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Edited ISS055 image of the Richat Structure in the Sahara Desert in Mauritania. Color/processing variant.
Breadcrumbs, look like space structures.
Composition:
Half is white flower, the other half is wheat flour, yeast and water.
Baking at 200 degrees 35 minutes.
Zerene stack Pmax.
118 steps @ 18 um.
Cycle capture time 1.2 sec/picture.
Nikon D7100 + AFD 200 F5.6 ISO 200
Mitutoyo M Plan APO 5X.
FG led flash module 10 channels
Lighting direction profile default.
Total led power 320W.
Flash time: 1.5 msec.
Sibiu (Romanian: [siˈbiw], antiquated Sibiiu; German: Hermannstadt [ˈhɛʁmanʃtat], Transylvanian Saxon dialect: Härmeschtat, Hungarian: Nagyszeben [ˈnɒcsɛbɛn]) is a city in Transylvania, Romania, with a population of 147,245.[1] Located some 275 km (171 mi) north-west of Bucharest,[2] the city straddles the Cibin River, a tributary of the river Olt. Now the capital of Sibiu County, between 1692 and 1791 and 1849–65 Sibiu was the capital of the Principality of Transylvania.
Sibiu is one of the most important cultural centres of Romania and was designated the European Capital of Culture for the year 2007, along with the city of Luxembourg.[3] Formerly the centre of the Transylvanian Saxons, the old city of Sibiu was ranked as "Europe's 8th-most idyllic place to live" by Forbes in 2008.[4]
The city administers the Păltiniș ski resort.
History[edit]
See also: Timeline of Sibiu
The first official record referring to the Sibiu area comes from 1191, when Pope Celestine III confirmed the existence of the free prepositure of the German settlers in Transylvania, the prepositure having its headquarters in Sibiu, named Cibinium at that time.[5]
In the 14th century, it was already an important trade centre. In 1376, the craftsmen were divided in 19 guilds. Sibiu became the most important ethnic German city among the seven cities that gave Transylvania its German name Siebenbürgen (literally seven citadels).[6][7] It was home to the Universitas Saxorum (Community of the Saxons), a network of pedagogues, ministers, intellectuals, city officials, and councilmen of the German community forging an ordered legal corpus and political system in Transylvania since the 1400s.[8][9] During the 18th and 19th centuries, the city became the second- and later the first-most important centre of Transylvanian Romanian ethnics. The first Romanian-owned bank had its headquarters here (The Albina Bank), as did the ASTRA (Transylvanian Association for Romanian Literature and Romanian's People Culture). After the Romanian Orthodox Church was granted status in the Habsburg Empire from the 1860s onwards, Sibiu became the Metropolitan seat, and the city is still regarded as the third-most important centre of the Romanian Orthodox Church. Between the Hungarian Revolution of 1848 and 1867 (the year of the Ausgleich), Sibiu was the meeting-place of the Transylvanian Diet, which had taken its most representative form after the Empire agreed to extend voting rights in the region.
After World War I, when Austria-Hungary was dissolved, Sibiu became part of Romania; the majority of its population was still ethnic German (until 1941) and counted a large Romanian community, as well as a smaller Hungarian one. Starting from the 1950s and until after 1990, most of the city's ethnic Germans emigrated to Germany and Austria. Among the roughly 2,000 who have remained is Klaus Johannis, the current President of Romania.
Geography[edit]
Topographic map of the Sibiu region
Panoramic view of Sibiu historic center, looking East.
Sibiu is situated near the geographical center of Romania at
WikiMiniAtlas
45.792784°N 24.152069°E. Set in the Cibin Depression, the city is about 20 km from the Făgăraș Mountains, 12 km from the Cibin Mountains, and about 15 km from the Lotru Mountains, which border the depression in its southwestern section. The northern and eastern limits of Sibiu are formed by the Târnavelor Plateau, which descends to the Cibin Valley through Gușteriței Hill.
The Cibin river as well as some smaller streams runs through Sibiu. The geographical position of Sibiu makes it one of the most important transportation hubs in Romania with important roads and railway lines passing through it.
City districts[edit]
The following districts are part of Sibiu. Some were villages annexed by the city but most were built as the city developed and increased its surface.
•Historic Center - Divided into the Upper Town and Lower Town
•Centru (Centre)
•Lupeni
•Trei Stejari
•Vasile Aaron
•Hipodrom I, II, III, IV
•Valea Aurie (Golden Valley)
•Tilișca
•Ștrand
•Turnișor (Little Tower; German: Neppendorf)
•Piața Cluj
•Țiglari
•Terezian
•Reșița
•Lazaret
•Gușterița (German: Hammersdorf)
•Broscărie
•Viile Sibiului
•Tineretului
•Veteranilor de Război
The Southern part, including the ASTRA National Museum Complex and the Zoo, also falls within the city limits.
Politics[edit]
Sibiu city council composition in 2004:
Democratic Forum of Germans in Romania
Social Democratic Party
National Liberal Party
Democratic Party
Although ethnic Germans make up less than 2% of Sibiu's population, Klaus Johannis, the former president of the Democratic Forum of Germans in Romania (FDGR/DFDR) and current president of Romania, served as mayor of Sibiu from 2000 to 2014. Johannis was overwhelmingly reelected in 2004 (with 88.7% of votes) and 2008 (with 83.3% of the votes cast) and his party gained an absolute majority in the city council in that year. After the 2014 presidential elections, the interim position for mayor of the city was filled by deputy mayor Astrid Fodor who in the 2016 local elections won the seat with a majority of votes.[18]
Despite winning the local elections with a majority of votes and a high approval rating, the current administration is beginning to be viewed as slow moving and lacking transparency. Another issue that is affecting the current administraiton's approval ratings is the lack of investments and innovations
Economy[edit]
Sibiu is an important economic hub for Romania, with a high rate of foreign investments. It is also an important hub for the manufacturing of automotive components and houses factories belonging to ThyssenKrupp Bilstein-Compa, Takata Corporation, Continental Automotive Systems, and NTN-SNR ball bearings. Other local industries are machine components, textiles, agro-industry, and electrical components (Siemens).
The city also contains Romania's second-largest stock exchange, the Sibiu Stock Exchange which is set to merge with the Bucharest Stock Exchange in 2018.[19]
The main industrial activities of Sibiu take place in two industrial zones located on the outskirts of the city:
•East industrial zone (East Economic Center), alongside the railway to Brașov and Râmnicu Vâlcea
•West industrial zone (West Economic Center),[20] near the exit to Sebeș, close to the Airport
A commercial zone located in the Șelimbăr commune plays an important role in the economy of Sibiu. It houses a mall and other large retailers.
Another factor that plays an important role in the economy of the city is tourism, which has been increasing at a steady rate since 2007.
Transport[edit]
Sibiu International Airport Location
Sibiu is well served in terms of transport and infrastructure. In 2010 a city bypass was opened, significantly reducing the road traffic inside the city.
Tursib[21] is the city's internal transportation system operator.
Air[edit]
Sibiu Airport, Blue Air flight.
Sibiu has one of the most modern international airports in Romania, with direct connections to Germany, Austria, United Kingdom, Italy and Spain while connections to other European countries being scheduled to start in summer 2018 Belgium, Denmark, Switzerland.
Road[edit]
Sibiu is an important node in the European road network, being on two different European routes (E68 and E81). At a national level, Sibiu is located on three different main national roads, DN1, DN7 and DN14.
The Romanian Motorway A1 will link the city with Pitești and the Romanian western border, near Arad. From the remaining 332 km of motorway towards the border with Hungary Nadlac, a total of 276 km is completed and the last 56 km are currently under construction, while the timeline for the segment towards Pitești is targeted for completion for the year 2025 (construction will start no sooner than 2019). Sibiu' s ring road as part of A1 motorway was completed on December 1, 2010.
Sibiu is also an important hub for the international bus links with the biggest passenger transporter in Romania, Atlassib, based here. Transport companies are also providing coach connections from Sibiu to a large number of locations in Romania.
Public bus transportation in Sibiu
Rail[edit]
Main article: Sibiu railway station
Sibiu is situated on the CFR-Romanian Railways Main Line 200 (Brasov - Făgăraș - Sibiu - Simeria - Arad - Romanian Western Border) and on Line 206 (Sibiu - Mediaș).
The city is served by five rail stations: the Main Station (Gara Mare), the Little Station (Gara Micǎ), Turnișor, Sibiu Triaj, Halta Ateliere Zonă . It has an important diesel-powered locomotives depot and a freight terminal.
Numerous Inter City trains (nicknamed Blue Arrows) connect Sibiu to other major cities in Romania: Cluj-Napoca, Brașov, Craiova, Timișoara and Bucharest.
Cycling[edit]
Over the last six years, Sibiu has enjoyed a revival of cycling. The bicycle way in the city span for 43 kilometers.
Bicycle rentals have offered a boost for the local economy with several small rental centers and a bigger rental center that is administered by the I'Velo Bike Sharing group.
Culture[edit]
Sibiu is one of Romania's most culturally lively cities. It has 3 theatres and a philharmonic orchestra along with other smaller private theatrical venues and a theatre studio housed by the Performing Arts and Acting section of Lucian Blaga University, where students hold monthly representations.
The Radu Stanca National Theatre[22] is one of the leading Romanian theatres. With origins dating back to 1787, it attracts some of the best-known Romanian directors, such as Gábor Tompa and Silviu Purcărete. It has both a Romanian-language and a German-language section, and presents an average of five shows a week.
The Gong Theatre is specialised in puppetry, mime and non-conventional shows for children and teenagers. It also presents shows in both Romanian and German.
The State Philharmonic of Sibiu[23] presents weekly classical music concerts, and educational concerts for children and teenagers. The concerts take place in the newly restored Thalia Hall, a concert and theatre hall dating from 1787, situated along the old city fortifications. Weekly organ concerts are organised at the Evangelical Cathedral during summers, and thematic concerts are presented by the Faculty of Theology choir at the Orthodox Cathedral.
The Sibiu International Theatre Festival is an annual festival of performing arts. Since 2016, it is the largest performance arts festival in the world.[24]
Brukenthal National Museum, Sibiu.
Museums and parks[edit]
Sibiu's museums are organised around two entities: the Brukenthal National Museum and the ASTRA National Museum Complex. The Brukenthal Museum consists of an Art Gallery and an Old Books Library located inside the Brukenthal Palace, a History Museum located in the old town hall building, a Pharmacy Museum located in one of the first apothecary shops in Europe, dating from the 16th century, a Natural History Museum and a Museum of Arms and Hunting Trophies.
The ASTRA National Museum Complex focuses on ethnography, and consists of a Traditional Folk Civilisation Museum, a 96-hectare open-air museum located in Dumbrava Forest south of Sibiu, a Universal Ethnography Museum, a Museum of Transylvanian Civilisation and a Museum of Saxon Ethnography and Folk Art. Also planned is a Museum of the Culture and Civilisation of the Romany People.
Bicycle riders in Sub Arini park, in Sibiu.
The Dumbrava Sibiului Natural Park stretches over 960 hectares and it is situated 4 km away from the center of the city in the southwest direction along the road towards Răşinari. Also, here you can find the Zoological Garden and Ethnography Museum.
There is a Steam Locomotives Museum close to the railway station, sheltering around 40 locomotives, two of which are functional.
The first park in the city was The Promenade, later called "The Disabled Promenade." established in 1791, today part of Parcul Cetății (Citadel Park). Current arrangement of the park, including the space between the walls, dates from 1928.
The Sub Arini Park, established in 1856 is one of the biggest and best-maintained parks in Romania. There are other green spaces in the city center, the best known being Astra Park, established in 1879.
Tineretului Park
Other parks:
Tineretului Park, Reconstrucției Park, Corneliu Coposu Park, Petöfi Sándor Park, Piața Cluj Park, Ștrand Park, Cristianului Park, Țițeica Park, Vasile Aaron Park, Lira Park.
The distribution of green space is good compared to other Romanian cities.
Events[edit]
Citadel Park, with the 16 century City wall
Several festivals are organised yearly in Sibiu, the most prestigious of them being the Sibiu International Theatre Festival, organized each spring at the end of May. Medieval Festival organized every year in August, reviving the medieval spirit of Transylvania. The Artmania Festival is held every Summer since 2006 and as of 2008 the Rockin' Transilvania Festival is also held in Sibiu. The oldest Jazz Festival in Romania is organized here, as well as the "Carl Filtsch" festival for young classical piano players, the "Astra Film" documentary film festival, the Transylvania calling Festival a Multi Cultural 6 day Open Air Music festival! 26–31 July 2007, a medieval arts festival and many more smaller cultural events.[25] Feeric Fashion Week is also hosted here.
European Cultural Capital[edit]
The designation as a European Cultural Capital for 2007, owed greatly to the excellent collaboration with Luxembourg, but also to what many regard as a miraculous social rebirth taking place in the city during the last years. The Cultural Capital status was expected to bring about an abrupt increase in quantity and quality of cultural events in 2007.
Tourism[edit]
In 2007, Sibiu was the European Capital of Culture (together with Luxembourg). This was the most important cultural event that has ever happened in the city, and a great number of tourists came, both domestic and foreign.
The city of Sibiu and its surroundings are one of the most visited areas in Romania. It holds one of the best preserved historical sites in the country, many of its medieval fortifications having been kept in excellent state. Its old center has begun the process for becoming a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2004. Sibiu and its surrounding area have many significant museums, with 12 institutions housing art collections, paintings, and exhibits in decorative arts, archeology, anthropology, history, industrial archeology and history of technology and natural sciences.
The city also lies close to the Făgăraș Mountains - a very popular trekking destination, close to the Păltiniș and Arena Platos ski resorts - popular winter holiday destinations, and it is at the heart of the former Saxon communities in Transylvania renowned for its fortified churches.
Fortified Lutheran church of Gușterița neighbourhood, 13th century
Since 2007, a traditional Christmas market is held for the first time in Sibiu, Romania. The first of its kind in Romania, it is inspired by Viennese Christmas markets, being a project developed by the Social Attaché of the Austrian Embassy in Romania, dr.h.c. Barbara Schöfnagel It was held in the "Lesser Square" (Piața Mică) with 38 small stalls, a small stage and an area dedicated to children, having several mechanical attractions installed there. Since 2008 the market is held in the "Grand Square" and grew to a number of about 70 stalls, a bigger stage was set up, where Christmas carols concerts are held. An ice skating rink and a children's workshop are also attractions which have been added in the following years.[26] It was the first Christmas Market in Romania,[27] but soon other Christmas markets emerged across the country. In 2013, the Sibiu Christmas markets was included in the "15 Of the Most Beautiful Christmas Markets in Europe"[28]
Main sights[edit]
Sibiu Lutheran Cathedral
Market in the Large Square, 1790, painting by Franz Neuhauser the Younger
Christmas Fair in the Large Square
Coopers Tower
The House with Caryatids on Mitropoliei Street, constructed in 1786
Pasajul Scărilor (Passage of the Stairs) in the Lower Town
Much of the city's aspect is due to its position, easily defensible, but allowing horizontal development. The old city of Sibiu lies on the right bank of the Cibin River, on a hill situated at about 200 m from the river. It consists of two distinct entities: the Upper Town and the Lower Town. Traditionally, the Upper Town was the wealthier part and commercial outlet, while the Lower Town served as the manufacturing area.
