus Russian armoured cars.
Scenarios: ASL43-ASL50
The module was reviewed in Volume 2, Number 15 of Wargamer (Sep-Oct 1989); Ted Bleck considered the game to be up to the usual high standards as far as components went (beautiful mounted mapboards as well as accurately printed and cut counters, easy to read and easy to separate from the "trees") but expressed disappointment at the focus of the module. No vehicles or ordnance were included (restricting play of the Allied Minors to just infantry/cavalry actions). The scenarios included were deemed to be "small by ASL standards" but fun and well balanced.
The 2nd Edition also included board 3 from the original Squad Leader series.
Hollow Legions.
Hollow Legions contained a wealth of exclusively new materials unseen in the Squad Leader/ASL world before. The entire order of battle for the much-maligned Italian Army was included (along with the applicable Chapter H pages providing DYO values and special vehicle notes describing any special in-game characteristics for each vehicle and ordnance type, as well as a brief history of each). Two new desert boards were provided, and prerequisites for playing the scenarios were extensive, including the rulebook, Beyond Valor, West of Alamein, and Yanks, as well as board 4 from SL, board 7 from COD and board 12 from GI. A great variety of forces made up the scenarios, however, in addition to the varied terrain, with Italian forces variously fighting against British, American, Russian and German troops.
Scenarios: ASL51-ASL58
Code of Bushido.
Code of Bushido was another departure for the ASL system, taking players for the first time to the Pacific Theatre of Operations (PTO).
The entire order of battle for the Japanese Army was included (along with the applicable Chapter H pages providing DYO values and special vehicle notes describing any special in-game characteristics for each vehicle and ordnance type, as well as a brief history of each). The first half of Chapter G was also included, introducing many special rules for the Japanese, as well as Pacific Theatre terrain. Four new boards were provided, representing mainly jungle terrain though using standard mapboard symbology from previous maps. Special rules converted woods to jungle, buildings to huts, etc. An extensive set of terrain overlays was also provided, much like the desert overlays in the West of Alamein module. Prerequisites for this game included the rulebook, Beyond Valor, Yanks, and West of Alamein as well as board 2 from SL. The US forces in the scenarios provided were representative of US Army units and thus no special counters or rules were needed, though the majority of scenarios dealt with Japanese troops fighting Russian, British, and Philippine partisan troops with only two situations involving American forces.
Scenarios: ASL59-ASL66
Overlays: "1-5", "B1-B5", "G1-G5", "M1-M5", "O1-O5", "RP1-RP5", "Wd1-Wd5", "X6".
During September, 2013, this module was replaced with Rising Sun.
Gung Ho!
By the time Gung Ho! was released, no serious player of ASL could deny that the system had become a highly complex and detailed game system that retained little of the playability of the original Squad Leader. Gung Ho introduced a complete order of battle for both Chinese forces and the United States Marine Corps, (along with the applicable Chapter H pages providing DYO values and special vehicle notes describing any special in-game characteristics for each Chinese vehicle and ordnance type, as well as a brief history of each, and also notes on amphibious craft as used by both sides in the Pacific). For anyone who had bought all the modules to date, they found that their rulebook was overflowing, with Chapter H alone having 112 pages. The second half of Chapter G was included, with special rules for amphibious operations, beach and ocean terrain (as well as more terrain overlays to help simulate these), tropical climate rules, new fortification types, and even rules for bulldozers. Prerequisites for this game included the rulebook, Beyond Valor, Yanks, West of Alamein, and Code of Bushido, as well as board 2 from SL.
Scenarios: ASL67-ASL74
Overlays: "Be1-Be7", "Ef1-Ef3", "OC1-OC4", "P1-P5".
During September, 2013, this module was replaced with Rising Sun.
Croix de Guerre.
Croix de Guerre provided the complete order of battle for French forces in 1939-40, as well as Vichy French troops, as well as their vehicles and ordnance (along with the applicable Chapter H pages providing DYO values and special vehicle notes describing any special in-game characteristics for each vehicle and ordnance type, as well as a brief history of each). Eight revised pages for the 1st Edition rulebook were also included with the game as well as a sheet of additional terrain overlays. Prerequisites for this game included the rulebook, Beyond Valor, Yanks, West of Alamein, as well as boards 2 and 4 from SL
Scenarios: ASL75-ASL82
Overlays: "OG1-OG5", "St1-St3", "X7-X18"
Doomed Battalions.
Doomed Battalions was the last module published by Avalon Hill before the purchase by Hasbro, and expanded the earlier coverage of the Allied Minor nationalities in The Last Hurrah by providing their vehicles and ordnance (along with the applicable Chapter H pages providing DYO values and special vehicle notes describing any special in-game characteristics for each vehicle and ordnance type, as well as a brief history of each). A rerelease of the Rogue board 9 with improved artwork was accompanied by two brand new boards, as well as more terrain overlays. Twelve revised rulebook pages for the 1st Edition rulebook were also included. Prerequisites for playing the included scenarios were the rulebook, Beyond Valor, The Last Hurrah, Hollow Legions, and Yanks, as well as boards 42 and 43 (only available by separate purchase through MMP who was selling these bundled with a set of new scenarios), board 32 from Partisan, and boards 2 and 3 from SL.
