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Category: Art News

Upcoming Books, Exhibitions, and Events for July 2017

Books

Elizabeth Norton’s The Hidden Lives of Tudor Women: A Social History (US title) has been out for a while in the UK and will be out at the beginning of July in the US.

One book I missed a couple of months ago was Houses of Power: The Places that Shaped the Tudor World by Simon Thurley, which was released in the UK in April. I haven’t found any US publishing info yet, but I’ll add it if I do.

In new releases, Owen Tudor: Founding Father of the Tudor Dynasty by Terry Breverton will be out in mid-July in the UK and in October in the US.

Events

Queen of Bradgate celebrations at Bradgate Park – Bradgate Park, which holds the remains of the childhood home of Lady Jane Grey, will be honoring the Nine Days Queen from July 8 to July 16. An overview is available at the link above and at the official website for Bradgate Park.

Tudor Joust is returning to Hampton Court Palace on July 15 and 16. Events will be going on all day on both days and no extra ticketing is required (it is included in the palace admission).

New Exhibitions

Reformation – Shattered World, New Beginnings opened on June 26 (I missed this one last month!) and runs through December 15 at the Senate House Library at the University of London. A video introduction by Dr. Suzannah Lipscomb is embedded above and you can download a digital copy of the exhibition catalogue for free at the website (something I like to see more of for those of us who can’t make it to a lot of these events and don’t want to pay for the expensive shipping to the US!).

The Encounter – Drawings from Leonardo to Rembrandt opens at the National Portrait Gallery, London on July 12 and runs through October 22. Tickets can be booked at the gallery’s website linked above. More about the exhibition:

The creative encounter between individual artists and sitters is explored in this major exhibition featuring portrait drawings by some of the outstanding masters of the Renaissance and Baroque periods.

Blood Royal: Picturing the Tudor Monarchy opens on July 25 and runs through August 25 at The Society of Antiquaries of London. They don’t have a dedicated page for the exhibition yet, but I’ll update the link when they do.

Continuing Exhibitions and Displays

In conjunction with London Art Week, the Weiss Gallery will run a special exhibition Courting Favour: From Elizabeth I to James I from June 26 through July 14, 2017. You can see the catalogue here. A little more about the exhibition:

The centerpiece of the show will be a beautiful portrayal of the youthful Queen Elizabeth I, a bust-length version of the magnificent ‘Hampden’ fulllength, currently on loan to Tate Britain. Displayed either side of the Queen will be portraits of her two great favourites Robert Dudley, 1st Earl of Leicester and Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex.

Waddesdon Manor in Buckinghamshire is Power & Portraiture: painting at the court of Elizabeth I opened on June 7 and will run through October 29, 2017 at From the website:

A special display exploring how Elizabeth I and her courtiers used portraits to fashion their public image and promote themselves in a glamorous, dangerous world.

Two spectacular panel paintings by Nicholas Hilliard will be accompanied by loans from the Royal Collection and National Portrait Gallery. Visitors will learn about the scientific and scholarly detective work that has led to this important discovery and will be able to compare it with the famous

Sunday Short Takes

Yes, finally, another long-overdue news round-up! I thought that I would be able to stay on top of things a lot better after the four major things at work were done, but of course everything that got put off during that time had to be dealt with after. But now I’m in the middle of a two-week stay-at-home vacation to start making a dent in the comp time and vacation hours I have to use before the end of August and I have finally recovered some of my energy.

On to the news!

* ‘Incredibly rare’ William Caxton print discovered – Pages printed more than 500 years ago by William Caxton, who brought printing to England, have been discovered by the University of Reading.

* Did Thomas Seymour sexually abuse the teenage Princess Elizabeth? – In a new series for Channel Five, Suzannah Lipscomb and Dan Jones examine the allegation that the teenage Princess Elizabeth was sexually abused by her stepfather, Thomas Seymour. Here, Suzannah Lipscomb considers the evidence

Sunday Short Takes

More buildings to save your pence for!

* Thornbury Castle, Honeymoon Spot of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn, On Sale for $10.3 million – Although since this one is also a hotel, I think I would settle for just staying there instead of buying the whole thing. I know several readers of this site have been there, but it’s still on my ‘to do’ list!

* Barsham Manor House on rightmove – This property in Norfolk intrigues me. Henry VIII apparently stayed there several times and it’s in an area that some of my ancestors are from!