The Lower Town
(German: Unterstadt, Romanian: Orașul de jos) comprises the area between the river and the hill, and it developed around the earliest fortifications. The streets are long and quite wide for medieval city standards, with small city squares at places. The architecture is rather rustic: typically two-storey houses with tall roofs and gates opening passages to inner courts.
Most of the exterior fortifications were lost to industrial development and modern urban planning in the mid-late 19th century; only four towers still exist. A building associated with newer urbanism of the period is the Independența Highschool.
This area has the oldest church in the city, dating back to 1292.
The Upper Town (German: Oberstadt, Romanian: Orașul de sus) is organised around three city squares and a set of streets along the line of the hill. As the main area for burgher activities, the area contains most points of interest in the city.
Grand Square
(German: Großer Ring, Romanian: Piața Mare ) is, as its name suggests, the largest square of the city, and has been the center of the city since the 15th century. At 142 meters long and 93 meters wide, it is one of the largest ones in Transylvania.
Brukenthal Palace, one of the most important Baroque monuments in Romania, lies on the north-western corner of the square. It was erected between 1777 and 1787 as the main residence for the Governor of Transylvania Samuel von Brukenthal. It houses the main part of the National Brukenthal Museum, opened in 1817, making it one of the oldest museums in the world. Next to the palace is the Blue House or Moringer House, an 18th-century Baroque house bearing the old coat of arms of Sibiu on its façade.
Interior of the Sibiu Orthodox Cathedral
On the north side is the Jesuit Church, along with its dependencies, the former residence of the Jesuits in Sibiu. Also on the north side, at the beginning of the 20th century an Art Nouveau building was constructed on the west part, now it houses the mayor's office.
Liars Bridge in Lesser Square, erected in 1859
Next to the Jesuit Church on the north side is the Council Tower, one of the city's symbols. This former fortification tower from the 13th century has been successively rebuilt over the years. The building nearby used to be the City Council's meeting place; beneath it lies an access way between the Grand Square and the Lesser Square.
On the south and east sides are two- or three-storey houses, having tall attics with small windows known as the city's eyes. Most of these houses are dated 15th to 19th centuries, and most of them are Renaissance or Baroque in style.
Lesser Square (Small Square, German: Kleiner Ring) as its name implies, is a smaller square situated in the northern part of the Upper Town. After the 2007 rehabilitation there has been an increase in the number of small businesses such as pubs and restaurants in this area.
The square is connected to the other two squares and to other streets by small, narrow passages. The main access from the Lower City is through Ocnei Street, which divides the square in two. The street passes under the Liar's Bridge - the first bridge in Romania to have been cast in iron (1859).[29]
To the right of the bridge is another symbol of the city, The House of the Arts, a 14th-century arched building formerly belonging to the Butchers' Guild. On the left side of the bridge is the Luxemburg House, a Baroque four-storey building.
Huet Square
is the third of the three main squares of Sibiu. Its most notable feature is the Evangelical Lutheran Cathedral in its center. It is the place where the earliest fortifications have been built in the late 12th century or early 13th century. The buildings around this square are mainly Gothic. On the west side lies the Brukenthal Highschool, in place of a former 14th-century school.
The Thick Tower
The Fortifications
of Sibiu made the city one of the most important fortified cities in Central Europe. Multiple rings were built around the city, most of them out of clay bricks. The south-eastern fortifications are the best kept, and all three parallel lines are still visible. The first is an exterior earth mound, the second is a 10-meter-tall red brick wall, and the third line comprises towers linked by another 10-meter-tall wall. All structures are connected via a labyrinth of tunnels and passageways, designed to ensure transport between the city and lines of defense.
In the 16th century more modern elements were added to the fortifications, mainly leaf-shaped bastions. Two of these survived to this day, as the Haller Bastion (all the way down Coposu Boulevard) and "Soldisch Bastion".
The Passage of the Stairs, leads down to the lower section of Sibiu. It descends along some fortifications under the support arches. It is the most picturesque of the several passages linking the two sides of the old city.
Health
Health[edit]
Sibiu County Hospital
Sibiu is one of the important medical centers of Romania, housing many important medical facilities:
•County Hospital
•Academic Emergency Hospital;
•Hospital of Pediatrics;
•Military Emergency Hospital;
•CFR Hospital (Romanian Railways Hospital);
•"Dr. Gheorghe Preda" Psychiatry Hospital
•other smaller private clinics
The city also houses one of the largest private hospitals in the country, Polisano.
Education[edit]
Samuel von Brukenthal High School
Sibiu is an important centre of higher education, with over 23,000 students in four public and private higher institutions.[30][31][32][33]
The Lucian Blaga University of Sibiu was founded in 1990, with five faculties: Engineering and Sciences; Language Sciences; History and Law; Medicine; Food and Textile Processing Technology. Nowadays, there are 10 faculties and departments.
Sibiu also houses the Nicolae Bălcescu Land Forces Academy and the Military Foreign Language Center as well as two private universities, Romanian-German University and Alma Mater University.
In Sibiu there are 20 educational institutions on the secondary level, the most important of which are:
•Gheorghe Lazăr National College - sciences and informatics, first opened in 1692 as a Jesuit College
•
Gheorghe Lazăr National College
Samuel von Brukenthal National College - German language high school
•Octavian Goga National College - social sciences, sciences, informatics and linguistics
•Onisifor Ghibu Theoretical Highschool - informatics, sciences, sports, theater and linguistics
•Andrei Șaguna National College - training for school teacher and linguistics
•Constantin Noica Theoretical Highschool - sciences and linguistics
•Daniel Popovici Barcianu Highschool - agricultural sciences
•George Baritiu National College - economic sciences
•Nicolae Iorga Elementary school
•Regina Maria Elementary school
From the inside of Ferrari World arena. Its a huge structure made up with the help of Space Frame. Gigantic heights and beautiful curves!
Sir Joshua Reynolds
West Building, Main Floor—Gallery 59
•Date: 1784
•Medium: Oil on Canvas
•Dimensions:
oOverall: 91.6 × 76.4 cm (36 1/16 × 30 1/16 in.)
oFramed: 108 × 93.7 × 5.7 cm (42½ × 36⅞ × 2¼ in.)
•Credit Line: Andrew W. Mellon Collection
•Accession Number: 1942.8.21
•Artists/Makers:
oPainter: Gilbert Stuart: American, 1755-1828
Provenance
Commissioned by John Boydell [1719-1804], London; probably inherited by his nephew and business partner, Josiah Boydell [1752-1817], London. Possibly sold by an unidentified consigner at (Greenwood & Co., London, 3 April 1806, no. 49) and (Greenwood & Co., London, 21 May 1807, no. 40), purchaser not recorded.[1] Murrough O’Brien, 5th Earl of Inchiquin and 1st Marquis of Thomond [d. 1808];[2] by descent to his nephew, James O’Brien, 7th Earl of Inchiquin and 3rd Marquis of Thomond [1769-1855], Bath.[3] (T.H. Robinson, London, and M. Knoedler & Co., New York), October 1919; sold 11 December 1919 to Thomas B. Clarke [1848-1931], New York;[4] his estate; sold as part of the Clarke collection on 29 January 1936, through (M. Knoedler & Co., New York) to The A.W. Mellon Educational and Charitable Trust, Pittsburgh; gift 1942 to NGA.
[1]The Index of Paintings Sold in the British Isles during the Nineteenth Century, Burton B. Fredericksen, ed. (Santa Barbara, California and Oxford, England, 1990), 2: 951, as “Stuart, An Original Protrait of Sir Joshua Reynolds,” consigned by “a gentleman,” and as “G. Stuart, A Portrait of Sir Joshua Reynolds.” Only the second price is recorded, with some question, as three pounds, six pence. Since this is a very small price for a full-size portrait, perhaps these sales are instead for the “Small head, Sir Joshua Reynolds, sketch” attributed to Sturart that was sold at Christie’s on 5 February 1818 by a Mr. Rising, with a small head of the Marquis of Landsown, also attributed to Stuart. The pair went for five guineas. (Information courtesy of The Getty Provenance Index, 7 April 1992).
[2]Jane Stuart, “The Youth of Gilbert Stuart,” Scribner’s Monthly 13, no. 5 (March 1877), 644 recorded that “Lord Inchiquin” paid 250 guineas for her father’s portrait of Reynolds. It has been assumed that this was the 5th Earl, whose wife was Mary Palmer [d. 1820], Reynolds niece and heiress. On the Earls of Inchiquin see Burke’s Genealogical and Heraldic History of the Peerage, Baronetage and Knightage, 104th ed., London, 1967, 1325-1330.
[3]According to Knoedler’s records (letter from Melissa De Medeiros, librarian, 5 June 1992, NGA curatorial file), the portrait was from the estate of James O’Brien, the 3rd and last marquis of Thomond, and “the present Lord Inchiquin is unable to say when the picture left the family.” Henry William Beechey, ed., The Literary Works of Sir Joshua Reynolds, First President of the Royal Academy, rev. ed., 2 vols., London, 1855, 300, records the portrait and reproduces an engraving of it as his frontispieces, but he does not record any owner after Boydell.
[4]Knoedler purchased a joint share from T.H. Robinson in October 1919 and sold the painting to Clarke in December. The name of the seller and the date of purchase are recorded in a copy of Portraits by Early American Painters of the Seventeenth, Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries Collected by Thomas B. Clarke, (Exh. cat., Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1928) annotated with information from files of M. Knoedler & Co., NY (copy in NGA curatorial records and in NGA library).
Associated Names
•Boydell, John
•Boydell, Josiah
•Clarke, Thomas Benedict
•Greenwood & Co.
•Greenwood & Co.
•Knoedler & Company, M.
•Knoedler & Company, M.
•Mellon Educational and Charitable Trust, The A.W.
•O’Brien, 5th Earl Inchiquin, Murrough
•O’Brien, 7th Earl Inchiquin, James
•Robinson, T.H.
Exhibition History
•1786—John Boydell’s Gallery, London, 1786.
•1792—Possibly Boydell’s Shakespeare Gallery, London, 1792-1802.
•1922—Portraits Painted in Europe by Early American Artists, The Union League Club, New York, January 1922, no. 1.
•1928—Portraits by Early American Artists of the Seventeenth, Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries, Collected by Thomas B. Clarke, Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1928-1931, unnumbered and unpaginated catalogue.
•1944—Gilbert Stuart: Portraits Lent by the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, 1944-1945, no. 1.
•1967—Gilbert Stuart, Portraitist of the Young Republic, National Gallery of Art; Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, 1967, no. 12.
•2004—Gilbert Stuart, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; National Gallery of Art (for the National Portrait Gallery), Washington, D.C., 2004-2005, no. 14, repro.
Bibliography
•1784—Sir Joshua Reynolds’ Diary, 1784, at the Royal Academy of Arts, London
•1786—”Fabius.” “The Arts. No. II. Alderman Boydell’s Gallery.” The Morning Post, and Daily Advertiser. 14 November 1786: 2.
•1792—Felton, Samuel. Testimonies to the Genius and Memory of Sir Joshua Reynolds. London, 1792: 67.
•1804—”Monthly Retrospect of the Fine Arts.” Monthly Magazine; or British Register 17 (1 July 1804): 595.
•1855—Beechy, Henry William, ed. The Literary Works of Sir Joshua Renolds, First President of the Royal Academy. Rev. ed., 2 vols. London, 1855:1:frontispiece, engraving by E. Scriven, 300.
•1865—Leslie, Charles Robert and Tom Taylor. Life and Times of Sir Joshua Reynolds, with Notices of some of his Contemporaries. 2 vols. London, 1865:2:468
•1869—Dunlap, William. A History of the Rise and Progress of The Arts of Design in the United States. 2 vols. Reprinted in 3. New York, 1969 (1834): 1:184, 219.
•1877—Stuart, Jane. “The Youth of Gilbert Stuart.” Scribner’s Monthly 13, no. 5 (March 1877):644
•1879—Mason, George C. The Life and Works of Gilbert Stuart. New York, 1879: 248.
•1880—MFA 1880, 52, no. 508
•1913—Strickland, Walter G. A Dictionary of Irish Artists. 2 vols. Dublin and London, 1913: 2:416
•1922—Sherman, Frederick Fairchild. “Current Comment: Exhibitions.” ArtAm 10, no. 3 (April, 1922):139 repro., 143-144.
•1926—Park 1926, 641-642, no. 702, repro.
•1928—Portraits by Early American Artists of the Seventeenth, Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries, Collected by Thomas B. Clarke. Exh. cat. Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1928, unnumbered.
•1932—Whitley 1932, 46-47, 55-56
•1949—Paintings and Sculpture from the Mellon Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1949 (reprinted 1953 and 1958): 133, repro.
•1959—Mount, Charles Merril. “A Hidden Treasure in Britain.” The Art Quarterly 22, no. 3 (Autumn, 1959): 220, 223
•1964—Mount 1964, 90, 362
•1970—American Paintings and Sculpture: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1970: 104, repro.
•1974—Bruntjen, Hermann Arnold. John Boydell (1719-1804): A Study of Art Patronage and Publishing in Georgian London. Ann Arbor, Michigan, 1974:28-29, 36, 58, 63
•1975—Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington. New York, 1975: 382, color repro.
•1980—American Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1980: 233, repro.
•1981—Williams, William James. A Heritage of American Paintings from the National Gallery of Art. New York, 1981: color repro. 50, 62.
•1984—Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington. Rev. ed. New York, 1984: 378, no. 534, color repro.
•1985—Bruntjen, Sven H. A. John Boydell (1719-1804): A Study of Art Patronage and Publishing in Georgian London. New York and London, 1985: 28-29. 36, 58, 63.
•1986—McLanathan, Richard. Gilbert Stuart. New York, 1986:51, 54, color repro.
•1990—Harris, Eileen. “Robert Adam’s Ornament for Alderman Boydell’s Picture Frames.” Furniture History: The Journal of the Furniture History Society. 26 (1990): 93-96, figs. 1-3
•1992—American Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1992: 346, repro.
•1993—Rather, Susan. “Stuart and Reynolds: A Portrait of Challenge.” Eighteenth-Century Studies 27, no. 1 (Fall 1993): 61-84.
•1995—Miles, Ellen G. American Paintings of the Eighteenth Century. The Collections of the National Gallery of Art Systematic Catalogue. Washington, D.C., 1995: 172-177, color repro. 175.
•2000—Kirsh, Andrea, and Rustin S. Levenson. Seeing Through Paintings: Physical Examination in Art Historical Studies. Materials and Meaning in the Fine Arts 1. New Haven, 2000: 262.
•2016—Rather, Susan. The American School: Artists and Status in the Late Colonial and Early National Era. New Haven, 2016: 172-174, color fig. 128.
From American Paintings of the Eighteenth Century:
1942.8.21 (574)
Sir Joshua Reynolds
•1784
•Oil on canvas, 91.6 × 76.4 (36 1/16 × 30 1/16)
•Andrew W. Mellon Collection
Technical Notes
The primary support is a mediumweight, plain-weave fabric with a vertical seam 4.5 cm from the left side. A second, almost identical fabric is stretched beneath this support. Both the added strip and the lining appear to be original to the painting, as only one set of tack holes is found in the fabric, which has its original tacking margins. The four-member mortise-and-tenon, keyed stretcher also appears to be original. The thin, grayish white ground extends over the edges of the fabric, indicating that the canvas was prepared before stretching. The ground color contributes generally to the tonality in the more thinly painted passages in the hair, scroll, and column. In the more thickly painted coat, face, and hands, the ground is visible around the eyes and in the sitter’s left hand.