Scenarios: ASL83-ASL90
Overlays: "RR1-RR14", "X19-X24", "OW1"
2nd Edition is a bit of a misnomer; a small print run was made by Avalon Hill before MMP took over the franchise. A reissue of the module by MMP was made very quickly, however, the rules chapters of this so-called "2nd Edition" of DB were compatible with the 1st Edition ASL Rulebook, not the 2nd.
For King and Country.
For King and Country was released, chronologically, after Doomed Battalions and is a reissue of material originally found in West of Alamein. The British order of battle has been split with the new 2nd edition of West of Alamein, which will include only desert terrain and rules, with King and Country containing the order of battle for British/Commonwealth forces. Included in this module are rereleases of mapboard 1 from SL, board 7 from COD, and boards 8 and 12 from GI. The Chapter H pages for the British are included in this module, and 20 scenarios round out the contents. The decision by MMP not to reprint the earlier SL/COI/COD/GI games no doubt prompted the decision to reissue these boards, which would otherwise be available only through special order. In order to play all included scenarios, however, prerequisites include the rulebook and Beyond Valor as well as mapboards 2, 3 and 4 from SL, board 5 from COI, board 6 from COD, boards 13 and 14 from GI, board 9 from Doomed Battalions, board 10 from Partisan (also not being reprinted), and boards 11 and 33 from The Last Hurrah.
Armies of Oblivion.
Armies of Oblivion expands the earlier coverage of the Axis Minor nationalities by providing their vehicles and ordnance (along with the applicable Chapter H pages providing DYO values and special vehicle notes describing any special in-game characteristics for each vehicle and ordnance type, as well as a brief history of each). Also included are reprinted counters from the out-of-print Partisan! module and four new mapboards, as well as terrain overlays. The project had long been in development; the 1993b edition of the ASL Annual referred to this project as "March to Oblivion" and projected a late 1994 release date.
The Axis Minor nationalities include:
Hungarian forces were provided in a two-colour scheme so as to distinguish them from other nations, such as Romania, whom they fought during the war, and to allow integration with German counters.
Of all the SL and ASL games, gamettes and modules, Armies of Oblivion had perhaps the longest and most dubious history.
An article in the Sep-Oct 2004 issue of View From the Trenches (a long running third party publication for ASL begun in the UK in March 1995 and still in bi-monthly publication) listed the progress of this module.
 January 1996 - Shortly after Multi-Man Publishing (MMP) acquired the rights to oversee development of ASL products, Brian Youse declared a "strong desire to finish the game system and
 get out the Allied/Axis Minor Armour and Ordnance."
 November 1996 - Brian Youse comments that Armies of Oblivion (AOO) is put on the back burner until at least 1998.
 January 1997 - AOO details are announced; game will include 4 boards, 16 scenarios, and both Allied and Axis counters
 May 1997 - playtesting commences, no confirmation if one module or two will be released
 September 1997 - it is announced that AOO will be split into two modules, the first to be published in September 1998
 March 1998 - Doomed Battalions (DB) announced for a summer release with AOO expected to follow in 1999
 September 1998 - Avalon Hill is sold, DB released
 March 1999 - MMP announces 1999 schedule, AOO is not on it
 January 2000 - AOO expected to be released before a product called "Intro ASL", sometime in the last half of 2001
 July 2000 - boards 48, 49 and 50 are released for separate sale but testing of AOO continues
 September 2000 - MMP confident of Christmas release of AOO
 November 2000 - release of AOO now expected to be in the first quarter of 2001
 September 2001 - AOO scheduled for release in 2002
 January 2002 - public information points lengthy playtesting delaying release of AOO
 March 2002 - counter and rules artwork nearing completion
 September 2002 - Curt Schilling makes public statement that AOO "is less than one year away"
 January 2003 - MMP announced desire to release AOO by October; 10 scenarios completed with two to six more required
 May 2003 - MMP reports one scenario left to complete along with counter layout and vehicle notes
 November 2003 - AOO goes on pre-order
 March 2004 - AOO due to be printed soon according to MMP
 May 2004 - MMP announces final layout to be done soon
Armies Of Oblivion was released in January, 2006.
Rising Sun.
Rising Sun was released in September, 2013, combining the elements of Code of Bushido and Gung Ho! into a single module.
Hakkaa Päälle.
Finnish Module released in 2015.
Includes 3 new squad types, new vehicles, 16 scenarios, several replacement rules page and board 52 in 'Starter Kit' style.
Forgotten War.
Korean War Module released in 2017.
Includes several new squad types, new vehicles, 16 scenarios, chapter W (Korean War), and new boards. Rules added include Other UN Command forces and Korean War Terrain.
ASL Action Packs.
ASL Action Packs (AP) are published by MMP. They include new scenarios and boards. They do not contain new rules or counters, with the exception of AP 2 and AP 4 which have new rule pages inserts.
Action Pack 1.
Contains boards 42 and 43; OBA Flowchart 1st Edition; AP Scenarios 1-8.
Action Pack 2.
Contains boards 46 and 47; 2 Sheets overlays; 4 Pages Chapter B 1st Edition; Overrun Flowchart 1st Edition
Action Pack 3: Few Returned.
Few Returned is a scenario bundle featuring the Italians. The scenarios represent the Eastern Front fighting the Soviets and in Italy fighting Germany. Researched and designed by Mark Pitcavage. Contains 12 Italian ASL scenarios (9 on the East Front; 3 in Italy) and 3 ASL 'starter kit-style' geomorphic mapboards (24, 42, and 43).
