Catégorie Patrimoine
L’histoire des cabinets de curiosités (exposition à Poitiers 2013-2014)
Le cabinet de curiosités naît au 16eme siècle, à une époque où l’homme s’intéresse de près aux objets, qu’ils soient d’origine naturelle ou artistique. D’abord simple accumulation de curiosités de tout genre – minéraux, animaux exotiques, coraux, objets précieux, plantes et fossiles -, ces objets sont par la suite classifiés et exposés. Le cabinet de […]
Lenoir, le crime et le cardinal de Lorraine
Un assassin, dans les yeux d’un homme du début du 19ème siècle, porte des stigmates visibles. Pour cet homme, les traces des méfaits restent ineffaçables, visibles sur le corps et dans sa chair, même après des siècles passés dans un cercueil. Le Mal apparaît physiquement, car les actes criminels laissent des marques de corruption sur […]
Darnley, famous for being handsome – and murdered
Some people in History are notorious because of their violent deaths, some are famous for having married a celebrity and some are prominent by reason of a magnificently painted portrait. Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley, cumulates all these three. His portrait in the Scottish National Portrait Gallery shows a blond boy of nine or ten, dressed […]
Scottish effigies in the Saint-Germain-des-Prés Abbey in Paris
Since the end of the 13th century, the realms of France and Scotland were officially bound by mutual military aid contracts that laid the foundations of the famous Auld Alliance. Many Scotsmen came to France to make war as archers and soldiers in the service of the French kings, or to make business in the cities of […]
Mary and Darnley, the beautiful doomed couple
Like the J.F. Kennedy murder fifty years ago, we might never know with certainty who killed Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley, the second husband of Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots, near Kirk o’Field house in Edinburgh in 1567. The latest exhibition at the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh, dedicated to the infortunate queen, didn’t bring […]
Charles de Lorraine, le cardinal bibliophile
Charles de Lorraine, second fils de la maison de Guise, depuis la mort de son oncle Jean en 1550 cardinal de Lorraine, commandait et collectionnait les ouvrages de prestige. De grands noms de la reliure, de l’enluminure et de la calligraphie travaillèrent pour lui. Plusieurs exemplaires somptueux de cet ensemble éclectique sont visibles dans une […]
Unicorn hunt at Stirling castle
Stirling castle in Scotland has just received an all new and bright coloured tapestry, the sixth out of a series of medieval inspired hangings already decorating its Renaissance palace. These modern replicas are woven by West Dean Tapestry in a studio at Stirling castle and in the south of England and depict the « The Hunt […]
Renaissance living comfort
When nobility and royalty were travelling from palace to palace, tapestries, carpets and wooden furniture were taken along to furnish the various rooms. But how were these interiors made comfortable, and how their inhabitants were sheltered from the summer heat or winter cold ? Tapestries have been used not only as decoration and signs of […]
Mary of Guise’s Book of Hours
Every noblewoman had hers, from the thirteenth century onwards, and depending on her wealth, it was more or less decorated and illuminated with more or less art. Mary of Guise’s Book of Hours, a XVth century manuscript, comes from St. Benedict’s Abbey, Fort Augustus, and is kept now in the National Library of Scotland. « Of […]
Marie de Guise-Lorraine 1515-2025 