A mild, retouched abrasion is in the more thinly painted passages, with an untouched area of abrasion in the sitter’s left hand. Heavy retouching is evident in the areas of abrasion in the jacket. The varnish is a somewhat discolored, thick, and uneven glossy layer of natural resin.
Provenance
Commissioned by John Boydell [1719-1804], London; probably inherited by his nephew and business partner Josiah Boydell [1752-1817], London. Possibly sold by an unidentified consignor at (Greenwood & Co., London, 3 April 1806, no. 49) and (Greenwood & Co., London, 21 May 1807, no. 40), purchaser not recorded.1 Murrough O’Brien, 5th Earl of Inchiquin and 1st Marquis of Thomond [d. 1808];2 by descent to his nephew James O’Brien, 7th Earl of Inchiquin and 3rd Marquis of Thomond [1769-1855], Bath.3 (T.H. Robinson, London, and M. Knoedler & Co., New York), October 1919; sold 11 December 1919 to Thomas B. Clarke [1848-1931], New York;4 his estate; sold as part of the Clarke collection on 29 January 1936, through (M. Knoedler & Co., New York), to The A.W. Mellon Educational and Charitable Trust, Pittsburgh.
Exhibited
John Boydell’s Gallery, London, 1786. Possibly at Boydell’s Shakespeare Gallery, London 1792-1802. Union League Club, January 1922, no. 1. Philadelphia 1928, unnumbered. Richmond 1944-1945, no. 1. Gilbert Stuart, NGA; RISD; PAFA, 1967, no. 12.
Gilbert Stuart painted this portrait of sixty-one-year-old Sir Joshua Reynolds (1723-1792), the celebrated English painter and president of the Royal Academy of Arts, in July 1784. It is one of fifteen portraits of painters and engravers commissioned from Stuart by John Boydell, the London print publisher, of the men associated with his commercial success. In addition to Reynolds, Stuart painted portraits of John Singleton Copley (National Portrait Gallery, London), Benjamin West (National Portrait Gallery, London), Ozias Humphrey (Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford), William Miller, and Richard Patón, and engravers James Heath (Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford), William Woollett (Tate Gallery, London), John Hall (National Portrait Gallery, London), Johann Gottlieb Facius, Georg Sigmund Facius, John Browne, and Richard Earlom, as well as Boydell and his nephew and partner Josiah Boydell.5 He completed the portraits of Copley, Heath, and Josiah Boydell by 3 April 1784, when Robert Adam, the Scottish architect, designed an elaborate frame that positioned the portraits as a group above Copley’s history painting The Death of Major Peirson (1782-1784, Tate Gallery, London).6 Boydell had commissioned the Death of Peirson and had employed Heath as its engraver. He exhibited these paintings at 28 Haymarket, London, before moving them to the gallery in his print shop at 90 Cheapside.7 On 12 June, Robert Adam designed a second grouping of a number of circular, oval, and rectangular frames on one wall, perhaps for the display of some of Stuart’s fifteen portraits with other, horizontal works.8
Reynolds sat for his portrait that July. He listed the sittings in his pocket diary : on 23 July, “9½ Mr. Stewart” (fractions indicate the half-hour), and on 28 and 30 July, also at half past nine.9 A month later, on 27 August, “Mr. Stewart” had a final appointment at nine o’clock.10 The result shows Reynolds in a black suit, white shirt, and powdered gray wig. His cheeks are ruddy and his wig frizzy, in a natural style. Seated in an upholstered chair, Reynolds rests his hands in his lap as he holds a gold snuffbox in his left hand. Between the thumb and index finger of his right hand he takes a pinch of snuff. On a red-draped table beside him are rolled sheets of paper; a column and a red curtain fill the background.11 Stuart’s technique, with its loose, dry brushwork, is similar to that in his full-length of The Skater (Portrait of William Grant of 1782 [1950. 18.1] and his portrait of Sir John Dick of 1783 [1954.1.10], English works that mark the artist’s transition from the more evenly painted colonial American manner to his later fully calligraphic style. This transitional quality can be seen in his modeling of Reynolds’ face, where hatched brushwork defines the features, the shadows, and the wig, while a more thickly applied paint layer depicts the skin. The looser brushwork was undoubtedly a conscious imitation of Reynolds’ own technique.
In this portrait, Reynolds appears slightly older than in his self-portrait in academic robes with the bust of Michelangelo (c. 1780, Royal Academy of Arts, London). Instead, he more closely resembles his self-portrait of about 1789 (Royal Collection, London).12 Despite this similarity, Sir Joshua remarked about Stuart’s painting, according to American painter Charles Fraser, that “if that was like him, he did not know his own appearance.”13 As Susan Rather indicates in her close reading of the portrait, Reynolds no doubt was referring to the characterization. As she aptly points out, the two men, one a young artist and the other the most admired British portrait painter of the time, shared the habit of taking snuff. She suggests that Reynolds might have though the gesture of taking snuff was inappropriate for his portrait. Through this response to the portrait, however, she interprets Stuart as satirizing Reynolds “by coded references to his deafness and irascibility, while overtly presenting the Royal Academy president in a manner that Reynolds, in his public addresses on art, condemned.”14 The gesture of pinching snuff might, on the other hand, be seen as an early example of Stuart’s exceptional gift of interpreting personality through the choice of a characteristic pose, in this case, one with which he was very familiar.
Stuart’s series of artists’ portraits was completed by the fall of 1786, when it was exhibited at Boydell’s gallery at 90 Cheapside. Among the many visitors who saw the portraits there was Sophie de la Roche, a young traveler to London who noted in her journal on 28 September 1786 that Boydell’s second floor exhibition room was “devoted to works by native artists, and contains portraits of famous English painters, especially engravers.”15 “Fabius” wrote a more detailed description for the 14 November issue of the Morning Post, and Daily Advertiser. “The inner room is now furnishing wholly with modern paintings—around it on the top are portraits of the most eminent English artists, whose works have been purchased, and engraved from by the Alderman, or of engravers, whom he hath at different times employed to engrave for him—They are strong likenesses, and by Stuart.” A writer for the London Monthly Magazine; or British Register later wrote about the group of portraits when remarking on the generally commonplace appearance of the artists of his time in their portraits, compared to the distinguished air of Van Dyck’s portraits of seventeenth-century painters.
Very different are the portraits of the painters of the present day. A large number of them sat to Gilbert Stuart the American, who painted them for Alderman Boydell; they were afterwards shown at his gallery. They were all strong resemblances, but a set of more uninteresting, vapid countenances it is not easy to imagine; neither dignity, elevation nor grace appear in any of them; and had not the catalogue given their names they might have passed for a company of cheesemongers or grocers. The late President of the Royal Academy [Reynolds] was depicted with a wig that was as tight and close as a hackney coachman’s caxon, and in the act of taking a pinch of snuff. The present President [West] and many others were delineated as smug upon the mart as so many mercers or haberdashers of small wares, all of which originated in the bad taste of the sitters.16
The commission for this series of artists’ portraits predates by two years Boydell’s announcement in December 1786 of plans for a collection of paintings by English artists on subjects from Shakespeare. He intended to commission the series and to offer two sizes of engravings for public subscription. By the time the Shakespeare Gallery opened at 52 Pall Mall in 1789, thirty-four of the paintings were completed.17 Boydell moved Stuart’s portrait of Reynolds there by 1792, when Samuel Felton, the author of Testimonials to the Genius and Memory of Sir Joshua Reynolds (London, 1792), listed a number of portraits and self-portraits of Reynolds, including one “in Mr. Boydell’s Shakespeare Gallery, among those of the other painters who are now engaged in painting scenes for Mr. Boydell’s edition of that poet.” Felton declared the Boydell portrait “undoubtedly the best painted Head of Sir Joshua,” thinking it was a self-portrait.18 That he was referring to Stuart’s portrait is confirmed by an engraving of it by Johann and Georg Facius that Boydell published in 1802. Crediting Stuart as the painter, it is inscribed “From the Original Picture in the Shakespeare Gallery.”19 The Shakespeare Gallery project went bankrupt in 1804, and Boydell offered the collection for sale by lottery to raise funds to repay extensive loans. His Plan of the Shakespeare Lottery lists sixty-two prizes, the last being the entire contents of the Shakespeare Gallery. The lottery was held on 28 January 1805.20 None of Stuart’s portraits was included, however. The most likely scenario is that they remained at the print gallery at 90 Cheapside, which became the property of Boydell’s nephew Josiah after Boydell’s death in 1804.21 In 1825 Henry Graves acquired the holdings of the Boydell firm when he, Francis Graham Moon, and J. Boys purchased the company’s stock and leasehold and changed the firm’s name to Moon, Boys and Graves.22 Three of the Stuart portraits—those of John Hall and Benjamin West (National Portrait Gallery, London) and James Heath (Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford)—can be traced to Henry Graves and Company, the successor firm of Moon, Boys and Graves.23
Charles Bestland (b. 1764?) copied the portrait in miniature.24
EGM
Notes
1.Fredericksen 2:951, as “Stuart, An Original Portrait of Sir Joshua Reynolds,” consigned by “a gentleman,” and as “G. Stuart, A Portrait of Sir Joshua Reynolds.” Only the second price is recorded, with some question, as three pounds, six pence. Since this is a very small price for a full-size portrait, perhaps these sales are instead for the “Small head, Sir Joshua Reynolds, sketch” attributed to Stuart that was sold at Christie’s on 5 February 1818 by a Mr. Rising, with a small head of the Marquis of Lansdowne, also attributed to Stuart. The pair went for five guineas. (Information courtesy of the Getty Provenance Index, 7 April 1992.)
2.Stuart 1877, 644, recorded that “Lord Inchiquin” paid 250 guineas for her father’s portrait of Reynolds. It has been assumed that this was the 5th earl, whose wife was Mary Palmer [d. 1820], Reynolds’ niece and heiress. On the Earls of Inchiquin see Burke 1967, 1325-1330.
3.According to Knoedler’s records (letter from Melissa De Medeiros, librarian, 5 June 1992; NGA), the portrait was from the estate of James O’Brien, the 3rd and last Marquis of Thomond, and “the present Lord Inchiquin is unable to say when the picture left the family.” Beechey 1855, 300, records the portrait and reproduces an engraving of it as his frontispiece, but he does not record any owner after Boydell.
4.Knoedler purchased a joint share from T.H. Robinson in October 1919 and sold the painting to Clarke in December. The name of the seller and the date of purchase are recorded in an annotated copy of Clarke 1928 in the NGA library.
5.Whitley 1932, 55, lists the portraits without giving his source. It may have been the catalogue to which the anonymous author in Monthly Magazine 1804 referred; no copy has been located. On the portrait of West see Walker 1985,11543-544; 2 :pl. 1352. A portrait at the Holburne of Menstrie Museum, Bath, has been identified as that of Josiah Boydell, but the identity is open to some question. Many of the portraits are unlocated today.
6.Harris 1990, 93, and fig. 1 (Sir John Soane’s Museum, London); this reference courtesy of Jacob Simon, National Portrait Gallery, London.
7.Prown 1966, 2:307.
8.Harris 1990, 94 and fig. 3, dated 12 June 1784 (Sir John Soane’s Museum).
9.Reynolds’ pocket ledger for 1784, Royal Academy of Arts, London. The entries are also cited in Leslie and Taylor 1865, 2:468, and in Whitley 1932, 46.
10.Mount 1959, 223, proposed without documentation that the August appointment was for Stuart to finish a copy of one of Reynolds’ self-portraits (the attribution of the copy to Stuart is Mount’s). Stuart has also been credited, without apparent documentation, with the copy of a Reynolds self-portrait that was exhibited at the Maryland Historical Society in 1853 and is now in the Charles J.M. Eaton Collection, Peabody Institute, Baltimore. See Peabody Institute 1949, 19; Yarnall and Gerdts 1986,3418.
11.Stuart widened the canvas of the portrait from the standard kit-cat proportions of 91.4 by 71 cm (36 by 28 inches) by adding a 5~cm (2-inch) strip of canvas on the left, which did not change the composition appreciably. It may have been done in keeping with its setting in Boydell’s gallery.
12.Penny 1986, 287-288, no. 116, repro., and 320-322, no. 149, repro.
13.Dunlap 1834, 1:184, quoting Fraser, who added that the remark “was certainly not made in the spirit of his usual courtesy.”
14.Rather 1993, 63-65.
15.Her description of BoydelPs shop is quoted in Bruntjen 1985, 28-29, from Sophie in London (London, 1933), 237-239.
16.Monthly Magazine 1804, 595, quoted by Rather 1993, 63.
17.Friedman 1976, 3, 71-73.
18.Felton 1792, 67; Whitley 1932, 47.
19.See Park 1926, 642; an example of the engraving is in the NGA curatorial file. Another engraving by E. Scriven is listed in O’Donoghue 1906, 3 (1912): 564.
20.For an example of the Plan, published in London on 5 April 1804, see the scrapbook collection of Press Cuttings 3 : 815-81 8. William Tassie, a gem engraver, won the lot that included the Shakespeare paintings, which he sold at Christie’s, 17-20 May 1805. The catalogue is discussed in Fredericksen 1:52; the paintings are indexed under Boydell’s name and listed by the name of each artist.
21.Boydell also acquired Copley’s Death of Major Peirson, which he sold at Christie’s on 8 March 1806, lot 98; it was bought in and sold to Copley; Prown 1966, 2:440, and Fredericksen 2:264.
22.Bruntjen 1985, 242-243; on the history of this firm see also Graves 1897, 143-148 (the author was the son of Henry Graves), and the entry on Henry Graves (1806-1892) in DNB 22 (supplement), 771-772.
23.Information on the provenance of these portraits is courtesy of Jacob Simon, Keeper of i8th Century Portraits, National Portrait Gallery, London, and Elizabeth Mankin Kornhauser, curator of American Art, Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford.
24.Foskett 1972, 1:163.
References
•1786—”Fabius.” “The Arts. No. II. Alderman Boydell’s Gallery.” Morning Post, and Daily Advertiser. 14 November: 2.
•1792—Felton : 67.
•1804—Monthly Magazine : 595 .
•1834—Dunlap: 1:184, 219.
•1855—Beechey: 1:300, and frontispiece engraving by E. Scriven.
•1865—Leslie and Taylor: 2:468.
•1877—Stuart: 644.
•1879—Mason: 248.
•1880—MFA: 52.no. 508.
•1913—Strickland: 2:416.
•1922—Sherman: 139 repro., 143-144.
•1926—Park: 641-642, no. 702, repro.
•1932—Whitley: 46-47, 55-56.
•1959—Mount: 220, 223.
•1964—Mount: 90, 362.
•1981—Williams: 62, color repro. 50.
•1984—Walker: 378, no. 534, color repro.
•1985—Bruntjen: 28-29, 36, 58, 63.
•1986—McLanathan: 51 , color repro. 54.
•1990—Harris: 93-96 and figs. 1-3.
•1993—Rather: 61-84.
