Set against the backdrop of war, revolution, and regicide, and moving from London to Venice, Mantua, Madrid, Paris and the Low Countries, Jerry Brotton's colourful and critically acclaimed book explores the formation and dispersal of King Charles I's art collection. Following a remarkable and unprecedented Parliamentary Act for 'The sale of the late king's goods', Cromwell's re...
Set against the backdrop of war, revolution, and regicide, and moving from London to Venice, Mantua, Madrid, Paris and the Low Countries, Jerry Brotton's colourful and critically acclaimed book explores the formation and dispersal of King Charles I's art collection. Following a remarkable and unprecedented Parliamentary Act for 'The sale of the late king's goods', Cromwell's republican regime sold off nearly 2,000 paintings, tapestries, statues and drawings in an attempt to settle the dead king's enormous debts and raise money for the Commonwealth's military forces. Brotton recreates the extraordinary circumstances of this sale, in which for the first time ordinary working people were able to handle and own works by the great masters. He also examines the abiding relationship between art and power, revealing how the current Royal Collection emerged from this turbulent period, and paints its own vivid and dramatic picture of one of the greatest lost collections in English history. "A rip-roaring slice of seventeenth-century England ...Readable history at its best" - Kate Mosse, author of "Labyrinth".
原文摘录
· · · · · ·
For the first time in English history, common people began to take possession of their king’s goods, moving through palaces specifically designed to exclude them and to reinforce the awe and wonder central to the power and mystique of monarchy. … … It was a remarkable moment of liberation - or violation, depending on your political persuasion - and it was to resonate for generations. (查看原文)
Finally, the trustees came to the most private room of all: the king’s bedchamber. … Despite the public celebration of his filial piety in commissioning Ruben’s Banqueting House ceiling, Charles chose not to hang a picture of James I. Instead, the trustees were confronted with the other two men who had loomed so large in the king’s life” his long-dead elder brother, ‘Prince Henry in armour’, painted by Van Dyck, and George Villiers, Duck of Buckingham. (查看原文)
还没人写过短评呢
还没人写过短评呢