Action Pack 4: Normandy.
Normandy is a scenario bundle featuring battles set in Normandy after D-Day. Contains 3 ASL geomorphic mapboards (53, 54, and 55), 12 ASL scenarios featuring the new maps, and 2 errata pages for the ASL Rulebook.
Action Pack 5: East Front.
East Front features scenarios involving German, Russian, and Axis Minor forces between 1941 and 1945. Contains 12 ASL scenarios and 3 ASL geomorphic mapboards (56,57,58).
Action Pack 6: A Decade Of War 1936-1945.
Covering nearly 10 years of world-wide conflict. Contains 10 ASL scenarios (AP53-62) and 3 ASL double-sided geomorphic mapboards (1a/b,2a/b,3a/b).
Action Pack 7.
Contains 10 ASL scenarios (AP63-72) and 3 ASL geomorphic mapboards (60,61,62).
Action Pack 8: Roads Through Rome.
Contains 10 ASL scenarios (AP73-82) and 3 ASL double-sided 11"x16" geomorphic mapboards (4a/b, 5a/b, 6a/b). Additionally, The Australian Balancing System (ABS) is presented as an option for the included scenarios.
Action Pack 9: To The Bridge!
Contains 10 ASL scenarios (AP83-92) and 3 ASL double-sided 11"x16" geomorphic mapboards (7a/b, 8a/b, 9a/b). Additionally, The Australian Balancing System (ABS) is presented as an option for the included scenarios.
Action Pack 10.
Contains boards #69 and #70 and eight scenarios(AP93-100)
Action Pack 11: 29 Let's Go!
Contains boards #71 and #72, one sheet of overlays and ten scenarios (AP101-110).
Action Pack 12: Oktoberfest XXX.
Contains board #73 and #72 and ten scenarios(AP111-120).


The Silk Road (British TV series)

The Silk Road is a 3 episode BBC TV documentary about the Silk Road, made in 2016 and shown on BBC4.
It was presented by historian Sam Willis.


Pierre-Joseph Witdoeck

Pierre-Joseph Witdoeck, also known as Petrus Josephus Witdoeck (4 January 1803, Antwerp - 16 October 1889, Tournai) was a Belgian painter and architect. Some sources give his year of death as 1840 or 1873.
Biography.
He was the son of Franciscus Donatus Witdoeck (1766-1834), a painter and professor of architecture at the Royal Academy, who gave him his first lessons. Later, he studied with Ferdinand de Braekeleer and Mathieu-Ignace Van Brée. One of his ancestors, Hans Witdoeck, was a student of Peter Paul Rubens.
In 1824, he accompanied Colonel on a scientific expedition sponsored by King William I of the Netherlands. They visited Algeria, Greece, Egypt and India; returning in 1827 through Italy. He brought back numerous sketches of architecture and antiquities, notably from the island of Rhodes. They were published by Colonel Rottiers in 1830.
After that, he taught architecture, painting and design at the Jesuit college in Brugelette, in the province of Hainaut. This was followed by an appointment as the City Architect of Turnhout, where he also founded and directed a design academy.
He married Marie-Antoinette van Haesendonck and they had twelve children; several of whom became painters, but of no particular note. His daughter, Marie-Thérèse, married Colonel , a colonial administrator.
He was especially interested in religious and historical subjects. Many of his works are devoted to the history of the Spanish Netherlands.
A large collection of his works may be seen at the Broel Museum in Courtrai. The contains a notable representation of the Last Supper, dating from 1843, which is integrated into the altar.


The Brandenburgers in Bohemia

The Brandenburgers in Bohemia () is a three-act opera, the first by Bedřich Smetana. The Czech libretto was written by Karel Sabina, and is based on events from Czech history. The work was composed in the years 1862–1863. Smetana and Sabina wrote the opera at a time of great Czech patriotism, with the pending opening of a new theatre for production of Czech operas in Prague.
The opera received its first performance at the Provisional Theatre (or the "Interim Theatre"), Prague, on 5 January 1866, and the first performance was a success. The first UK performances were in April 1978 by Hammersmith Municipal Opera. The first professional production, conducted by Vilém Tauský, was not until 1994.
Synopsis.
Upon the death of King Ottokar II in the 1278 Battle on the Marchfeld, his widow Kunigunda had called in the Brandenburgian troops to lend aid against the army of victorious Rudolf of Habsburg. Rudolf retired to Austria, nevertheless the Brandenburgers soon acted like occupants: they arrested Kunigunda and her seven-year-old son Wenceslaus at Bezděz Castle and agreed with Rudolf that they would retain the Bohemian rule for the next five years.
The Prague people led by mayor Volfram Olbramovič suffer from the Brandenburg occupation. The citizen Junoš reports on plundering and looting Brandenburgian troops. Ludiše, the mayor's daughter, rejects the approaches made by the German townsman Jan Tausendmark, who thereupon joins the occupants. The serf Jíra is designated the leader of a rebel movement. He openly charges Tausendmark with the kidnapping of the three daughters of the mayor, Ludiše, Vlčenka and Děčana. To avoid clashes of arms, Olbramovič has Jíra arrested. The mayor's daughters are kept by Brandenburg troops and Olbramovič asks Tausendmark to arrange for their liberation. However, the Brandenburg captain Varnemann demands a high ransom. Meanwhile, Jíra is put on trial and condemned to death. However, it is Junoš, in love with Ludiše, who manages to save Jíra. Tausendmark, who intends to abduct Ludiše, fails to reach an agreement with Varnemann. He and the Brandenburgers are driven out of Prague, and the city is liberated.