Details of a pigeon's wing as it balances on one of our feeders trying to get at some seeds. Primary and secondary wing feathers are clearly seen along with the covert feathers underneath. These are surprisingly delicate structures and it's not often we get the chance to get a good look at them like this
Following, a text, in english, from Wikipedia the Free Encyclopedia:
Foro Romano
Roma, Largo della Salara Vecchia 5/6
The valley of Foro, nestled between the seven hills of Rome, was in ancient times a marsh. From the end of the seventh century B.C., after the improvement and drainage of the marshes, the Foro Romano (a forum) was constructed and this served as the centre of public life in Rome for over a thousand years. Over the course of the centuries, the various monuments were constructed: firstly, those structures which served political, religious and economic purposes and, later, during the second century B.C., the civil buildings or ‘basilicas’, which functioned as juridical centres. At the end of the Republic era of Ancient Rome, the Foro Romano was inadequate in its functioning as a civil and administrative centre. The various Emperors and their dynasties added only monuments of prestige: The Temple of Vespasian and Titus and that of Antoninus Pio and Faustina dedicated to the memory of the Divine Emperors, the monumental arch of Settimo Severo, built on the extreme west of the square in 203 A.D. to celebrate his military victories. The last great addition was made in the first years of the fourth century A.D. under the Emperor Massenzio, a temple dedicated to the memory of his son Romulus. The imposing Basilica on the Velia was restructured at the end of the fourth century A.D. and the last monument to be erected in the Foro was the Column of 608 A.D. in honour of the Byzantine Emperor Foca.
Copyright © 2003-2007 Pierreci
The Roman Forum, Forum Romanum, (although the Romans called it more often the Forum Magnum or just the Forum) was the central area around which ancient Rome developed, in which commerce and the administration of justice took place. The communal hearth was also located here. It was built on the site of a past cemetery.
Sequences of remains of paving show that sediment eroded from the surrounding hills was already raising the level of the forum in early Republican times. Originally it had been marshy ground, which was drained by the Tarquins with the Cloaca Maxima. Its final travertine paving, still visible, dates from the reign of Augustus.
Structures within the Forum
The ruins within the forum clearly show how urban spaces were utilized during the Roman Age. The Roman Forum includes a modern statue of Julius Caesar and the following major monuments, buildings, and ancient ruins:
Temples
Temple of Castor and Pollux
Temple of Saturn
Temple of Vesta
Temple of Venus and Roma
Temple of Antoninus and Faustina
Temple of Caesar
Temple of Vespasian and Titus
Temple of Concord
Shrine of Venus Cloacina
Basilicas
Basilica Aemilia
Basilica Julia
Basilica of Maxentius and Constantine
Arches
Arch of Septimius Severus
Arch of Titus
Arch of Tiberius
Arch of Augustus
Temple of Saturn
Temple of Castor and Pollux
Temple of Vesta
Temple of Venus and Roma
Temple of Antoninus and Faustina
Temple of Concord
Campo Vaccino, by Claude Lorrain
The Roman Forum
Other structures
Regia, originally the residence of the kings of Rome or at least their main headquarters, and later the office of the Pontifex Maximus, the high priest of Roman religion.
Rostra, from where politicians made their speeches to the Roman citizens
Curia Hostilia (later rebuilt as the Curia Julia), the site of the Roman Senate
Tabularium
Gemonian stairs
Clivus Capitolinus was the street that started at the Arch of Tiberius, wound around the Temple of Saturn, and ended at Capitoline Hill.
Umbilicus Urbi, the designated centre of the city from which and to which all distances in Rome and the Roman Empire were measured
Milliarium Aureum
Lapis Niger, a shrine also known as the Black Stone
Atrium Vestae, the house of the Vestal Virgins
A processional street, the Via Sacra, linked the Atrium Vetae with the Colosseum. By the end of the Empire, it had lost its everyday use but remained a sacred place.
Column of Phocas, the last monument built within the Forum
Tullianum, the prison used to hold various foreign leaders and generals.
Excavation and preservation
An anonymous 8th century traveler from Einsiedeln (now in Switzerland) reported that the Forum was already falling apart in his time. During the Middle Ages, though the memory of the Forum Romanum persisted, its monuments were for the most part buried under debris, and its location was designated the "Campo Vaccino" or "cattle field," located between the Capitoline Hill and the Colosseum. The return of Pope Urban V from Avignon in 1367 led to an increased interest in ancient monuments, partly for their moral lesson and partly as a quarry for new buildings being undertaken in Rome after a long lapse. Artists from the late 15th century drew the ruins in the Forum, antiquaries copied inscriptions in the 16th century, and a tentative excavation was begun in the late 18th century.
A cardinal took measures to drain it again and built the Alessandrine neighborhood over it. But the excavation by Carlo Fea, who began clearing the debris from the Arch of Septimius Severus in 1803, and archaeologists under the Napoleonic regime marked the beginning of clearing the Forum, which was only fully excavated in the early 20th century.
Remains from several centuries are shown together, due to the Roman practice of building over earlier ruins.
Other forums in Rome
Other fora existed in other areas of the city; remains of most of them, sometimes substantial, still exist. The most important of these are a number of large imperial fora forming a complex with the Forum Romanum: the Forum Iulium, Forum Augustum, the Forum Transitorium (also: Forum Nervae), and Trajan's Forum. The planners of the Mussolini era removed most of the Medieval and Baroque strata and built the Via dei Fori Imperiali road between the Imperial Fora and the Forum. There is also:
The Forum Boarium, dedicated to the commerce of cattle, between the Palatine Hill and the river Tiber,
The Forum Holitorium, dedicated to the commerce of herbs and vegetables, between the Capitoline Hill and the Servian walls,
The Forum Piscarium, dedicated to the commerce of fish, between the Capitoline hill and the Tiber, in the area of the current Roman Ghetto,
The Forum Suarium, dedicated to the commerce of pork, near the barracks of the cohortes urbanae in the northern part of the campus Martius,
The Forum Vinarium, dedicated to the commerce of wine, in the area now of the "quartiere" Testaccio, between Aventine Hill and the Tiber.
Other markets were known but remain unidentifiable due to a lack of precise information on the function of the sites. Among these, the Forum cuppedinis, was known as a general market for many goods.
Fórum Romano.
O principal fórum da Roma antiga.
O Fórum Romano ( latim : Forum Romanum, italiano : Foro Romano) é um pequeno retângulo aberto rodeado pelas ruínas de antigos edifícios do governo no centro da cidade de Roma . Os cidadãos da cidade antiga referência a este mercado como a Magnum Fórum, ou simplesmente o Fórum . Foi durante séculos o centro da vida pública romana: o local de procissões triunfais e as eleições, palco para discursos públicos e núcleo de assuntos comerciais. Aqui estátuas e monumentos comemorou os grandes homens da cidade. O coração cheio de Roma antiga , foi chamado o local de encontro mais célebre do mundo, e em toda a história. [1] Localizado no pequeno vale entre o Palatino e Capitolino Hills , hoje o Fórum é um imenso arruinar de fragmentos de arquitetura intermitente e escavações arqueológicas atrair turistas numerosos.
Muitas das estruturas mais antigas e importantes da cidade antiga foram localizadas sobre ou próximo ao Fórum. O Reino de primeiros santuários e templos foram localizados na borda sudeste. Estes incluíram a sua antiga residência real antiga, a Regia ( século 8 aC ), bem como os arredores do complexo virgens vestais , as quais foram reconstruídas depois da ascensão de Roma imperial . Outros santuários arcaico para o noroeste desenvolvido na República formal Comitium , onde o Senado - bem como do governo republicano em si - começou. A Casa do Senado, repartições públicas, tribunais, templos, monumentos e estátuas gradualmente a área desordenado. Com o tempo a Comitium arcaica foi substituída pelo Fórum maiores eo foco da atividade judicial movida para a nova Basílica Emília (179 aC). Cerca de 130 anos depois, Júlio César construiu a basílica Julia , juntamente com a nova Cúria Júlia , a recentragem ambos os cargos judiciais e do próprio Senado. O Fórum serviu então como uma praça revitalizada em que o povo de Roma pudesse se reunir para comercial, político, judicial e religioso buscas em um número cada vez maior.
Eventualmente negócio muito económico e judicial seria a transferência de distância do Fórum de estruturas maiores e mais extravagantes para o norte. Após a construção do Fórum de Trajano (110 dC), essas atividades transferidas para o Ulpia Basílica . O reinado de Constantino, o Grande viu a divisão do império em suas metades oriental e ocidental, bem como a construção da Basílica de Maxêncio (312 dC), as principais última expansão do complexo do Fórum. Este devolveu o centro político do Fórum, até a queda do Império Romano do Ocidente quase dois séculos mais tarde.
Descrição
A plateia grego antigo (πλατεία), uma praça pública ou praça da cidade , foi o modelo utilizado como base para o fórum romano. No período Imperial os edifícios públicos de grande porte que se aglomeraram ao redor da praça central havia reduzido a área aberta a um retângulo de aproximadamente 130 por 50 metros, a sua dimensão de longo foi orientado de noroeste para sudeste e estendia desde o sopé da colina do Capitólio ao do Hill Velian . O Fórum bom incluídos nesta praça, os prédios de frente para ele e, às vezes, uma área adicional (o Adjectum Forum ) que prorroga a sudeste até o Arco de Tito . [2] O Fórum basílicas , embora originalmente concebido como escritórios do governo, foram as bases dos primeiros elaborados cristã igrejas. A arquitetura dos templos e edifícios judiciais do fórum romano pode ser visto copiado em muitas das estruturas atuais do governo moderno que ainda estão organizadas em torno de um espaço público central.
Originalmente, o site do Fórum foi pantanoso terreno, que foi drenada por Tarquínio com a Cloaca Máxima . Devido à sua localização, nos sedimentos de ambas as inundações do Rio Tibre ea erosão das colinas circundantes foram o aumento do nível do piso do Fórum durante séculos. Escavada seqüências de remanescentes de pavimento mostram que o sedimento corroído das colinas circundantes já levantava o nível no início republicano vezes. Como o chão em torno dos edifícios começou a subir, os moradores simplesmente abriu sobre os escombros que foi demais para remover. Seu final de travertino pavimentação, ainda visível, as datas do reinado de Augusto . As escavações no século 19 revelou uma camada em cima da outra. O nível mais profundo escavado foi de 3,60 metros acima do nível do mar. Achados arqueológicos mostram a atividade humana a esse nível com a descoberta de madeira carbonizada.
Uma importante função do Fórum, durante os dois republicanos e os tempos imperiais, era o de servir como local para os militares que culminou desfiles comemorativos conhecidos como Triunfos . generais vitoriosos entrou na cidade pelo oeste do Triunfo Gate ( Porta Triumphalis ) e circum o Palatino (esquerda) antes de prosseguir a partir do monte Velian abaixo da Via Sacra e no Fórum. A partir daí eles montar o Rise Capitolino ( Clivus Capitolinus ) até o Templo de Júpiter Optimus Maximus na cúpula do Capitólio. Pródiga banquetes públicos seguiu para baixo sobre o Fórum.
A área do Fórum foi originalmente uma gramínea pantanal . Ele foi drenado no século 7 aC, com a construção da Cloaca Maxima , um sistema de esgotos cobertos de grandes dimensões que desaguava no rio Tibre , quanto mais pessoas começaram a se estabelecer entre os dois morros.
Segundo a tradição, o começo do Fórum estão relacionadas com a aliança entre Rômulo , primeiro rei de Roma controlar o Monte Palatino , e seu rival, Tito Tácio , que ocupou a colina do Capitólio . Assim, uma aliança formada após o combate havia sido interrompida pelas orações e gritos de Sabine mulheres. Como o vale estava entre os dois assentamentos, foi o local designado para os dois povos se conhecerem. Como a área do Fórum adiantados incluíram poças de água estagnada, a área mais acessível foi a parte norte do vale, que foi designado como o Comitium . Foi aqui que, de acordo com a história, as duas partes depuseram as armas e formaram uma aliança. [4]
O fórum foi fora das muralhas da fortaleza original Sabine, que foi inserido através da Porta Saturni. Estas paredes foram destruídas na maior parte, quando os dois morros foram apensados. [5] O Fórum original começou como um mercado ao ar livre perto da Comitium, mas ampliou sua dia-a-dia de compras e as necessidades do mercado. Como a política, questões judiciais e julgamentos começaram a assumir cada vez mais espaço, fóruns por toda a cidade começou a surgir a expandir as necessidades específicas da população em crescimento. Fora de gado, porco, legumes e vinho especializada em produtos de seu nicho e as divindades associadas ao seu redor.
O segundo rei, Numa Pompilius , é dito ter começado o culto de Vesta, construção de sua casa e no templo, bem como a Regia como a primeira cidade real do palácio. Mais tarde Tullus Hostilius fechado Comitium ao redor do templo etrusco antigo, onde o senado se reunir no local do conflito Sabine. Ele disse ter convertido o templo ao Hostilia Curia perto de onde o Senado se conheceram em uma velha cabana etrusca. Em 600 aC, Tarquínio Prisco teve a área pavimentada, pela primeira vez.
Durante o período republicano Comitium continuou a ser o local central para todos e vida política judiciária, na cidade de Roma. [6] No entanto, a fim de criar um espaço, bem como local de reunião maior, o Senado começou a expandir tanto o Fórum e Comitium através da compra de casas particulares existentes e removê-los para uso público. construção de projetos de vários cônsules e imperadores repaved e construída em ambos os Comitium e do Fórum. [7]
O século V aC viu a construção do Templo de Castor e Pólux . O templo de Concord foi introduzido no século IV aC, possivelmente por Marcus Furius Camillus. A Basílica Emília é uma estrutura republicana, mas teve vários nomes após a sua dedicação inicial em 179 aC. Muitas das tradições do Comitium tais como assembléias populares, os funerais da nobreza e os jogos foram transferidos para o Fórum. [8] Caio Graco é creditado com (ou acusados de) perturbar mos maiorum ("costume dos pais / ancestrais" ) na antiga Roma. Um realizada longa tradição de falar nos alto-falantes elevados " Rostra frente para o norte em direção à Casa do Senado para os políticos ea elite montada colocar de volta o orador para o povo reunido no Fórum Romano atrás do Comitium. A tribuna conhecido como Caio Licínio foi o primeiro a afastar-se da elite romana para as pessoas no Forum, um ato repetido posteriormente por Gracchus. [9] Isso começou a tradição de popularis locus, onde, ainda jovens nobres eram esperados para falar da Rostra.
Em 78 aC, o tabularium (Registros Hall) foi construído no final Capitólio do Fórum, por despacho dos cônsules para o ano, M. Emílio Lépido e Q. Lutatius Catulus . Com o tempo a Comitium foi perdida para o crescimento Cúria sempre e Júlio César s rearranjos "antes de seu assassinato em 44 aC. Naquele ano, dois dramáticos eventos extremamente foram testemunhados pelo Fórum, talvez o mais famoso de sempre a acontecer lá: Marc Antony é oração fúnebre de César (imortalizada em Shakespeare é famosa peça ) foi entregue a partir parcialmente falante concluída a plataforma conhecida como a Nova Rostra ea queima pública de corpo de César ocorreu em um local em frente ao Rostra torno do qual o Templo para o César Deificado foi posteriormente construída por grandes Octavius sobrinho dele (Augusto). [10] Quase dois anos depois, Marc Antony adicionado a notoriedade da Rostra por exibir publicamente a cabeça cortada e mão direita de seu inimigo de Cícero lá.
A estreita relação entre a Comitium eo Fórum Romano eventualmente sumiu a partir dos escritos dos antigos. O primeiro é o último mencionado no reinado de Sétimo Severo .