* Knole House has

Sunday Short Takes – Saturday edition

I wanted to get this final round-up of 2016 actually *in* 2016, hence the Saturday post. A lot of stories piled up in the final weeks of 2016 that I never got around to posting, so this is going to be a long one!

* Pembroke Castle study uncovers possible Henry VII birthplace

* Through foreign eyes: the forgotten ambassadors to the Tudor court

* V&A acquires earliest picture of Henry VIII

Sunday Short Takes

Good grief, I didn’t expect a month to go by before I got a chance to do one of these again… To say that things have been busy lately would be a wild understatement. The good news is that I’ve earned a fair amount of comp time but the bad news is that I have no idea when I will ever be able to use it!

But enough whinging from me – on to the news round-up!

* The Tudor London Tube Map – This one has already been going around social media for a while now, but it was so clever (and useful for planning a Tudor-themed trip to London) that I had to post it.

* Lost in the Great Fire: which London buildings disappeared in the 1666 blaze? – A look at some of the reasons that many Tudor (and earlier) buildings of London aren’t around to see anymore.

* Bosworth: the dawn of the Tudors – From childhood imprisonment in Brittany to the violent execution of Richard III in a Leicestershire field, Henry Tudor

Sunday Short Takes

Sunday Short Takes Mega Edition! This is what happens when I actually have time to do things. (I took Spring Break off at work – although the fact that I was able to mostly use comp time accrued in the last month to take the *whole week* off tells you something…)

More interesting Shakespeare news:

* Shakespeare’s grave scanned in 400th anniversary – Shakespeare’s grave in Holy Trinity Church in Stratford upon Avon has never been excavated, but a scan has been carried out to search below ground. The findings are expected to be revealed in the next few weeks.

* William Shakespeare’s handwritten plea for refugees to go online – Sir Thomas More script is only surviving copy of a play in the bard

Sunday Short Takes

I had no intention of waiting a whole month into the new year to finally post a Sunday Short Takes, but that’s just kind of how things worked out! So here’s a round-up of Tudor history-related news that caught my eye from the very end of 2015 and the first month of 2016:

* Archaeologists believe Thames gold hoard may have come from Tudor hat – Experts say 12 tiny pieces of gold recovered from the banks of the Thames may have come from a hat blown off the head of a high-status Tudor figure

* Explore Shakespeare

Upcoming Books and Events for December 2015

Wow, this month’s round-up really managed to sneak up on me! Where did November go??

Books

All of this month’s books have already been released in the UK and are now coming out in the US or books that I missed in last month’s round up:

Jasper: The Tudor Kingmaker by Sarah Elin Roberts, which was released at the end of October in the UK and will be out December 19 in the US.

A collection of essays entitled The Shakespeare Circle edited by Paul Edmondson and Stanley Wells was released at the end of October in the UK and will be released at the end of December in the US. This collection focusses on the people that Shakespeare would have interacted with in his life and sounds like an interesting approach to Shakespeare biography.

Claire Ridgway of The Anne Boleyn Files and The Tudor Society released her latest Tudor history book: Tudor Places of Great Britain at the beginning of November.

And finally, Ruth Goodman’s How to Be a Tudor: A Dawn-to-Dusk Guide to Everyday Life was released in early November in the UK and will be out in February 2016 in the US:

New Exhibitions

If you will allow me a little indulgence – I once again have a chance to highlight something that is actually taking place in my hometown! The Harry Ransom Center at The University of Texas at Austin will be launching Shakespeare in Print and Performance on December 21, 2015 and it will run through May 29, 2016. They haven’t published a dedicated page for the exhibition yet, but here’s the description from the Upcoming Exhibitions page:

Explore the legacy of William Shakespeare at the Harry Ransom Center. This exhibition provides insight into the origins of his works, the history of their publication and performance, the manner in which the texts have been studied on the page, and the plays interpreted on the stage. The Elizabethan world of Shakespeare and his contemporaries is presented through early printed books documenting his contemporary reputation, his textual sources, and his plays. Costume and set designs, promptbooks, and other ephemera showcase the variety of ways artists have translated his plays into performance.

I’ll definitely be stopping by (possibly more than once – one of the benefits of working at UT Austin!) and will take photos and do a blog post about the exhibition like I did with the King James Bible exhibit from a few years ago.