Political background.
While taking place in a distant historical time, the opera presents heroic Czechs struggling to shake off the oppressive rule of German-speaking occupiers – a theme obviously attractive to a Nationalist Czech audience. However, the opera's villains are not the Habsburg Austrians who actually ruled Bohemia at the time when the opera was written and performed. Rather, they are from Brandenburg – the lineal ancestor of Prussia, Austria's main rival; in January 1866, when the opera was presented, tensions between Austria and Prussia were at their peak, and a few months later would culminate in the Austro-Prussian War. Thus, Austrian censors had no strong reason to object to an opera presenting Brandenburgers as villains.


Hunting Hitler

Hunting Hitler is a History Channel television series based on the hypothetical premise that Adolf Hitler escaped from the "Führerbunker" in Berlin at the end of World War II. The show was conceived following the declassification of FBI documents exploring whether Hitler might have escaped his apparent fate in Berlin, where he is widely believed to have died in 1945. It explores how might he have escaped, where might he have gone, and whether he plotted a Fourth Reich. The series ran for three seasons between 2015 and 2018, followed by a two-hour special in 2020.
Series overview.
The show is hosted in Los Angeles by CIA veteran Bob Baer and war crimes investigator John Cencich. Utilizing a database of intelligence files from the FBI, CIA, MI6, and other international authorities, they look for information regarding the survival of Adolf Hitler or any of his right-hand men. The ground teams search for evidence supporting these leads. According to the show's creators, similar man-hunting techniques are employed as were used by the CIA to find Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden.
Reception.
The show has been criticized by "Variety" for "capitalizing on the American public's fascination with Hitler to produce a show based on a [hypothesis], while providing no evidence to substantiate the theory."


Bayan Ko

"Bayan Ko", originally titled "Nuestra Patria" in Spanish (usually referred to in English as "My Country") is one of the most recognizable patriotic songs of the Philippines. It was written in Spanish by the Revolutionary general José Alejandrino in light of the Philippine–American War and subsequent American occupation, and translated into Tagalog some three decades later by the poet José Corazón de Jesús.
The song, which is a "kundiman", is often considered the unofficial second national anthem of the Philippines, and is sometimes sung by Overseas Filipinos groups after the "Lupang Hinirang" or by itself. It is sometimes assumed to be a folk music because of its popularity, and due to the nature of its lyrics it has been used as a protest song by different political groups at various points in Philippine history.
History.
Origin.
The Spanish lyrics of "Bayan Ko" were originally written for the Severino Reyes "zarzuela", "Walang Sugat" ("no wound"). Attributed to the "propagandista", General José Alejandrino, the song expressed opposition to the ongoing American Occupation. The current and more popular Tagalog version is attributed to José Corazón de Jesús, and the music to Constancio de Guzmán.
Protest song during the Marcos dictatorship.
"Bayan Ko" regained cult popularity during the Marcos dictatorship, with the Left singing their own version in protests. After President Marcos imposed Martial Law in 1972, the song was deemed seditious. Public performances of the song were banned, with violators facing potential arrest and detention. People were emboldened to sing it at the 1983 funeral of Senator Benigno Aquino Jr. and the ensuing 1986 People Power Revolution, where Freddie Aguilar led crowds in singing.
Modern.
Since the 1986 Revolution that toppled the Marcos government and ushered in the Fifth Republic, the song has been associated with anti-government protests. In February 1987, a cover by pop singer JoAnne Lorenzana was launched as part of a nationalistic campaign by PLDT, and was aired on radio and television for the first anniversary of the Revolution.
On 1 August 2009, "Bayan Ko" was sung as the recessional of the noon Mass at EDSA Shrine, ending the "quarant'ore" for Corazón Aquino. The service, originally intended to pray for the former leader's recovery, was instead done to mourn her sudden death early that morning. Crowds sang it again during the transfer of her remains from La Salle Green Hills to Manila Cathedral on 3 August for the lying in state. At the Requiem Mass on 5 August, Lea Salonga sang it as the recessional while Aquino's casket was borne out to the Cathedral steps. A military band repeated it as the flatbed hearse carrying the casket and honor guard began the hours-long funeral procession. Mourners sang "Bayan Ko" for the last time with several hymns as Aquino's casket was entombed beside her husband at the couple's mausoleum in Parañaque.
A month later, British all-male chorale group Libera sang "Bayan Ko" as an encore to their first Philippine tour in Cebu and Manila. Moved by the performance, the audience sporadically applauded throughout the group's performance. As part of their Summer Philippine tour the following year, Libera gave an encore performance on the hit noontime variety programme, "Showtime" on 14 April 2010.
The University of the Philippines Madrigal Singers sang "Bayan Ko" during the inauguration of President Benigno Aquino III and Vice-President Jejomar Binay on 30 June 2010 at the Quirino Grandstand.
In 2016, the song figured in nationwide protests in the aftermath of the burial of former Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos at the Libingan ng mga Bayani. The song has been figured in nationwide protests against Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte in 2020.