Após a morte de Júlio César, e no final do subsequente Guerra Civil , Augusto terminou grande tio, seu trabalho no Fórum. Ele teria declarado "Achei Roma, uma cidade de tijolos e deixou uma cidade de mármore". O que é verdade é que ele continuou a construção de projetos de seu antecessor e começou a muitos de seus próprios diretamente no Fórum. Durante primeiros tempos imperiais, no entanto, os negócios económicos e judiciais transferidos muito longe do Fórum de estruturas maiores e mais extravagantes para o norte. Após a construção do Fórum de Trajano (110 dC), essas atividades transferidas para o Ulpia Basílica .
O reinado de Constantino, o Grande viu a divisão do império em suas metades oriental e ocidental, bem como a construção da Basílica de Maxêncio (312 dC), as principais última expansão do complexo do Fórum. Este devolveu o centro político do Fórum, até a queda do Império Romano do Ocidente quase dois séculos mais tarde.
No século 5 a velhos edifícios no âmbito do Fórum começaram a ser transformados em igrejas cristãs. Por volta do século 8, todo o espaço foi cercado por igrejas cristãs tomando o lugar das ruínas e templos abandonados. [11]
Um viajante do século 8 anônimas de Einsiedeln (agora na Suíça) informou que o Fórum já caía aos pedaços em seu tempo. Durante a Idade Média, embora a memória do Fórum Romano persistisse, seus monumentos foram em sua maioria enterrados embaixo do entulho, e sua localização foi designado "Campo Vaccino" ou "campo de gado", localizado entre o Capitólio eo Coliseu .
Após o século 8 as estruturas do Fórum foram desmontadas, re-arranjadas e usado para construir torres e castelos feudais dentro da área local. No século 13 dessas estruturas reorganizadas foram derrubadas eo local se tornou uma lixeira. Isto, junto com os restos da construção medieval desmontado e estruturas antigas, ajudou a contribuir para o aumento do nível do solo. [12]
O retorno do Papa Urbano V de Avinhão em 1367 levou a um interesse crescente em monumentos antigos, em parte para sua lição moral e em parte como uma pedreira para os edifícios novos que estão sendo empreendidos em Roma depois de um longo lapso.
Artistas do final do século 15 atraiu as ruínas do Fórum, os antiquários copiaram inscrições no século 16, e uma tentativa de escavação teve início no final do século 18.
Um cardeal tomou medidas para drená-lo novamente e construiu a vizinhaça Alessandrina sobre ele. Mas a escavação por Carlo Fea , que começou a limpar o entulho do Arco de Septímio Severo em 1803, e arqueólogos sob o regime napoleônico marcaram o início do clareamento do Fórum, que só foi totalmente escavado no início do século 20.
Restos de vários séculos são mostrados em conjunto, devido à prática romana de construir sobre ruínas anteriores.
Hoje, as escavações arqueológicas continuam, juntamente com a restauração e preservação permanente. Por muito tempo um dos principais destinos turísticos na cidade, o Fórum está aberto para tráfego de pedestres ao longo das ruas da Roma antiga que são restauradas para o nível Imperial tarde. O Museu do Forum (Antiquarium Forense) é encontrado no final Coliseu de uma estrada moderna, a Via dei Fori Imperiali . Este pequeno museu tem uma importante colecção de esculturas e fragmentos arquitetônicos. Há também reconstruções do Fórum e nas proximidades Imperial Fora, bem como um pequeno vídeo em vários idiomas. Ele é realizado a partir do Fórum ao lado de Santa Francesca Romana (n º 53 Piazza S. Maria Nova) e está aberto das 08:30 h às uma hora antes do anoitecer. A entrada é gratuita.
Em 2008, as fortes chuvas causaram danos estruturais da cobertura de concreto segurando o moderno "Black Stone" de mármore em conjunto durante os Vulcanal .
Muitos dos templos do Fórum de data para os períodos do Reino e da República, embora a maioria foi destruída e reconstruída várias vezes. As ruínas no âmbito do Fórum mostram claramente como os espaços urbanos foram utilizados durante a época romana. O Fórum inclui actualmente uma estátua moderna de Júlio César e os principais monumentos seguintes, prédios antigos e ruínas :
Templos
Esta seção requer expansão .
Templo Data construída Construtor Localização dentro do Fórum
Templo de Castor e Pollux 494 aC Aulus Postumius Albino Lado sul, leste da Basílica Júlia
Templo de Saturno 501 aC Tarquínio Superbus Lado sul, a oeste da Basílica Júlia
Templo de Vesta 7 º século aC Numa Pompilius Canto sudeste, junto ao Templo de Castor e Pollux
Templo de Vênus e Roma 135 Adriano Late expansão fórum Imperial para a mais distante da Regia , em frente ao Coliseu
Templo de Antonino e Faustina 141 Antonino Pio Lado norte, a leste da Basílica Emília
Templo de César 29 aC Augustus Lado Leste, a oeste da Regia
Templo de Vespasiano e Tito 79 Tito e Domiciano West borda abaixo do tabularium Sul do Templo da Concórdia e no norte do Dii Portico Consentes
Templo de Rômulo 309 Maxêncio
Santuário de Vênus Cloacina
Templo de Rômulo Divus 309 Maxêncio
Basílicas
Basílica Emília
Basílica Júlia
Basílica de Maxêncio e Constantino
Arcos
Arco de Septímio Severo
Arco de Tito
edifícios públicos ou residências oficiais
Regia , originalmente a residência dos reis de Roma ou, pelo menos, a sua sede principal, e mais tarde do escritório do Pontifex Maximus, o sumo sacerdote da religião romana.
Cúria Júlia (mais tarde reconstrução por Diocleciano ), o site do Senado romano .
Tabularium , o escritório de registros de Roma.
Portico Dii Consentes
Atrium Vestae , a casa das virgens vestais.
Tullianum , a prisão usado para prender vários líderes estrangeiros e de generais.
monumentos menores
Rostra , de onde os políticos discursavam aos cidadãos romanos.
Urbi umbigo , o centro da cidade designados a partir da qual e para o qual todas as distâncias em Roma e no Império Romano foram medidos.
Milliarium Aureum Depois de Augustus erguido este monumento, todas as estradas foram consideradas para começar aqui e todas as distâncias no Império Romano foram medidos em relação a esse ponto.
Coluna de Focas , o último monumento construído dentro do Fórum.
Lapis Niger ("Pedra Negra"), um antigo santuário, que foi muito obscura, mesmo para os romanos.
Piscinas, molas
O Lacus Curtius , o site de uma piscina misteriosa venerado pelos romanos, mesmo depois de terem esquecido o que significava.
O Iuturnae Lacus ("Primavera de Juturna"), uma piscina de cura, onde Castor e Pólux foram disse ter regado os seus cavalos
Estradas, ruas, escadarias
Gemonian stairssteps situado na parte central de Roma, líder da Arx do Capitólio até o Fórum Romano.
Clivus Capitolinus era a rua que começou no Arco de Tibério, enrolado em torno do Templo de Saturno, e terminou no Capitólio.
Via Sacra , a famosa procissão de rua de Roman triunfos ; ligados a Vestae Atrium com o Coliseu .
Vanished (ou quase desapareceu) estruturas
Arco de Augusto
Arco de Fabius
Arco de Tibério
Basílica Fulvia
Basílica Opimia
Basílica Porcia
Basílica Sempronia
Golden House of Nero (Domus Aurea)
Instituto dos escribas e Arautos do Aediles
Santuário de Faustina, o Jovem
Santuário de Vulcano (Vulcanal)
Estátua de Navius Attus
Estátua de Constantino, o Grande
Estátua de Domiciano
Estátua de Tremulus
Estátua de Vertumno
Templo de Augusto
Templo de Baco
Templo da Concórdia
Templo de Janus
Tribunal do Marco Aurélio
Tribunal da Cidade do Pretor (Praetor Urbanus)
Tribunal do Pretor para Estrangeiros (Praetor Peregrinus)
Bem-chefe de Libo (Puteal Libonus ou Scribonianum)
Estátuas de vários outros deuses e os homens
As its name indicates, the transition metal chromium contributes colour to our world. The purple/red of ruby and the vivid green of emerald both arise from traces of chromium within their crystal structure. Chromium oxide is a green pigment familiar to artists and chrome yellow was originally used for painting US school buses and German postal vans.
A property that is important for gemstone colouration is that the Cr^3+ ion and the Al^3+ ion have similar physical sizes and this means that chromium can occasionallly replace the aluminium in a crystal structure such as corundum (Al_2 O_3) at around the one percent level, resulting in ruby. The three outer electons remaining in the Cr^3+ ion are free to interact with visible light in a number of ways that each contribute to the colour of the crystal (the electrons are 'unpaired').
The role that these electrons play in the absorption and emission of light depends on the strength and symmetry of the electric field around the ion produced by the neighbouring atoms in the crystal: oxygen in the case of ruby. In crystals with different compositions such as the examples in this figure, the electric field - or 'ligand field' as it is known - is different. This moves the absorption bands to different wavelengths and produces different colours such as the rich green of emerald and the pink-red of spinel.
Some of the light energy that is absorbed by these crystals is converted directly to heat, but some fraction remains to be re-emitted as light in the far-red part of the spectrum. This luminescence - the conversion of shorter wavelength (bluer) light to red light - can produce rather pure colours (called narrow lines by spectroscopists), notably those in ruby that were utilised by T H Maiman in 1960 to produce the first laser. The symmetry and strength of the ligand field in the different gemstones affects the number and positions of these luminescence lines to produce the variations shown in the figure. Some of the stones shown here are synthetic but they display the same types of luminescence as the natural crystals. The luminescence patterns can be used with high confidence to identify the gemstone.
These observations were made by exciting the crystals with a 20mW 404nm blue diode laser, covering the spectrometer input with a yellow filter to exclude the scattered blue exciting light.
The narrow emission line in emerald at 683nm in these two examples is rather weak. I have another natural emerald - a small cut stone - where the line is relatively stronger by a factor of about 10.
Note from 11 May 2017: I realise now that the small triangular yellow stone referred to here as a topaz is actually a chrysoberyl ( Be Al2 O4). This has been confirmed with a measurement of the refractive indices as 1.73, 1.74.
Schémas des travaux d'importance fait sur la structure du pont Viau entre 1930 et 2012.
Source: AQTr (Association québecoise du transport), article du 21 sept. 2012.
aqtr.com/association/actualites/pont-viau-restauration-ma...
Ellora (\e-ˈlȯr-ə\, Marathi: वेरूळ Vērūḷa), is an archaeological site, 29 km North-West of the city of Aurangabad in the Indian state of Maharashtra built by the Rashtrakuta dynasty. It is also known as Elapura (in the Rashtrakuta literature-Kannada). Well known for its monumental caves, Ellora is a World Heritage Site. Ellora represents the epitome of Indian rock-cut architecture. The 34 "caves" are actually structures excavated out of the vertical face of the Charanandri hills. Buddhist, Hindu and Jain rock-cut temples and viharas and mathas were built between the 5th century and 10th century. The 12 Buddhist (caves 1–12), 17 Hindu (caves 13–29) and 5 Jain (caves 30–34) caves, built in proximity, demonstrate the religious harmony prevalent during this period of Indian history. It is a protected monument under the Archaeological Survey of India.
ETYMOLOGY
Ellora, also called Verula or Elura, is the cave form of the Ancient name Elapura.
HISTORY
Ellora is known for Hindu, Buddhist and Jain cave temples built during (6th and 9th centuries) the rule of the Kalachuri, Chalukya and Rashtrakuta dynasties. The Jagannatha Sabha a group of five Jain cave temples of 9th century built by Rashtrakuta.
THE BUDDHIST CAVES
These caves were built during the 5th-7th century. It was initially thought that the Buddhist caves were one of the earliest structures, created between the fifth and eighth centuries, with caves 1-5 in the first phase (400-600) and 6-12 in the later phase (mid 7th-mid 8th), but now it is clear to the modern scholars that some of the Hindu caves (27,29,21,28,19,26,20,17 and 14) precede these caves.[citation needed] The earliest Buddhist cave is Cave 6, followed by 5,2,3,5 (right wing), 4,7,8,10 and 9. Caves 11 and 12 were the last. All the Buddhist caves were constructed between 630-700.
These structures consist mostly of viharas or monasteries: large, multi-storeyed buildings carved into the mountain face, including living quarters, sleeping quarters, kitchens, and other rooms. Some of these monastery caves have shrines including carvings of Gautama Buddha, bodhisattvas and saints. In many of these caves, sculptors have endeavoured to give the stone the look of wood.
Most famous of the Buddhist caves is cave 10, (refer map) a chaitya hall (chandrashala) or 'Vishvakarma cave', popularly known as the 'Carpenter's Cave'. Beyond its multi-storeyed entry is a cathedral-like stupa hall also known as chaitya, whose ceiling has been carved to give the impression of wooden beams. At the heart of this cave is a 15-foot statue of Buddha seated in a preaching pose. Amongst other Buddhist caves, all of the first nine (caves 1–9) are monasteries. The last two caves, Do Tal (cave 11) and Tin Tal (cave 12) have three stories.
CAVE 10
Cave 10 is a vihara with eight cells, four in the back wall and four in the right wall. It had a portico in the front with a cell. Possibly served as a granary for other viharas.
THE VISHWAKARMA
The Vishwakarma (Cave 10) is the only chaitya griha amongst the Buddhist group of caves. It is locally known as Vishwakarma or Sutar ka jhopda "carpenter's hut". It follows the pattern of construction of Caves 19 and 26 of Ajanta. On stylistic grounds, the date of construction of this cave is assigned to 700 A.D. The chaitya once had a high screen wall, which is ruined at present. At the front is a rock-cut court, which is entered through a flight of steps. On either side are pillared porticos with chambers in their back walls. These were probably intended to have subsidiary shrines but not completed. The pillared verandah of the chaitya has a small shrine at either end and a single cell in the far end of the back wall. The corridor columns have massive squarish shafts and ghata-pallava (vase and foliage) capitals. The main hall is apsidal on plan and is divided into a central nave and side aisles by 28 octagonal columns with plain bracket capitals. In the apsidal end of the chaitya hall is a stupa on the face of which a colossal 3.30 m high seated Buddha in vyakhyana mudra (teaching posture) is carved. A large Bodhi tree is carved at the back. The hall has a vaulted roof in which ribs have been carved in the rock imitating the wooden ones.
THE HINDU CAVES
The Hindu caves were constructed between the middle of sixth century to the end of the eighth century. The early caves (caves 17–29) were constructed during the Kalachuri period. The work first commenced in Caves 28, 27 and 19. These were followed by two most impressive caves constructed in the early phase - Caves 29 and 21. Along with these two, work was underway at Caves 20 and 26, and slightly later at Caves 17, 19 and 28. The caves 14, 15 and 16 were constructed during the Rashtrakuta period. The work began in Caves 14 and 15 and culminated in Cave 16. All these structures represent a different style of creative vision and execution skills. Some were of such complexity that they required several generations of planning and co-ordination to complete.
THE KAILASANATHA TEMPLE
Cave 16, also known as the Kailasa temple, is the unrivaled centerpiece of Ellora. This is designed to recall Mount Kailash, the abode of Lord Shiva – looks like a freestanding, multi-storeyed temple complex, but it was carved out of one single rock, and covers an area double the size of Parthenon in Athens. Initially the temple was covered with white plaster thus even more increasing the similarity to snow-covered Mount Kailash.