Continuing Exhibitions

The National Portrait Gallery, London launched Simon Schama’s Face of Britain exhibition on September 16 and it will run through January 4, 2016. More information on the exhibition here

Sunday Short Takes

Sad news to start this week’s round-up:

* Keith Michell, star of Six Wives of Henry VIII dies aged 89 – Keith Michell, star of The Six Wives of Henry VIII and artistic director of the Chichester Festival Theatre, dies after long and celebrated career

And in other news:

* Full collection built by Dukes of Portland to go on show for first time – The Portland Collection, built up over centuries, is to go on display at the new Harley Gallery – Among the pieces that will go on display is the Nicholas Hilliard coronation miniature of Elizabeth I.

And a few videos to close out this week:

* Royals, Rascals and Us: 500 years of Hampton Court Palace – a film about the history of Hampton Court Palace made from thousands of drawings by kids

* Society of Antiquaries lecture by Philippa Glanville on the Inventory of Henry VIII

Upcoming Books and Events for November 2015

Books

A few books from the past couple of months that were previously released in the UK will be out in November in the US:

Charles Brandon: Henry VIII’s Closest Friend by Steven Gunn will be out November 19 in the US:

… as will Terry Breverton’s The Tudor Kitchen: What the Tudors Ate & Drank

And a few releases from October that I missed…

The First Book of Fashion: The Book of Clothes of Matthaeus and Veit Konrad Schwarz of Augsburg edited by Ulinka Rublack and Maria Hayward was released on October 22 in the UK and US.

And the interest in Jasper Tudor continues (yay!) with another addition to the growing number of works on him: Jasper: The Tudor Kingmaker by Sarah Elin Roberts, which was released at the end of October in the UK and will be out in December in the US.

And Stuff & Nonsense: Kings & Queens by Ian Baillie is a comic verse take on the lives of English Kings and Queens which came out at the end of October in both the UK and US.

Now, finally, on to the new releases for November!

Suzannah Lipscomb’s latest book, The King is Dead about the will of Henry VIII is out November 5 in the UK. I don’t see an official release in the US yet, but I’ll update when I find out more.

The illustrated 2nd edition of Barb Alexander’s The Tudor Tutor: Your Cheeky Guide to the Dynasty is out in a couple of days in the US and on November 19 in the UK.

Finally, Elizabeth Norton’s newest book The Temptation Of Elizabeth Tudor about Princess Elizabeth and Thomas Seymour is out November 5 in the UK and in January in the US.

Continuing Events

The National Portrait Gallery, London launched Simon Schama’s Face of Britain exhibition on September 16 and it will run through January 4, 2016. More information on the exhibition here

Upcoming Books and Events for October 2015

Quite a few books this month, including one I missed since I didn’t get around to a September round-up.

Books and Recordings

Delve into the world of Tudor Food and Drink with Terry Breverton’s The Tudor Kitchen: What the Tudors Ate & Drank, which is already out in the UK and will be out in the US in November.

Alison Weir’s latest Tudor biography is The Lost Tudor Princess: The Life of Margaret Douglas Countess of Lennox and is out at the beginning of October in the UK. The US version will be out either in late November or early January 2016 depending on which of my conflicting pieces of information is correct.

Next up is something I know some Tudor history fans have wanted to see for a while – Steven Gunn has updated his earlier (very hard to find!) biography of Charles Brandon with the new title Charles Brandon: Henry VIII’s Closest Friend. The book is out in mid-October in the UK and mid-November in the US.

Finally, for the books this month, a collection of essays entitled The Shakespeare Circle edited by Paul Edmondson and Stanley Wells will be out at the end of October in the UK and late November in the US. This collection focusses on the people that Shakespeare would have interacted with in his life and sounds like an interesting approach to Shakespeare biography.

And for the first time in a while, I’ve added a musical recording to the round-up! Anne Boleyn’s Songbook recorded by Alamire was released in September in the UK and will be out in the US in October.