Lyrics.
Lyrical variations.
The modern Filipino lyrics based on the original Tagalog omit all diacritics and contract "kaniyang" to "kanyang".
The lines "Pag-ibig ang sa kaniyang palad" // "nag-alay ng ganda’t dilag" has minor variations which subtly change the meaning, revolving around the concept of "palad", literally "palm of the hand", but here closer to "fortune" or "fate" (cf. "mapalad" "fortunate", "masamang palad" "ill fortune", "kapalaran" "destiny", "gulong ng palad" "wheel of fortune").
"Pag-ibig nasa kanyang palad," // "Nag-alay ng ganda’t dilag" as sung by Freddie Aguilar, may be rendered as "With love, as per her fate, "she" (the country) offered up "her" beauty and splendor".
"Pag-ibig ko sa kanyang palad" // "nag-alay ng ganda’t dilag" as sung by Asin and others, may be rendered as ""My" love, as per her fate, offered up beauty and splendor "to her"".
Asin also replaces "makita kang sakdal laya" "to see you absolutely free" with "makita kang malaya" "to see you free".
Arrangements.
While largely unchanged from the De Guzmán arrangement, the song has renditions by different composers and singers, notably by Lucio D. San Pedro (National Artist for music), Asin, and Freddie Aguilar. Aguilar's cover is one of the most famous renditions of the song; an often overlooked detail is that the instrumental section of this version is "Pilipinas Kong Mahal", another Filipino patriotic song. Asin's rendition included another de Jesús work, "Kay Sarap Mabuhay Sa Sariling Bayan", as a preluding stanza to the main lyrics. Sung mostly by Leftist groups, the stanza is included as the bridge replacing "Pilipinas Kong Mahal" with the prelude of "Ang Bayan kong Hirang".
On 7 November 1988, an "a capella" version by Josephine Roberto, featuring the cast of "That's Entertainment", was used for Towering Power: A Musical Dedication, which was for the launching of GMA Network's 777-foot tower.
Allison Opaon sang a Japanese version in Yokohama on 18 November 2006, during a concert-rally against political killings in the Philippines.
This song has also been arranged by Robert Prizeman and sung by the vocal group Libera when touring the Philippines.
Domino de Pio Teodosio (with guitar) sang a special arrangement of "Bayan Ko" by Reginald Vince M. Espíritu (oboe) and Anjo Inacay (cello) at the John F. Kennedy School of Government on 7 March 2011. The performance, which was for visiting world leaders during the school's International Week, was organised by the Philippine Caucus of the Kennedy School.


Anthony van Dyck

Sir Anthony van Dyck (, many variant spellings; 22 March 1599 – 9 December 1641) was a Flemish Baroque artist who became the leading court painter in England after success in the Southern Netherlands and Italy.
The seventh child of Frans van Dyck, a wealthy Antwerp silk merchant, Anthony painted from an early age. He was successful as an independent painter in his late teens, and became a master in the Antwerp guild in 1618. By this time he was working in the studio of the leading northern painter of the day, Peter Paul Rubens, who became a major influence on his work. Van Dyck worked in London for some months in 1621, then returned to Flanders for a brief time, before travelling to Italy, where he stayed until 1627, mostly in Genoa. In the late 1620s he completed his greatly admired "Iconography" series of portrait etchings, mostly of other artists. He spent five years in Flanders after his return from Italy, and from 1630 was court painter for the archduchess Isabella, Habsburg Governor of Flanders. In 1632 he returned to London to be the main court painter, at the request of Charles I of England.
With the exception of Holbein, van Dyck and his contemporary Diego Velázquez were the first painters of pre-eminent talent to work mainly as court portraitists, revolutionising the genre. He is best known for his portraits of the aristocracy, most notably Charles I, and his family and associates. Van Dyck became the dominant influence on English portrait-painting for the next 150 years. He also painted mythological and biblical subjects, including altarpieces, displayed outstanding facility as a draughtsman, and was an important innovator in watercolour and etching. His superb brushwork, apparently rather quickly painted, can usually be distinguished from the large areas painted by his many assistants. His portrait style changed considerably between the different countries he worked in, culminating in the relaxed elegance of his last English period. His influence extends into the modern period. The Van Dyke beard is named after him. During his lifetime, Charles I granted him a knighthood, and he was buried in St Paul's Cathedral, an indication of his standing at the time of his death.
Life and work.
Education.
Antoon van Dyck (his Flemish name) was born to prosperous parents in Antwerp. His father was Frans van Dyck, a silk merchant, and his mother was Maria Cupers, daughter of Dirk Cupers and Catharina Conincx. He was baptised on 23 March 1599 (as Anthonio). His talent was evident very early, and he was studying painting with Hendrick van Balen by 1609, and became an independent painter around 1615, setting up a workshop with his even younger friend Jan Brueghel the Younger. By the age of fifteen he was already a highly accomplished artist, as his "Self-portrait", 1613–14, shows. He was admitted to the Antwerp painters' Guild of Saint Luke as a free master by February 1618. Within a few years he was to be the chief assistant to the dominant master of Antwerp, and the whole of Northern Europe, Peter Paul Rubens, who made much use of sub-contracted artists as well as his own large workshop. His influence on the young artist was immense. Rubens referred to the nineteen-year-old van Dyck as "the best of my pupils".