All the carvings are done in more than one level. A two-storeyed gateway resembling a South Indian Gopura opens to reveal a U-shaped courtyard. The courtyard is edged by columned galleries three storeys high. The galleries are punctuated by huge sculpted panels, and alcoves containing enormous sculptures of a variety of deities. Originally flying bridges of stone connected these galleries to central temple structures, but these have fallen.
Within the courtyard are three structures. As is traditional in Shiva temples, the first is a large image of the sacred bull Nandi in front of the central temple. The central temple - Nandi Mantapa or Mandapa - houses the Lingam. The Nandi Mandapa stands on 16 pillars and is 29.3 m high. The base of the Nandi Mandapa has been carved to suggest that life-sized elephants are holding the structure aloft. A living rock bridge connects the Nandi Mandapa to the Shiva temple behind it. The temple itself is a tall pyramidal structure reminiscent of a South Indian Dravidian temple. The shrine – complete with pillars, windows, inner and outer rooms, gathering halls, and an enormous lingam at its heart – carved from living stone, is carved with niches, pilasters, windows as well as images of deities, mithunas (erotic male and female figures) and other figures. Most of the deities at the left of the entrance are Shaivaite (followers of Shiva) while on the right hand side the deities are Vaishnavaites (followers of Vishnu). There are two Dhvajastambhas (pillars with the flagstaff) in the courtyard. The grand sculpture of Ravana attempting to lift Mount Kailasa, the abode of Lord Shiva, with his full might is a landmark in Indian art. The construction of this cave was a feat of human genius – it entailed the removal of 200,000 tonnes of rock, and took 100 years to complete.
The temple is a splendid achievement of Rashtrakuta Karnata architecture. This project was started by Krishna I (757–773) of the Rashtrakuta dynasty that ruled from Manyakheta in present day Karnataka state. His rule had also spread to southern India, hence this temple was excavated in the prevailing style. Its builders modelled it on the lines of the Virupaksha Temple in Pattadakal. Being a south Indian style temple, it does not have a shikhara common to north Indian temples. – The Guide to the Architecture of the Indian Subcontinent, 1996, Takeo Kamiya, Japan Architects Academy and archaeological Survey of India.
THE DASHAVATARA
The Dashavatara (Cave 15) was begun as a Buddhist monastery. It has an open court with a free-standing monolithic mandapa at the middle and a two-storeyed excavated temple at the rear. The layout of the temple is closely related to caves 11 and 12. Large sculptural panels between the wall columns on the upper floor illustrate a wide range of themes, which include the ten avatars of Vishnu. An inscription of grant of Dantidurga is found on the back wall of the front mandapa. According to Coomaraswamy, the finest relief of this cave is the one depicting the death of Hiranyakashipu, where Vishnu in man-lion (Narasimha) form, emerges from a pillar to lay a fatal hand upon the shoulder of Hiranyakashipu.
OTHER HINDU CAVES
CAVE 21
Other notable Hindu caves are the Rameshvara (Cave 21), which has figurines of river goddesses Ganga and Yamuna at the entrance and the Dhumar Lena (Cave 29) whose design is similar to the cave temple on Elephanta Island near Mumbai. Two other caves, the Ravan ki Khai (Cave 14) and the Nilkantha (Cave 22) also have several sculptures. The rest of the Hindu caves, which include the Kumbharvada (Cave 25) and the Gopilena (Cave 27) have no significant sculptures.
The five Jain caves at Ellora belong to the ninth and tenth centuries. They all belong to the Digambara sect. Jain caves reveal specific dimensions of Jain philosophy and tradition. They reflect a strict sense of asceticism – they are not relatively large as compared to others, but they present exceptionally detailed art works. The most remarkable Jain shrines are the Chhota Kailash (cave 30), the Indra Sabha (cave 32) and the Jagannath Sabha (cave 33). Cave 31 is an unfinished four-pillared hall and a shrine. Cave 34 is a small cave, which can be approached through an opening on the left side of Cave 33. Amongst other devotional carvings, a place called samvatsarana can be found in Elora caves. Samvatsarana is of special interest to Jains, as it is a hall where the tirthankara preaches after attaining omniscience.
THE INDRA SABHA
The Indra Sabha (Cave 32) is a two storeyed cave with one more monolithic shrine in its court. It has a very fine carving of the lotus flower on the ceiling. It got the appellation "Indra Sabha" probably it is significantly ornate and also because of the sculpture of the yaksha (dedicated attendant deity) Matanga on an elephant, which was wrongly identified as that of Indra. On the upper level of the double-storied shrine excavated at the rear of the court, an U image of Ambika, the yakshini of Neminath, is found seated on her lion under a mango tree, laden with fruits.
OTHER JAIN CAVES
All other Jain caves are also characterized by intricate detailing. Many of the structures had rich paintings in the ceilings - fragments of which are still visible.
GEOLOGY OF ELLORA
Ellora occupies a relatively flat region of the Western Ghats. Ancient volcanic activity in this area created many layered basalt formations, known as Deccan Traps. During the Cretaceous, one such volcanic hill formed on the southwest-facing side of Ellora. Its vertical face made access to many layers of rock formations easier, enabling architects to pick basalt with finer grains for more detailed sculpting.
INSCRIPTIONS AT ELLORA
Several inscriptions at Ellora range from 6th century to 15th century. The best known of them is an inscription of Rashtrakuta Dantidurga (c. 753-57 A.D.) on the back wall of the front mandapa of Cave 15, which gives an account of his conquests. Inscriptions on the Kailash temple itself range from 9th to 15th century. Jain cave Jagannatha Sabha has 3 inscriptions that give the names of monks and donors. A Parshvanth temple on the hill has a 11th-century inscription that gives the name of the donor from Vardhanapura.
The Great Kailasa (Cave 16) is attributed to Krishna I (c. 757-83 A.D.), the successor and uncle of Dantidurga. A copper plate grant by Karka II (c. 812-13 A.D.) narrates that a great edifice was built on a hill by Krishnaraja at Elapura (Ellora).
The Ellora caves, unlike Ajanta, were never lost. There have been several written records that indicate that these caves were visited regularly. The earliest is that of the Arab geographer Al-Mas‘udi of the 10th century A.D. In 1352 A.D. Sultan Hasan Gangu Bahmani, who camped at the site and visited the caves. The others are by Firishta, Thevenot (1633–67), Niccolao Manucci (1653-1708), Charles Warre Malet (1794), and Seely (1824)
WIKIPEDIA
Passes through Bedford en-route from Bedford to Brighton at 1920hrs on 07-May-2009.
It was only a brief visit to the South Coast, as at 0645hrs the next day it was going back home , passing trough Bedford at 0635 hrs.The sound of the 2 x 31s woke up a few early morming commuters as the waited at Bedford for their trains to the City
At 6:12PM on September 19, 2019 the Los Angeles Fire Department responded to a reported structure fire in the 3900 block of W 1st St in Koreatown. Firefighters arrived to find a detached garage fully engulfed in flames. 40 firefighters took 23 minutes to fully extinguish the fire. A nearby utility pole was exposed to flames, but all adjacent properties were protected from the blaze. There were no reported injuries.
Photo Use Permitted via Creative Commons - Credit: LAFD Photo | Chris Conkle
LAFD Incident: 091919-1301
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This behemoth of a structure is a Roman Catholic Cathedral in Cologne, Germany. We got to tour this wonder while on our Viking River Cruise honeymoon. To think they began construction on this back in 1248! And then to think construction occurred on and off all the way up until 1880! That's around 600 years of on and off construction time for one structure! The United States would be lucky to have trees this old, let alone something made by man which is still used today! We were very fortunate to get to check this place out!
During WWII, Cologne Germany was almost completely leveled.......it's stated that 95% of the city was destroyed. Our tour guide explained that they removed most if not all of the stained glass and all holy relics from the cathedral to protect them during the war. The church was damaged fairly badly due to bombing of the nearby train station and bridges, but somehow it remained standing......and was nearly the ONLY structure left standing! Fighters on all sides used the cathedral as a reference point since it could be easily seen from far away. Today, citizens in Cologne actually pay an extra tax to help maintain the structure, and according to our tour guide, most do so more than willingly with the desire to preserve this monument.
Douglaston Historic District, Douglaston, Queens, New York City, New York, United States
Type: Freestanding house with attached garage (on lot 93) Style: Vernacular cottage Stories: 1
Structure/material: Frame with stucco facing
Notable building features: Intersecting gable roofs, flared over front porch; round-arched, batten door; brick chimney; brick stoop with non-original wrought-iron railings; some brick veneer; windows with historic multi-pane sash and casements.
Notable site features: Mature trees; flagstone walkway; gravel driveway; perimeter hedge; storage shed; cobblestone curb.
INTRODUCTION
The Douglaston Historic District contains more than 600 houses set along landscaped streets on a mile-long peninsula extending into Little Neck Bay, at the northeastern edge of Queens adjoining Nassau County.
Its history over the past four centuries ranges from a native American settlement to an eighteenth-century farm, a nineteenth-century estate called Douglas Manor, and an early twentieth-century planned suburb, also called Douglas Manor.
The Douglaston Historic District encompasses the entire Douglas Manor suburban development, plus several contiguous blocks. Most of the houses in the proposed district date from the early- to mid-twentieth century, while a few survive from the nineteenth century, and one from the eighteenth century.
The landscape includes many impressive and exotic specimen trees planted on the mid-nineteenth-century estate, as well as a great white oak, located at 233 Arleigh Road, believed to be 600 years old.
Douglaston's location on a peninsula jutting into Flushing Bay at the eastern border of Queens County is an important factor in establishing the character of the district. The very early buildings surviving in the district include the c.1735 Van Wyck House, the c. 1819 Van Zandt manor house (expanded in the early twentieth century for use as the Douglaston Club), and the Greek Revival style c. 1848-50 Benjamin Allen House.
Much of the landscaping, including the specimen trees, survives from the estate of Douglas Manor, established by George Douglas and maintained by his son William Douglas.
Most of the houses in the historic district were built as part of the planned suburb of Douglas Manor, developed by the Rickert-Finlay Company, that was part of the residential redevelopment of the Borough of Queens following its creation and annexation to the City of Greater New York in 1898.
A set of covenants devised by the Rickert-Finlay Company helped assure a carefully planned environment, including a shorefront held in common, winding streets following the topography of the peninsula, and single-family houses ranging in size from substantial mansions along Shore Road on the west to more modest cottages closer to Udalls Cove on the east.
The houses of the historic district, which are representative of twentieth-century residential architecture, were designed in a variety of styles including the many variants of the Colonial Revival, many houses in the English manner incorporating Tudor Revival, English cottage, and Arts and Crafts motifs, as well as the Mediterranean Revival. In most cases, they were designed by local Queens architects, including over a dozen who lived in Douglaston itself.
The district includes three houses of the Craftsman type pioneered by Gustav Stickley. Eight of the houses in the district were designed by Josephine Wright Chapman, one of America's earliest successful women architects, and they constitute an important body of her work.
The Douglaston Historic District survives today as an important example of an early twentieth-century planned suburb adapted to the site of a nineteenth-century estate. The stylistically varied suburban residences, the distinctive topography, the landscaped setting, and the winding streets create a distinct sense of place and give the district its special character.
HISTORICAL AND ARCHITECTURAL BACKGROUND OF THE DOUGLASTON HISTORIC DISTRICT
Native American and Colonial antecedents
The Native American presence on the Little Neck peninsula today known as Douglaston included the Matinecoc,1 one of a group on western Long Island linked by culture and language to others in the area surrounding Manhattan Island (including the Nayack, Marechkawieck, Canarsee, Rockaway, and Massapequa). A number of finds from those settlements have been identified at various sites on the peninsula.2 The Matinecoc, who fanned the peninsula and apparently also produced wampum, were summarily evicted in the 1660s by Thomas Hicks, later Judge Hicks, in what has been described as the only such seizure of property recorded in Flushing town records. In the 1930s, according to local histories, a Matinecoc burial ground was destroyed to make way for a widening of Northern Boulevard, and the remains reinterred in the cemetery of Zion Church.3
The property seized by Thomas Hicks in the 1660s passed through the hands of several of his family members, and several subsequent sales to other families, before being acquired in 1813 by Wynant Van Zandt. In 1819 Van Zandt bought an adjoining farm from the Van Wyck family. Both tracts had been farmed during the eighteenth century. The Van Wycks built and lived in a shorefront house which still stands (the Cornelius Van Wyck House, at 126 West Drive aka 37-04 Douglaston Parkway, a designated New York City landmark).
Nineteenth-century country seat: Wynant Van Zandt. George and William Douglas, and Douglas Manor
Wynant Van Zandt (1767-1831) kept his property in agricultural use. Unlike his predecessors, mostly local formers, Van Zandt was a prominent New York City merchant, active in New York civic affairs. As a city alderman, Van Zandt served as chairman, starting in 1803, of the building committee for City Hall, and in 1804 as chairman of a committee on water supply, among other duties. Van Zandt established his Queens County property as a country estate, and built himself a manor, or country seat, in 1819; the building survives, with additions, as the Douglaston Club.
In May 1835, following Wynant Van Zandt's death, George Douglas acquired the estate from Robert B. Van Zandt; the deed identifies Van Zandt as a "farmer" and Douglas as a "gentleman."5 One obituary, in the Flushing Journal Weekly, described Douglas as "what the world would call an eccentric man."6 Another, in the New York Evening Post, described him as a wealthy young man from Scotland, who during a fifteen-year stay in Europe "collected some very valuable pictures," and later turned to philanthropy.7
Douglas's son, William Proctor Douglas, inherited the property after his father's death in 1862. The younger Douglas served as vice-commodore of the New York Yacht Club in 1871-74. During his tenure, Douglas Manor became a center for New York society yachting and polo. In later years, Douglas rented out the estate house to a variety of well-connected tenants, including European royalty.8
In 1869, Douglas hired landscape architect William McMillen to, in the words of McMillen's daughter, "superintend the Estate, improve driveways, and lay out plantings and trees and ornamental shrubs."9 McMillen was later associated with Frederick Law Olmsted and his work on the park system in Buffalo, New York.10 Although McMillen spent six years working on the estate, it is not known exactly what he undertook for Douglas. From turn-of-the-century photographs and other records analyzed in a landscape history undertaken in 1994, it appears that under Douglas's
ownership the landscape was characterized by "an informal 'English' look...with English ivy, winterberry, Boston ivy and wisteria."11
It was also during Douglas's tenure that a number of exotic specimen trees were planted on the property. Local histories suggest a connection with Samuel Parsons (1819-1906), a pioneer horticulturist with a nursery in Flushing; Parsons owned land near the Douglas Estate. The trees have been a distinguishing characteristic of Douglas Manor since William Douglas's day.12
Early suburban subdivision
Although the suburban development called Douglas Manor dates from 1906, William Douglas apparently attempted a suburban subdivision half a century earlier south of Douglas Manor. The dominant force propelling development was the gradual extension of the Long Island Railroad, which ran as far as Flushing until 1866 (with stage coach connections for points east), when its extension to Great Neck opened. Even in the 1850s, anticipating the railroad's extension to the Little Neck peninsula, William Douglas had subdivided part of his property (the area today known as "the Hill").
Douglas donated land for the railroad's right of way, and later, according to local histories, relocated one of his farm buildings to be used as a railroad station, asking in exchange that the new village be called "Douglaston" (instead of Marathon, a competing name).13 He named a number of new streets after the abundant trees on his property (Pine, Poplar, Willow, Cherry).