Events

Just a reminder, the second of this fall’s BBC History Weekends is on October 15-18 in Malmesbury. More information is available here

And finally, the National Portrait Gallery, London launched Simon Schama’s Face of Britain exhibition on September 16 and it will run through January 4, 2016. More information on the exhibition here

Sunday Short Takes – catch-up edition

Hello all… so the Sunday posts have been a little quiet of late! Things have been very crazy for the past month or so, so I’ve been really trying to take the weekends off from *everything* (except laundry!) and just relax and recharge to tackle another work week. Things are sort of calming down (or, probably more accurately, I’m finally learning some new job duties well enough that they don’t take as much time and I’m not as stressed by them) so I hope to get back into a groove with Sunday posts when there is enough news to post about.

I missed the upcoming books and events for September post, so I’ll mention below a couple of things that would have been in that post. The rest will be in the October round-up.

* Tudor tunes: music at the courts of Henry VIII, Elizabeth I and James VI and I

* First 3D model of church where remains of Richard III laid were laid created by DMU

* Cod bones from Mary Rose reveal globalized fish trade in Tudor England

* Renovation of Tudor chapel at The Vyne begins – More information from the National Trust website: New technology saves exquisite Tudor stained glass

And a few items that would have been on the September books and events round-up:

* The Anne Boleyn Files Tudor Calendar 2016 Now Available

* BBC History Magazine’s York History Weekend 25th – 27th September 2015

* BBC History Magazine’s Malmesbury History Weekend 15th – 18th October 2015

Sunday Short Takes

I’m going to put some of the Richard III stories in a separate post later in the week since I already have several and there will be many, many more as the reinterment week progresses. So here’s the best of the rest!

* Elizabethan tapestry map to be displayed at University of Oxford’s Bodleian library – Map of Worcestershire from 1590s describes mysterious event in the hills near

“A Queen of a New Invention” – Q&A with J. Stephan Edwards

I’m so happy to be able to bring you this wonderful Q&A by regular commenter Foose with other regular commenter PhDHistorian about his new book A Queen of a New Invention: Portraits of Lady Jane Grey Dudley, England’s ‘Nine Days Queen’. My massive thanks go out to both of them for doing this so I can bring it to you all! Amazon US and UK ordering information for the book is at the bottom of this post and additional information on the book is available at the author’s website: Some Grey Matter.

cover

1. What led you to the decision to buck the scholarly consensus that no verifiable contemporary portrait of Jane Grey survived

Sunday Short Takes


Medal of Anne Boleyn, the only known likeness from her lifetime and subject of the biggest Tudor news story of the past few weeks

 

Yes, finally, I’ve gotten around to doing another news round-up! The last few weeks have been insanely busy and therefore insanely tiring, so some things fell by the wayside (blogging, laundry, etc.) But now I’m getting caught up, so here’s a mega news dump.

 

The biggest ‘news’ of the past couple of weeks in the Tudor-sphere was the story about facial recognition software that was used on images of Anne Boleyn, which spawned a bunch of articles such as the two below:

* Possible Anne Boleyn portrait found using facial recognition software

* Portraits of Anne Boleyn may not be her, say experts

But it didn’t take long for those knowledgeable in Anne Boleyn’s portraiture to respond with a bit more level-headed analysis than the hyperbolic headlines. A few examples of those below:

* Anne of the Thousand Faces – by Roland Hui on his Tudor Faces blog.

* Anne Boleyn-ollocks – From Bendor Grosvenor on his Art History News blog.

* Update on Nidd Hall Portrait and 1534 Anne Boleyn Medal – From Claire Ridgway at The Anne Boleyn Files, who actually contacted the project coordinator and surprise! – the press got it all wrong.

 

And here’s a bunch of random, interesting articles that I saved:

* Wolf Hall in The National Archives – Nice compilation of documents from the UK National Archives with examples of real-life documents related to events in episodes of the Wolf Hall series.

* Hampton Court’s lost apartment foundations uncovered – A routine maintenance job at Hampton Court palace has uncovered the lost foundations of the splendid royal apartments of two ill-fated queens, Anne Boleyn and Jane Seymour.

* Skirret: the forgotten Tudor vegetable – Wolf Hall has unearthed Tudor delights, ignored for centuries the sweet root vegetable has returned to Hampton Court

* Storm washes Armada wreckage on to Sligo beach

* Cambridgeshire church plague graffiti reveals ‘heartbreaking’ find – “Heartbreaking” graffiti uncovered in a Cambridgeshire church has revealed how three sisters from one family died in a plague outbreak in 1515.

* Henry VIII’s evidence to support break with Rome turns up in Cornish library – Book of legal and philosophical advice on king