The origins and exact nature of their relationship are unclear. It has been speculated that van Dyck was a pupil of Rubens from about 1613, as even his early work shows little trace of van Balen's style, but there is no clear evidence for this. At the same time the dominance of Rubens in the relatively small and declining city of Antwerp probably explains why, despite his periodic returns to the city, van Dyck spent most of his career abroad. In 1620, in Rubens's contract for the major commission for the ceiling of the Carolus Borromeuskerk, the Jesuit church at Antwerp (lost to fire in 1718), van Dyck is specified as one of the "discipelen" who was to execute the paintings to Rubens' designs. Unlike van Dyck, Rubens worked for most of the courts of Europe, but avoided exclusive attachment to any of them.
Italy.
In 1620, at the instigation of George Villiers, Marquess of Buckingham, van Dyck went to England for the first time where he worked for King James I of England, receiving £100. It was in London in the collection of the Earl of Arundel that he first saw the work of Titian, whose use of colour and subtle modeling of form would prove transformational, offering a new stylistic language that would enrich the compositional lessons learned from Rubens.
He returned to Flanders after about four months, and then left in late 1621 for Italy, where he remained for six years. There he studied the Italian masters while starting a successful career as a portraitist. He was already presenting himself as a figure of consequence, annoying the rather bohemian Northern artist's colony in Rome, says Giovan Pietro Bellori, by appearing with "the pomp of Zeuxis ... his behaviour was that of a nobleman rather than an ordinary person, and he shone in rich garments. Since he was accustomed in the circle of Rubens to noblemen, and being naturally of elevated mind, and anxious to make himself distinguished, he therefore wore—as well as silks—a hat with feathers and brooches, gold chains across his chest, and was accompanied by servants."
He was mostly based in Genoa, although he also travelled extensively to other cities, and stayed for some time in Palermo in Sicily, where he was quarantined during the 1624 plague, one of the worst in Sicily's history. There he produced an important series of paintings of the city's plague saint Saint Rosalia. His depictions of a young woman with flowing blonde hair wearing a Franciscan cowl and reaching down toward the city of Palermo in its peril, became the standard iconography of the saint from that time onward and was extremely influential for Italian Baroque painters, from Luca Giordano to Pietro Novelli. Versions include those in Madrid, Houston, London, New York and Palermo, as well as Saint Rosalia Interceding for the City of Palermo in Puerto Rico, and Coronation of Saint Rosalia in Vienna. Van Dyck's series of St Rosalia paintings have been studied by Gauvin Alexander Bailey and Xavier F. Salomon, both of whom curated or co-curated exhibitions devoted to the theme of Italian art and the plague. Recently the New York Times published an article about the Metropolitan Museum of Art's painting of Saint Rosalia by Van Dyck in the context of the COVID-19 virus.
For the Genoese aristocracy, then in a final flush of prosperity, he developed a full-length portrait style, drawing on Veronese and Titian as well as Rubens' style from his own period in Genoa, where extremely tall but graceful figures look down on the viewer with great hauteur. In 1627, he went back to Antwerp where he remained for five years, painting more affable portraits which still made his Flemish patrons look as stylish as possible. A life-size group portrait of twenty-four City Councillors of Brussels he painted for the council-chamber was destroyed in 1695. He was evidently very charming to his patrons, and, like Rubens, well able to mix in aristocratic and court circles, which added to his ability to obtain commissions. By 1630, he was described as the court painter of the Habsburg Governor of Flanders, the Archduchess Isabella. In this period he also produced many religious works, including large altarpieces, and began his printmaking.
London.
King Charles I was the most passionate collector of art among the Stuart kings, and saw painting as a way of promoting his elevated view of the monarchy. In 1628, he bought the fabulous collection that the Duke of Mantua was forced to sell, and he had been trying since his accession in 1625 to bring leading foreign painters to England. In 1626, he was able to persuade Orazio Gentileschi to settle in England, later to be joined by his daughter Artemisia and some of his sons. Rubens was an especial target, who eventually in 1630 came on a diplomatic mission, which included painting, and he later sent Charles more paintings from Antwerp. Rubens was very well-treated during his nine-month visit, during which he was knighted. Charles's court portraitist, Daniel Mytens, was a somewhat pedestrian Dutchman. Charles was very short, less than tall, and presented challenges to a portrait artist.
Van Dyck remained in touch with the English court and helped King Charles's agents in their search for pictures. He sent some of his own works, including a self portrait (1623) with Endymion Porter, one of Charles's agents, his "Rinaldo and Armida" (1629), and a religious picture for the Queen. He had also painted Charles's sister, Queen Elizabeth of Bohemia, at The Hague in 1632. In April of that year, van Dyck returned to London and was taken under the wing of the court immediately, being knighted in July and at the same time receiving a pension of £200 a year, in the grant of which he was described as "principalle Paynter in ordinary to their majesties". He was well paid for his paintings in addition to this, at least in theory, as King Charles did not actually pay over his pension for five years, and reduced the price of many paintings. He was provided with a house on the River Thames at Blackfriars, then just outside the City of London, thus avoiding the monopoly of the Worshipful Company of Painter-Stainers. A suite of rooms in Eltham Palace, no longer used by the royal family, was also put at his disposal as a country retreat. His Blackfriars studio was frequently visited by the King and Queen (later a special causeway was built to ease their access), who hardly sat for another painter while van Dyck lived.