The Rickert-Finlav Realty Company
Besides the three early surviving houses already mentioned (the Van Wyck House, the Douglaston Club, and the Allen House), almost all the rest of the houses in the historic district were built as part of the early twentieth-century planned suburb of Douglas Manor, named for Douglas's estate, laid out by the Rickert-Finlay Realty Company. The redevelopment of Douglas Manor was part of the vast transformation of much of the newly created Borough of Queens into new residential neighborhoods. In 1906, the year Rickert-Finlay bought Douglas Manor, several major transportation projects to speed connections between Manhattan and Queens were underway: the Pennsylvania Railroad and Long Island Railroad tunnels under the East River, and the Queensborough Bridge at 59th Street.14 According to the Real Estate Record and Guide of that year:
The development of numerous farms into building lots and the erection of hundreds of new buildings have necessarily advanced the value of real estate in that section of Greater New York. It is said that more than 8,000 new apportionments have been made in the Borough of Queens during 1906, and that considerably more than 10,000 acres of land have been cut up into lots....
Chief among the new developments cited:
Title has just been taken to the Douglass [sic] homestead of about 180 acres by the Douglass Manor Co. This will probably be the highest class development on the island. It has a mile of water front and most magnificent shade trees. This property will be subdivided immediately.16
The Rickert-Finlay Realty Company, which bought Douglas Manor, was active in real-estate development in Queens and Nassau Counties in the early years of the century, buying up large farms and estates on the north shore of Long Island, preferably those with attractive topographical features, and subdividing them into new suburban communities. Their projects included Norwood in Long Island City, Broadway-Flushing in Flushing, Bellcourt in Bayside, Douglas Manor in Douglaston, and Westmoreland in Little Neck.17 By 1908, the company, with offices at 45 West 34th Street in Manhattan,18 was advertising itself as "The Largest Developers of Real Estate in Queens Borough ~ over 10,000 lots within the limits of New York City."19
The company's typical strategy for selecting development sites was described by E.J. Rickert in a 1914 article in Architecture and Building: "It was selected because it was on high ground, with a splendid outlook . . . and only four blocks from a railway station. It was . . . noted for the magnificent row of maples and lindens, nearly a mile long, extending through the entire property."20 The company then developed each tract according to a formula based on past successes. E.J. Rickert described the progression of the firm's ideas:
The first property developed was Bellcourt in Bayside, which was improved along the same lines as had heretofore prevailed on Long Island — that is, gravel sidewalks were laid, streets were graded and shade trees were set out, no other improvements being made. In the sale of Bellcourt, however, it was found that there was a demand for better improvements, and, consequently, when Douglas Manor was developed, cement sidewalks were laid, macadam roads were built and trees and hedges were set out. Broadway-Flushing and Westmoreland, which came next, were developed to about the same extent as Douglas Manor, all then being considered the best improved properties on Long Island.
The next development, Kensington, saw the addition of complete "sanitary sewer system, water mains and underground conduit for street lighting."
The new suburb of Douglas Manor
The qualities of the nineteenth-century Douglas Manor on which the Rickert-Finlay development capitalized included its hilly topography, its mile-long waterfront accessible to the entire narrow peninsula, and its lush plantings, especially the specimen trees planted during Douglas's tenure. The development also based its new road system on the major farm roads already in place, which became West, East, and Centre [Center] Drives.23
The company then established a series of protective covenants to guarantee a certain manner of development and density within the new suburb. In an era pre-dating the adoption of zoning regulations,24 the character of a new development could be guaranteed in no other way.
The covenants affected the architectural character of the houses only peripherally — by prohibiting flat roofs, thereby encouraging a more romantic roofline. Instead, they focused on the kind and size of houses and the nature of the landscaping of the new development. They required all houses to be single-family residences, with the sole exception of the Douglaston Club (commercial uses and two-family buildings and flats were specifically prohibited). They encouraged an economically mixed development, with a boulevard of substantial mansions along the Shore Road waterfront, while smaller, less expensive houses would predominate on the peninsula's east. (Such conditions were guaranteed by requiring houses of a certain cost and lots of a certain size). A verdant landscape was ensured by requiring houses to be set back 20 feet, leaving room for greenery, and by prohibiting fences and encouraging hedges, creating vistas not of individual, fenced-off gardens, but rather of a continuous, green, park-like, landscaped environment.
Rickert-Finlay went even further, taking steps to protect that environment and shape the community's social character by creating, in 1906, the Douglas Manor Association. Its stated objectives were the creation and maintenance of a club house to promote "social intercourse" among the residents, and to preserve and protect the development's physical amenities, including the roads, parks, shorefront, and plantings.26
Selling Douglas Manor
Promotional brochures prepared by Rickert-Finlay characterized the new neighborhood as a private community of houses, nestled in a landscape similar to Central Park, surrounded with a mile of shorefront, just blocks from each home.27
Douglas Manor's convenience to Midtown Manhattan via the Long Island Railroad was compared favorably to subway commutation to new Bronx neighborhoods. The commute was touted at "only 33 Minutes to Manhattan, 52 Trains a Day," and predicted to become "20 Minutes to Herald Square, when Pennsylvania-Long Island Tunnels are completed." The neighborhood was just three blocks from the Douglaston station, itself very near the Long Island Sound, "being the only station on the line near enough to the Sound to bring the shore front within easy walking distance. "28 The history and character of the old Douglas estate were emphasized, especially the trees planted by Douglas: "Scotch Holly, Magnolia, Japanese Maidenhair, Chinese Cypress, European Beech, Scarlet Maple, Horse Chestnut, Tulip, Lime, evergreens... Even Central Park does not possess a greater variety of rare trees....
" This park-like effect would be "preserved and increased by setting out hedges along winding roads, following the natural contour of the land as much as possible.... The shore drive, curving along the bay for over a mile, will be made the finest boulevard on Long Island." To all these suburban advantages, Douglas Manor also boasted the services provided by the City of New York: "city water, stone sidewalks, macadamized streets" and the "full benefit of all departments of the city government, including schools, water, police and fire protection."
From 1906 through the Depression, several hundred houses were erected in Douglas Manor, following the plan suggested by the Rickert-Finlay covenants. In general, the lots along Shore Road on the west were developed first, with larger, more substantial houses, followed by the more modest
homes to the east towards Udalls Cove. Property owners often acquired lots adjacent to those on which their houses were built to accommodate more generous lawns or gardens. The mile-long waterfront remained undeveloped, held in common by the Douglas Manor Association. The large caliper specimen trees planted in Douglas's day remained in place. The grounds of the various houses were separated by perimeter hedges only — no fences. Two smaller lots formed by irregular street intersections were planted as small parks, maintained by the Association. Together, the parks, commonly held shorefront, specimen trees, and hedged gardens created something close to Rickert-Finlay's version of Central Park, surrounded by water, with several hundred houses nestled in the landscape.
The Architecture of the Douglaston Historic District
The architectural styles of the over 600 houses and some 150 related structures (mostly garages) in the historic district reflect three centuries of Douglaston's built history. From the eighteenth-century colonial Van Wyck House, to the early nineteenth-century Van Zandt House and mid-nineteenth-century Allen House, to the twentiethth-century suburban houses of the Rickert-Finlay development, to the additions of the post-World War II period, they tell the story of the development of this part of eastern Queens, part of the larger developmental story of New York City and the country as a whole.
The Cornelius Van Wyck House, at 126 West Drive, survives as the oldest extant house in the district, and one of the oldest in New York City (it is a designated New York City landmark). Built c.1735 for an early Dutch settler as a farmstead, the house reflects eighteenth-century New York colonial styles. Douglas, who transformed the farm to Douglas Manor, is said to have used the house as an "entrance lodge to his estate.w29 In 1907, one year after the acquisition of the Manor by the Rickert-Finlay Company, the Douglaston Country Club enlarged the building for use as a clubhouse. In 1921, the Van Wyck House passed back into use as a single-family residence, and its owner, E.N. Wicht, hired Frank J. Forster, designer of Colonial Revival and Tudor Revival style houses in the new Douglas Manor development, to restore it to its original Dutch Colonial appearance.
The Wynant Van Zandt House, at 600 West Drive, reflects both the older and the newer history of Douglaston. Built in 1819 as a home for Wynant Van Zandt, it was significantly altered after 1906 for use as the Douglaston Club, but still reflects some of the character of Van Zandt's original two-story Greek Revival manor house.
The Benjamin P. Allen House (a/k/a the Allen-Beville House, a designated New York City landmark) at 29 Center Drive, built c. 1848-50, is another rare Queens farm house. Predominately Greek Revival in style, it also shows the influence of the newly fashionable Italianate style, especially in its cornices and brackets.
Almost all the other buildings in the district date from the twentieth century, and the greater number of them from its first three decades, when Douglas Manor was developed by the Rickert-Finlay Company. Douglas Manor is a contemporary of several other planned communities in New York City, notably Fieldston in the Bronx and Forest Hill Gardens in Queens, all three of which began as subdivisions in the first decade of die century, and blossomed in the late teens and twenties. Like them, Douglas Manor was developed with houses based on historic styles of the past.
The first few decades of the century constituted a period of ferment and development in the design of American single-family houses. The epoch has been characterized as "a resurgence of individualism and an indulgence in residential architecture, a reaction to the standardization of the previous two decades. Fanciful cottages in fairy-tale styles were part of that image."30 In some ways, that approach is a logical continuation of late nineteenth-century architectural eclecticism, characterized in the 1890s as "rampant eclecticism in all fields of life and taste, of triumphant individualism, when authority sits so lightly on men's interests and lives; in this age of archaeology, when the different periods of history are made to live again in our imagination. "31 At the same time, residential architecture was affected by notions of progress and efficiency, and a drive toward simplicity and sanitary conveniences in home design.
Rickert-Finlay's protective covenants left the architectural character of the buildings almost entirely in the hands of owners and architects, requiring only that building roofs not be flat.32 The result was a collection of early twentieth-century eclectic residential styles, ranging from grand Colonial Revival mansions on the Shore Road waterfront, to picturesque Tudor Revival or Mediterranean Revival houses or houses in the English cottage manner or Colonial Revival houses on the blocks between West and East Drives, to modest cottages near Udalls Cove. Houses were sited in harmony with the topography, which tends to get hillier in the southeastern section of the peninsula.
One Douglas Manor architect, Alfred Scheffer, expressed his point of view in an article published in 1929. He described the Tudor Revival house he designed for himself at 216 Beverly-Road — a particularly useful indication of both the architect's and the client's point of view. Tellingly, the very first observation he makes is about the siting of the house, overlooking Long Island Sound: "The water is only a stone's throw — of a conservative marksman — from our front door and the second floor bay window has a certain suggestion of the forecastle deck of a ship, for the intervening land and highway are quite lost to sight and I can get a fine sense of sailing the seas, when I stand there." Only then does he turn to the formal style of the design, and sums up in a sentence the attitude of his day towards historically-inspired styles: "The construction is quite definitely in the English manner although / was not concerned with making it exact or authentic [emphasis added]
Scheffer then lists the elements that make his house "English": "stucco and halftimber walls with slate roof . . . The substantial chimney of common brick is typical of many English country houses. . . . The main entrance doorway of the house, at the end of a narrow flagstone walk, forms a Gothic arch of oak timber, framing a paneled oak door with iron straps and two small leaded glass windows, the effect completed by a semi-circular stone stoop. Beside the door is a lantern of pierced wrought-iron in the shape of an inverted tunnel, with wrought-iron bracket." Clearly it is details like the paneled oak door and leaded glass windows which give the house the English "effect" Scheffer wanted. But when he turns to describing the interior, practical matters take precedence: "The interior of the house was designed to take full advantage of our gorgeous outlook over the water."
Historical details are listed — "The walls are of rough English hand finished plaster" - but so are the "built-in bookshelves," "built-in comer cabinets," and "convenient and numerous closets and the very large closet and bathroom which join the master bedroom and add much to its convenience." "The interior of the house," concludes Scheffer," will probably grow from year to year. Things will be taken out and others put in until eventually, it comes near to realizing my mental image of what it ought to be. Already, I think, it has the liveable quality which is most essential of all."33
The majority of houses in the historic district reflect a variety of styles, loosely adapted by architects like Frank Scheffer, typical of suburban residential architecture across the country. The predominant style is the Colonial Revival in several variants, ranging in date from c.1910 to the present. Most are of frame construction with shingle and/or clapboard siding. Besides a generic Colonial Revival style, the district has such distinctive variations as the Dutch Colonial Revival, New England Colonial Revival, and Cape Cod Colonial Revival. Colonial Revival houses of brick, or frame with brick facing, often have a more formal neo-Georgian appearance. The English manner, the other major stylistic mode, is expressed with Tudor Revival, English cottage, or Arts and Crafts details. These houses, too, are often of frame construction with stucco facing and brick and/or stone trim. The Mediterranean Revival style was also popular.
These houses usually have stucco facing and tile roofs. The district also has a handful of houses of the Craftsman type pioneered by Gustav Stickley. Suburban houses of the type found in the district were judged by their picturesque qualities. The Architectural Forum, for instance, featured a Douglas Manor house by Frank Forster, the same architect who restored the Van Wyck House to something approaching its original Dutch colonial appearance. The writer praised Forster's "excellent use of half-timber in connection with brick or stucco," but more importantly his "rare skill in grouping, which creates a picturesque and architectural composition, wholly unaffected or exaggerated and involving no sacrifice in the matter of interior planning to secure this effect."
An additional group of houses in the historic district, on the south side of Bay Street, predates the Douglas Manor development by several years. Designed c.1900, they are excellent examples of the Colonial Revival and Queen Anne styles popular at the end of the nineteenth century.
Playing an important role in the historic district are the many related garage structures, often designed in architectural styles compatible with the houses they serve. Some were constructed originally as carriage houses and stables, often with residential accommodations, and later converted for garage use. By about 1920, the automobile had supplanted the horse, and garages were built as freestanding structures, some with chauffeur's quarters at the second story, usually situated close to a side or rear lot line. By the late 1920s, some houses were constructed with attached garages, or garages were constructed later, atttached to earlier houses. After World War II, many houses were built with basement garages, while other earlier houses were modified to provide basement garages.
The Douglas Manor Architects
A few prominent New York City architects with Manhattan offices received commissions in the new neighborhood; however, the vast majority of Douglas Manor houses were designed by local Queens and Brooklyn architects, and a surprisingly large number by architects who themselves lived in Douglas Manor or had offices nearby.35
Among the better known firms from outside the neighborhood who worked in the historic district, Buchman & Fox, architects of many Manhattan office buildings, designed 1008 Shore Road, a substantial Colonial Revival mansion overlooking the Bay. George Keister, whose practice included churches, hotels and Broadway theaters, designed 24 Knollwood Avenue, an Arts and Crafts style house, and 104 Hollywood Avenue, a Colonial Revival house. Diego DeSuarez, who planned villa gardens at both La Pietra, outside Florence, and Vizcaya, outside Miami, designed a one-story Mediterranean fantasy at 231 Beverly Road. Lionel Moses, of the firm of McKim, Mead & White, designed a house in the English cottage manner at 1102 Shore Road overlooking Little Neck Bay. The architectural firm of McKim, Mead & White is credited with the formal French Renaissance Revival style house at 4 Ardsley Road. Dating from 1919, it is constructed of hollow terra-cotta block, a form of fireproof construction, and faced with stucco.36
Architects from Brooklyn and Queens represented in the historic district include Arthur H. Allen, an architect very active in Forest Hills (a Colonial Revival house at 217 Ridge Road); Philip Resnyk (Tudor Revival, English cottage manner, and Colonial Revival houses on Warwick, Beverly, Grosvenor, Hollywood, Knollwood, Richmond, Kenmore, Richmond and Manor); Benjamin Dreisler (an Arts and Crafts/Colonial Revival house at 243 Forest Road); Louis Feldman (English cottage type houses at 211 and 217 Forest Road); J. Sarsfield Kennedy (a Tudor Revival house at 369 Beverly Road and a grand English bungalow/Arts and Crafts house at 1114 Shore Road), and Shampan & Shampan (a Colonial Revival house at 110 Arleigh).
