Maiolica and majolica are names used for different types of ceramics produced from the late-medieval period onwards. The names are sometimes used interchangeably which can lead to confusion.
Palladianism was an approach to architecture strongly influenced by the sixteenth century architect Andrea Palladio. Characterised by Classical forms, symmetry, and strict proportion, the exteriors of Palladian buildings were often austere. Inside, however, elaborate decoration, gilding and ornamentation created a lavish, opulent environment.
The picturesque is an aesthetic category developed in the eighteenth-century. It was associated with fashionable landscape gardening, however its cultural significance extended far beyond this.
The Armistice was the ceasefire that ended hostilities between the Allies and Germany on the 11th of November 1918. The Armistice did not end the First World War itself, but it was the agreement which stopped the fighting on the Western Front.
The Anthropocene is the idea that the Earth is entering a new epoch in its geological history, in which human beings have for the first time become the primary agents of change on a planetary scale.
The Reformation was a European-wide conflict over the hearts and minds of Christendom which gave rise to the distinction between Catholic and Protestant.
The Peerage of England, Scotland, Ireland, Great Britain and the United Kingdom is comprised of the Lords Spiritual - the Archbishops of Canterbury and York and twenty-four other bishops - and five ranks of secular peers.
Over 300 British aristocrats married American women between 1870 and 1914. While popular perception understands these marriages as arranged trades of titles for dollars, this explanation is correct for only a few exceptional cases.
Dovecotes are structures designed to house pigeons or doves. They are also referred to as ‘culverhouses’ (English), ‘columbaria’ (Latin) and ‘doocots’ (Scots).
The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood was a nineteenth century art movement founded in 1848 by Dante Gabriel Rossetti, William Holman Hunt, John Everett Millais and several of their friends.
First marketed at the turn of the 1770s, Coade stone was a remarkable new building material. Using a recipe which was not fully understood until the 1990s, its makers claimed to have produced the first ever ‘artificial stone’.
Tough and hard-wearing, it offered new opportunities for fine-detailed decoration. Just as extraordinary as the stone was the person who sold it: Eleanor Coade, one of the few women to be acknowledged as a major influence on eighteenth century architecture.
A ‘water garden’ is a broad term that can be applied to any garden that makes use of water for ornamental effect, be that a series of cascades or a decorative canal.
The term Egyptomania refers to the enthusiasm for everything that is related to ancient Egypt. Although Egyptomania has been seen in many places and at many times, several peaks are especially noteworthy.
A World Heritage Site is a cultural or natural landmark that has been recognized by UNESCO due to its universal value to humanity, both in the present and for future generations.
A shabti is a generally mummiform figurine found in many ancient Egyptian tombs. The meaning of the Egyptian term is still debated, however one possible translation is ‘answerer’, as they were believed to answer their master’s call to work in the afterlife.
The Whigs were an association of aristocratic men who in the 1670s demanded the exclusion of Charles II’s Catholic brother, James, from the royal succession.
‘Beasts of Battle’ is a recurring image in Old English (Anglo-Saxon) and Old Norse (Viking) poetry. The three beasts are the raven, the eagle, and the wolf, who feast on the bodies of the slain.
The English landscape garden is characterised by structured informality. Orderly, aesthetically arranged elements draw attention to local flora and landscape features which appear entirely natural, or even ‘wild’.
The Bloomsbury group was a circle of artists, writers and intellectuals who embraced a culture of sexual equality and freedom, informality and fierce intellectual debate, largely at odds with their strict Victorian upbringings.