He was an immediate success in England, where he painted large numbers of portraits of the King and Queen Henrietta Maria, as well as their children. Many portraits were done in several versions, to be sent as diplomatic gifts or given to supporters of the increasingly embattled king. Altogether van Dyck has been estimated to have painted forty portraits of King Charles himself, as well as about thirty of the Queen, nine of the Earl of Strafford, and multiple ones of other courtiers. He painted many of the court, and also himself and his mistress, Margaret Lemon.
In England he developed a version of his style which combined a relaxed elegance and ease with an understated authority in his subjects which was to dominate English portrait-painting to the end of the 18th century. Many of these portraits have a lush landscape background. His portraits of Charles on horseback updated the grandeur of Titian's Emperor Charles V, but even more effective and original is his portrait of Charles dismounted in the Louvre: "Charles is given a totally natural look of instinctive sovereignty, in a deliberately informal setting where he strolls so negligently that he seems at first glance nature's gentleman rather than England's King". Although his portraits have created the classic idea of "Cavalier" style and dress, in fact a majority of his most important patrons in the nobility, such as Lord Wharton and the Earls of Bedford, Northumberland and Pembroke, took the Parliamentarian side in the English Civil War that broke out soon after his death.
The King in Council by letters patent granted van Dyck "denizenship" in 1638, and he married Mary Ruthven, with whom he had one daughter. Mary was the daughter of Patrick Ruthven, who, although the title was forfeited, styled himself Lord Ruthven. She was a Lady-in-waiting to the Queen in 1639–40; this may have been instigated by the King in an attempt to keep him in England. He had spent most of 1634 in Antwerp, returning the following year, and in 1640–41, as the Civil War loomed, spent several months in Flanders and France. In 1640 he accompanied prince John Casimir of Poland after he was freed from French imprisonment.
A letter dated 13 August 1641, from Lady Roxburghe in England to a correspondent in The Hague, reported that van Dyck was recuperating from a long illness. In November, van Dyck's condition worsened, and he returned to England from Paris, where he had gone to paint Cardinal Richelieu. He died in London on 9 December 1641. There was a memorial to him within the Old St Paul's Cathedral.
Portraits and other works.
In the 17th century, demand for portraits was stronger than for other types of work. Van Dyck tried to persuade Charles to commission large-scale series on the history of the Order of the Garter for the Banqueting House, Whitehall, for which Rubens had earlier completed the large ceiling paintings (sending them from Antwerp). A sketch for one wall remains, but by 1638 Charles was too short of money to proceed. This was a problem Velázquez did not have, but equally van Dyck's daily life was not encumbered by trivial court duties as faced by Velázquez. In his visits to Paris in his last years, van Dyck attempted to obtain the commission to paint the Grande Gallerie of the Louvre without success.
A list of history paintings produced by van Dyck in England survives. It was compiled by van Dyck's biographer Bellori, based on information from Sir Kenelm Digby. None of these works appear to remain, except the "Eros and Psyche" done for the King (below). But many other works, rather more religious than mythological, do survive, and though they are very fine, they do not reach the heights of Velázquez's history paintings. Earlier ones remain very much within the style of Rubens, although some of his Sicilian works are individualistic.
Van Dyck's portraits flattered more than Velázquez's. When Sophia, later Electoress of Hanover, first met Queen Henrietta Maria, in exile in Holland in 1641, she wrote: "Van Dyck's handsome portraits had given me so fine an idea of the beauty of all English ladies, that I was surprised to find that the Queen, who looked so fine in painting, was a small woman raised up on her chair, with long skinny arms and teeth like defence works projecting from her mouth..."
Some critics have blamed van Dyck for diverting a nascent, tougher English portrait tradition—of painters such as William Dobson, Robert Walker and Isaac Fuller—into what certainly became elegant blandness in the hands of many of van Dyck's successors, like Lely or Kneller. The conventional view has always been more favourable: "When Van Dyck came hither he brought Face-Painting to us; ever since which time ... England has excel'd all the World in that great Branch of the Art" (Jonathan Richardson: "An Essay on the Theory of Painting", 1715, 41). Thomas Gainsborough is reported to have said on his deathbed "We are all going to heaven, and Van Dyck is of the Company."
A fairly small number of landscape pen and wash drawings or watercolours made in England played an important part in introducing the Flemish watercolour landscape tradition to England. Some are studies, which reappear in the background of paintings, but many are signed and dated and were probably regarded as finished works to be given as presents. Several of the most detailed are of Rye, a port for ships to the Continent, suggesting that van Dyck did them casually whilst waiting for wind or tide to improve.
Printmaking.
Probably during his period in Antwerp after his return from Italy, van Dyck began his "Iconography", which became a very large series of prints with half-length portraits of eminent contemporaries. He produced drawings, and for eighteen of the portraits he himself etched the heads and main outlines of the figure, for an engraver to work up: "Portrait etching had scarcely had an existence before his time, and in his work it suddenly appears at the highest point ever reached in the art".
He left most of the printmaking to specialists, who engraved after his drawings. His etched plates appear not to have been published until after his death, and early states are very rare. Most of his plates were printed after only his work had been done. Some exist in further states after engraving had been added, sometimes obscuring his etching. He continued to add to the series until at least his departure for England, and presumably added Inigo Jones whilst in London.