Almost 60 of the over 600 houses in the historic district, built in the first decades of the century, are known to be the work of fourteen Douglaston architects.37 Alfred Scheffer, whose views are quoted above, designed at least ten, most in the Colonial Revival style or English cottage manner with Tudor Revival or Arts and Crafts detail.
John C.W. Cadoo designed at least sixteen houses, mostly Colonial Revival in style. Frank Forster designed at least three houses, one Colonial Revival, the others in the English cottage manner, as well as overseeing the restoration of the eighteenth-century Van Wyck House. Albert Humble designed at least ten houses, most in the Colonial Revival style.
Josephine Wright Chapman
Eight houses in the historic district are known to have been designed in the 1910s and 1920s by one of America's earliest successful women architects, Josephine Wright Chapman (1867-?). Chapman was professionally active from 1892 to 1927, but little is known about her education or commissions.
She pursued her interest in a career in architecture over opposition from her family, working from 1892 to 1897 as a draftsman in the office of Boston architect Clarence H. Blackall. Very few academically trained women became architects in the last two decades of the nineteenth century, and Chapman may have entered the profession as an apprentice.
By 1898 she was listed in the Boston City Directory as an architect, and developed a successful practice, despite the rejection of her application for membership in the American Institute of Architects.
Chapman's first major project was the New England Building at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo in 1901. Other known work includes the Craigie Arms Apartments (1897) in Cambridge, Mass., the Episcopal Church in Leominster, Mass., and the Women's Clubs in Worcester and Lynn, Mass.
In 1905, Chapman began to devote herself to the design of houses. She preferred the "English type," long, low and rambling, with gables and timber and plaster detailing. In 1907 she moved to New York, where she was listed in directories as an architect until 1925. Among her few published works was a sixteen-story apartment building on Park Avenue, described as demonstrating "the feminine idea of correct planning . . .and many innovations were to be introduced."
While in New York, she also received the commission for Hillandale, an Italian Renaissance style villa in Washington, D.C., built 1922-25. In the words of historian Gwendolyn Wright: "Neither Chapman's early public success in Boston nor her conversion to professional pursuit more appropriate for a woman qualified her for coverage in the architectural press.
But her career was remarkable, for few women had the financial independence to experiment with their own offices."
Chapman's known Douglaston houses, which date from 1909 to 1917, are in the historic district's two prevalent stylistic modes — five Colonial Revival and three in the English cottage manner.
They share picturesque silhouetttes with rooflines that feature gambrel or gabled roofs with hipped or shed dormers, and exposed brick chimneys; and distinctive entry and porch details, including one with Tuscan columns, one with a pointed-arch batten door, and one with a panelled entrance with side-lights and transom.
The Craftsman style houses
Several Craftsman style houses, including No. 122 Arleigh Road, 140 Prospect Avenue, and 111 Hollywood Avenue, may be one of the largest such collections in any New York City neighborhood.
Furniture designer Gustav Stickley of Rochester, New York, created the Craftsman architectural movement and disseminated it throughout the country via his Craftsman magazine.
The Craftsman aesthetic drew on the English Arts and Crafts movement, California Mission design, Japanese architecture, and Native American design, and was supported by an ideology influenced by concepts of socialism, the nobility of work, and the value of manual training.
Stickley developed his interest in architecture in the years 1902-05, initially as a way of creating the proper environment for his furniture. He hired architect Harvey Ellis to help develop a Craftsman architecture, and the Craftsman magazine began publishing prototype houses initially designed by Ellis, encouraging the public to take them as models for their own homes.
The published houses included floor plans, sketches, renderings of room schemes, elevations, and descriptions of appropriate rugs, fabrics, furniture, and color schemes. Stickley then encouraged his readers to alter the plans to suit local conditions.
In 1909, Stickley became involved in the actual construction of houses when he organized the Craftsman Building Company, which constructed houses in New Jersey and on Long Island.
The company was active for just under a year; the exact number of houses built is unknown. Most "Craftsman" houses were built by contractors using Craftsman plans.
The Craftsman house embodies a number of characteristics in its exterior. It is generally designed to take advantage of its site and views. Picturesque in its composition, it incorporates an "honest" expression of its materials and structure.
It makes use of exposed or emphasized structural elements, especially a broad, overhanging roof, often supported by large, open rafters extending beyond the eaves.
There may be wooden elements including curved roofs, or exotic piled capitals. Often such houses include pergolas, porches, balconies or verandas. Windows are grouped together to create large openings.
Craftsman houses use a variety of materials, preferably local. Stonework is often textured and ornamental, with variegated colors and shapes. Other common materials include clinker brick, and stucco, often mixed with rough sand or bits of glass.
Historical and Architectural Introduction
No. 111 Hollywood Road was designed by the Craftsman architects in 1914.55 The interior follows the Craftsman aesthetic, while the exterior borrows the distinctive eyebrow window and brick Tudor arched entrance from neighboring houses.
No. 122 Arleigh Road corresponds to Craftsman plan number 70, a "Ten-Room House for Town or Country Life" published originally in the Craftsman in July 1909 and again in More Craftsman Homes. Its horizontal orientation, large living porch, emphasis on structural elements including low, spreading, overhanging eaves and extended rafters, and central entrance and symmetrical facade with grouped windows, all reflect the Craftsman mold.
No. 140 Prospect Road correspond to Craftsman plan number 85, a "Small Two-Story Cement House with Recessed Porch and Balcony," published originally in the Craftsman in March 1910 and again in More Craftsman Homes. Its low-pitched roof revealing the rafters, porch and balcony, decorative use of structural elements, and grouping of windows and openings, all fit the Craftsman aesthetic.
A number of other houses in the historic district reflect the Craftsman aesthetic, even though they do not follow published Craftsman plans.
Prominent residents and later history
The first residents to move into the new Douglas Manor development, in 1907, were "the Misses Butler, of Flushing." They were followed by a number of newspapermen including "Mr. Mayer, World cartoonist, on Shore Road and Knollwood Ave.," "George C. Minor, of the New York Herald" on West Drive and Knollwood, and "Arthur Greaves, city editor of the New York Times" on West Drive, as well as a Mr. Slater of Manhattan and a Mr. Burtis, "manager of the Brooklyn branch of Swift & Co."56 Country Life in America the following year showed houses for sale in Douglas Manor priced at $8500 and $10,000.
Over the years, the historic district has attracted many famous residents, including a number of people in theater and the arts. Besides the above mentioned Herbert Mayer, cartoonist for The World, and architect Elbert McGran Jackson, who also illustrated covers for the Saturday Evening Post, artists included Percy Crosby, author of the "Skippy" comic strip; Robbie Robinson, another
illustrator for the Saturday Evening Post, Norwegian born sculptor Trygve Hammer, whose house is at 329 Forest Road,59 and satirist George Grosz.
Douglaston's location on the Long Island Rail Road, which made it convenient to the Astoria Studios in Long Island City, an early movie center, attracted many actors in the days before the ascendancy of Hollywood.
Residents have included Ginger Rogers, Hedda Hopper, Richard Dix, Ward Bond, Bonita Granville, Clifton Webb, Arthur Treacher, Jack Donahue, and William Collier Sr., as well as Ziegfeld Follies star Margaret Corry.
Other notable residents have included author Ring Lardner, as well as Olympic swimmer Annette Kellerman, tennis pro John McEnroe, Jr., and pianist Claudio Arrau.
Douglaston resident Anne E. Hayes was one of the first women to attend Cornell University's medical school, and later became a clothing designer.
In the half century since the end of World War II, the Douglaston Historic District has seen numerous houses altered or demolished, and much new construction. Some of the new houses have maintained the scale and repeated the materials and styles of earlier houses; others have not.
They have ranged in style from ranch houses to modern versions of the Colonial Revival. Overall, however, the Douglaston Historic District survives, maintaining much of its original architectural character as a planned suburban community, as well as rare surviving reminders of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and significant landscape features including the commonly-held waterfront, specimen trees, and generous landscaping.
All create a distinct sense of place, recalling a significant period in the history of Queens.
- From the 1997 NYCLPC Historic District Designation Report
Yellow indicates permanent structures in both the new and old spaces. Red diagonals are doorways. Red floor is oak, green floor is porcelain tile. Red lines are windows (see front elevation photos on this photostream).
New doorway at top between the bookshelf and the yellow-colored closet leads to the dining room and to the bath and bedrooms. There is an oak floor under these areas already. The doorway will be a pocket door with full-length glass so that we can keep the dog, smells, and sounds corralled when we need it and yet not isolate the kitchen when door is closed. We will need to reconcile the new floor with the old oak floor here.
Green area is front lobby and includes a long coat closet. Lobby windows are awning style overlooking driveway. Front door has full-length glass with blinds to increase natural light during daytime. In previous photos, many of the walls of this area are painted green as a test of the color. There is a door at top of green area in drawing which was the original front door position in 1951. (We retained a door here when we expanded the house into the former front step area in 1975. We will retain the hollowcore oak door at this postion for dog, smell, and sound control as well as to block view of interior of house from front door when we need to do this.) Beyond this door are the living room, another bedroom, and a deck door that is almost directly in line with this doorway. We will need to reconcile the old oak floor at this position with the new tile floor.
Stairway to basement will have windowless pocket door. Most of the time this doorway will be open to allow dog access to basement walkout, but closed when needed. Steve has redone the entire basement stairway to allow a safe, wide top step threshold before the first descending step and to even out the stair heights. This was a lot of work and it cost us the lower half of the existing coat closet (which is cut off in photo).
Pantry closet was planned to be angled but we decided to square-off the access route; door will be windowless hinged door (I would like louvers but we'll see.)
Door to garage is a steel firedoor to be painted to match something in the lobby. This door sees a lot of action because Steve works on autos in garage and washes hands in kitchen. The coat closet will have a blaze orange section. The blind cupboard corner of the kitchen abutting this closet will have an access door from inside the coat closet instead of access from the kitchen. This will allow offseason boot storage. Closet door is two sliding doors, not bifolds as shown.
We will commission a custom bookshelf in the area formerly a doorway leading to the bathroom and bedrooms at upper left in photo. A small eating table with a piece of art behind it will lie between refrigerator and bookcase--it will be viewed down the long hall from the garage, so it has to be attractive and inviting. Another piece of art will be mounted on the uninterupted wall of the pantry closet--it will be best seen from the inside of the G. Another piece of art will be positioned to the left of the awning windows in the lobby, which can be seen from stools or after entering from dining room or when removing coat in lobby.
In previous photos, the middle of walls inside of the G-shaped kitchen are painted red as a test. There are upper cupboards on the top and bottom of the G but not on window wall or peninsula. Decor of the room(s) will be eclectic: Spare Scandinavian-style pale cupboards, modern white glass pendant lights, probably "pewter" door hardware, and a minimal backsplash. All countertops will be laminate except two butcherblock 2' x 2' sections either side of the range. Art works may include a mix of Audubon birds, a Breckenridge watercolor of a heron rookery, a couple oil landscapes, and national park early photos. Display pieces on the bookshelf will include Old Sheffield Plate silver antiques and Benningtonware teapots. A wooden hayfork may make an appearance somewhere here. Lobby and desk and table chairs may be early 19th century "fancy chairs" or similar items. A repro mahogany utility cupboard will serve in the lobby under the window until we find something more suitable.
As of late May, 2010, we have come to the point where we must make some flooring final decisions. Steve will be reconciling the ceiling first (so the slop does not fall on oak floor) and then will begin laying tile and oak. We must use strong porcelain tile instead of ceramic because of the potential heaving of old fill under the house.
Because of personal preference and energy conservation, we have no recessed lights. The green area and hall toward patio have 3 successive ceiling-hugging lights. There is a matching utilitarian light to be positioned centrally off the pantry closet corner to give general light to the kitchen hall and there are two matching ceiling-hugging fixtures n the center of the G. There will be undercounter lights on the two ends of the kitchen. Three pendants will hang in front windows and two over the peninsula. A funky semi-antique small chandelier will hang over the table. Yes, that's a lot of lights. Not sure how much we will use any of them yet, but we know how much the ceiling-huggers will be workhorses because this space has so many different walkpaths. Wiring all this new stuff and removing vestigial wiring has been a challenge for Steve.
We have to have things done as much as possible for daughter Rebecca's visit from Alaska the 2nd week in June.
We bit the bullet at the end of May and commissioned someone else to put the finish on the cupboards. This will speed the work so that Steve can go to the Arctic in July.
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Within the G, the wall on the left has two breadboards. The one next to refrigerator will make this a sandwich and toast station. It and the one under the window will also allow the countertop to expand in size to hold dishes coming and going to dinner parties in dining room. Lower left corner of G is the microwave and beverage station. Lower right corner is the baking area, with a breadboard, mixer on countertop and baking gear in drawers below. Peninsula of the G will have another breadboard and a drawer to accept peelings and such as we chop. Compost bucket goes under small sink. Double-trash is next to sink. We anticipate this to be the major veg chopping station. Although the range is simple electric range with hood above, there is access on both sides of it so two cooks should be happy. A portable induction plate can be used adjacent to range to expand cooking options during heavy use periods. We will countersink (pun!) two containers into the butcherblock to hold utensils to right of range and a large slit to hold knives left of range.
This kitchen and lobby should allow two people to enjoy it without feeling that the space is oversized, but when out of town family members come to stay for a period of time or when friends attend a party, they should be able to find a place here that is comfortable and welcoming. (Previously they were not allowed to stand about in the old kitchen.) When the muse attacks Linda and she announces a dinner party, she will no longer be restricted in the number of dishes or serving courses or wine glasses. In the summer when life is oriented toward the deck and the lake, it will be easier to move food and dishes from deck to kitchen via the hall by the green floor in the photo.
We have sacrificed a very large, beloved teak china cupboard in order to make the new entrance to the dining room. Items from it will be stored in kitchen. China, silverware, napkins, etc. will live in the lower drawers on the left side of this photo. Hope it all fits! Tablecloths were supposed to go into these drawers, but now they are designated to hang in the half-closet that was former coat closet. Flower arranging gear also will go into this closet, which still has a full-sized door on it, but someday, we may redo it as a true built-in cupboard (with attic access still in its ceiling!).
All it takes is money, time, expertise, and resolve!
Additional comment: Sept 2010...It should be noted that we extended the tile floor across the entrance to the basement. There is a nice looking piece of oak perpendicular to the walkpath, then the oak flooring that runs parallel to the front of the house.
Estrutura dos brincos ginastas.
Structure for the gymnast earrings.
Blogged here: thelittlecreatures.wordpress.com/2012/08/11/gymnasts-gina...