The series was a great success, but was his only venture into printmaking; portraiture probably paid better, and he was constantly in demand. At his death there were eighty plates by others, of which fifty-two were of artists, as well as his own eighteen. The plates were bought by a publisher; with the plates reworked periodically as they wore out they continued to be printed for centuries, and the series added to, so that it reached over two hundred portraits by the late 18th century. In 1851, the plates were bought by the "Calcographie du Louvre".
The "Iconography" was highly influential as a commercial model for reproductive printmaking; now forgotten series of portrait prints were enormously popular until the advent of photography: "the importance of this series was enormous, and it provided a repertory of images that were plundered by portrait painters throughout Europe over the next couple of centuries". Van Dyck's brilliant etching style, which depended on open lines and dots, was in marked contrast to that of the other great portraitist in prints of the period, Rembrandt, and had little influence until the 19th century, when it had a great influence on artists such as Whistler in the last major phase of portrait etching. Hyatt Mayor wrote:
Studio.
Van Dyck's success led him to maintain a large workshop in London, which became "virtually a production line for portraits". According to a visitor he usually only made a drawing on paper, which was then enlarged onto canvas by an assistant; he then painted the head himself. The costume in which the client wished to be painted was left at the studio and often with the unfinished canvas sent out to artists specialised in rendering such clothing. In his last years these studio collaborations accounted for some decline in the quality of work.
In addition many copies untouched by him, or virtually so, were produced by the workshop, as well as by professional copyists and later painters. The number of paintings ascribed to him had by the 19th century become huge, as with Rembrandt, Titian and others. However, most of his assistants and copyists could not approach the refinement of his manner, so compared to many masters consensus among art historians on attributions to him is usually relatively easy to reach, and museum labelling is now mostly updated (country house attributions may be more dubious in some cases).
The relatively few names of his assistants that are known are Dutch or Flemish. He probably preferred to use trained Flemings, as no equivalent English training existed in this period. Van Dyck's enormous influence on English art does not come from a tradition handed down through his pupils; in fact it is not possible to document a connection to his studio for any English painter of any significance. Dutchman Adriaen Hanneman (1604–1671) returned to his native The Hague in 1638 to become the leading portraitist there. Flemish painter Pieter Thijs studied in van Dyck's workshop as one of van Dyck's last pupils. He became a very successful portrait and history painter in his native Antwerp.
Legacy.
Much later, the styles worn by his models provided the names of the Van Dyke beard for the sharply pointed and trimmed goatees popular for men in his day, and the van Dyke collar, "a wide collar across the shoulders edged copiously with lace". During the reign of George III, a generic "Cavalier" fancy-dress costume called a "Van Dyke" was popular; Gainsborough's "The Blue Boy" is wearing such a "Van Dyke" outfit. In 1774 Derby porcelain advertised a figure, after a portrait by Johann Zoffany, of "the King in a Vandyck dress".
A confusing number of different pigments used in painting have been called "Vandyke brown" (mostly in English-language sources). Some predate van Dyck, and it is not clear that he used any of them. Van Dyke brown is an early photographic printing process using the same colour.
When van Dyck was knighted in 1632, he anglicized his name to Vandyke.
Collections.
The British Royal Collection, which still contains many of his paintings, has a total of twenty-six paintings. The National Gallery, London (fourteen works), The Museo del Prado (Spain) (twenty-five Works, such as: "Self-portrait with Endymion Porter", "The Metal Serpent", "Christ Crowned with Thorns", "The taking of Christ", "Portrait of Mary Ruthven", the painter's Wife), The Louvre in Paris (eighteen works), the Alte Pinakothek in Munich, the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and the Frick Collection have examples of his portrait style. Wilton House still holds the works he did for one of his main patrons, the Earl of Pembroke, including his largest work, a huge family group portrait with ten main figures. Spanish museums own a rich presence of this artist in addition to The Prado's ensemble; The Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum preserves "the Portrait of Jacques Le Roy", property of The Carmen Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection but also on display at the Museum there's a "Crucified Christ", and The Bilbao Fine Arts Museum houses a great "Lamentation before the dead Christ". In 2008, Patrimonio Nacional of Spain recovered a "Martyrdom of Saint Sebastian" and returned it to The Escorial Monastery, two centuries after its removal and, subsequently, The Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando has revealed as its own a long-stored painting, added to another, "The Virgin with the Child with the repentant sinners", in addition the institution has an original sketch. In addition, in December 2017, a "Virgin with Child", which is kept in The Museum Cerralbo and was previously considered the work of Mateo Cerezo, was revealed as the painter's original after an exhaustive study and restoration project. Finally, The Museum of Fine Arts of Valencia owns an "Equestrian Portrait of Don Francisco de Moncada" (currently undergoing restoration, April 2020).
Tate Britain held the exhibition "Van Dyck & Britain" in 2009. In 2016 the Frick Collection in New York had an exhibition "Van Dyck: The Anatomy of Portraiture", the first major survey of the artist's work in the United States in over two decades.
The estate of the Earl Spencer at Althorp houses a small collection of van Dycks including "War and Peace" (Portrait of Sir George Digby, 2nd Earl of Bristol, English Royalist politician with William Russell, 1st Duke of Bedford), which is the most valuable painting in the collection and the favourite of the earl.