Located in the French department of Eure, in Normandy, the medieval castle ruin known as Château Gaillard overlooks the Seine River above the commune of Les Andelys. It is around 40 kilometers from Rouen and 95 kilometers northwest of Paris. Under the patronage of Richard the Lionheart, the concurrent monarch of England and the feudal Duke of Normandy, construction got underway in 1196. Although building the castle was an expensive endeavor, the majority of the work was completed in an exceptionally short amount of time. It only took two years, during which the village of Petit Andely was built. The intricate and sophisticated architecture of Château Gaillard incorporates early concentric fortification ideas; it was also among the first castles in Europe to employ machicolations. With a keep in the inner enclosure, the castle is divided into three enclosures by dry moats. After an extended siege, Philip II, the King of France, took possession of Château Gaillard in 1204. David II of Scotland, who was banished, lived in the fortress around the middle of the fourteenth century. Throughout the Hundred Years War, the castle was owned by various different people. However, in 1449, the French monarch finally took Château Gaillard from the English king, and it stayed in French hands ever since. Château Gaillard was in ruins when Henry IV of France ordered its demolition in 1599 because it was thought to pose a threat to the safety of the local populace. The French Ministry of Culture lists the castle ruins as a monument historique. The outer baileys are open year-round, while the inner bailey is accessible to the public from March through November
[Information and Image Credit : Château_Gaillard, Wikipedia] [Wikipedia-Link : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ch%C3%A2teau_Gaillard ] [Image : Inner bailey of Château Gaillard; Wikipedia-Image Author : Sylvain Verlaine] [Image Availed Under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License; (Please Relate to Individual Image URLs for More Usage Property and Sharing, Remixing or Attributing the Work)] [License-Link : https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en ] [Wikipedia-Image-Source-Link : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ch%C3%A2teau_Gaillard_(Les_Andelys),_vu_du_ciel.JPG ] #Castles#History
Situated some 50 km southwest of Paris in the Île-de-France area of northern France, the town of Rambouillet in the Yvelines department is home to the Château de Rambouillet. From 1896 until 2009, it served as the summer house of the presidents of French Republic. The Centre des monuments nationaux currently oversees its upkeep. Originally built as a fortified estate in 1368, the château still has its pentagonal bastioned footprint even after losing its eastern wing during reign of Napoleon. On March 31, 1547, King Francis I passed away there—possibly in the grand medieval tower that bears his name. King Louis XVI acquired the château in 1783 as a private property, extending his hunting grounds, from his cousin, the duc de Penthièvre. The estate of Rambouillet was turned into a bien national, or national property, during the French Revolution. The contents of the chateau were removed, and the adjacent park and gardens were neglected. Rambouillet was listed on the liste civile of Napoleon I during his rule. Rambouillet was once more listed on the royal liste civile during the Bourbon Restoration. Following the overthrow of Napoleon III in 1870 and the ensuing establishment of the French Third Republic, the duc de la Trémoille leased the domain of Rambouillet from 1870 until 1883. [Information and Image Credit : Château_de_Rambouillet, Wikipedia] [Wikipedia-Link : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ch%C3%A2teau_de_Rambouillet ] [Image : View of the château from its formal French garden ; Wikipedia-Image Author : Trougnouf (Benoit Brummer)] [Image Availed Under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International License; (Please Relate to Individual Image URLs for More Usage Property and Sharing, Remixing or Attributing the Work)] [License-Link : https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en ] [Wikipedia-Image-Source-Link : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ch%C3%A2teau_de_Rambouillet_(DSC_7006).jpg ] #Castles#History
Schloss Drachenburg, also known as Drachenburg Castle, is a late 19th-century estate designed to style as a castle. On the Drachenfels hill in Königswinter, a German town on the east bank of the Rhine, south of the city of Bonn, it was finished in just two years, from 1882 to 1884. The State Foundation of North Rhine-Westphalia owns the villa. A Drachenfels Railway intermediate station provides service to it. After graduating from high school, Stephan Sarter, a Bonn native, began an apprenticeship at the Leopold Seligman bank in Köln. He changed jobs and joined Salomon Openheim as a market analyst in their Paris branch. He made a fortune by trading on his own account, and in 1881 he petitioned for a patent of nobility. He ordered the schloss as a proper backdrop for a German baron even though he spent the remainder of his life in Paris. Bernhard Tüshaus and Leo von Abbema, two architects from Dortmund, created the original blueprints of the building, and work on it started in 1882. Wilhelm Hoffman was hired by Sarter to finish the project after it appears that he and the original architects had a falling out. In 1902, Sarter passed away alone, and his inheritance, which included the schloss, was divided up among a number of his kin. A Bonn lawyer and one of his nephews, Jacob Hubert Biesenbach, saw the potential of the building as a tourist destination and purchased the other legatees for 390,000 Marks. Despite being relatively profitable, Biesenbach sold the castle to Egbert von Simon in 1910 because revenue was not enough to meet expenses. Von Simon ran the castle profitably. During the First World War, cavalry officer Von Simon was killed in action at Arras. Hermann Flohr, a merchant and arms trader, bought the castle and estate piecemeal at several auctions. He lived in one portion of the castle while using the other as a facility for ladies who were recovering from illness. The Catholic order of Christian Brothers purchased the castle in 1930, and they used it to build St. Michaels Boarding School. The Federal Railways rented the castle from the State of North-Rhine, Westphalia, after the war as a training center until they moved to their own facilities in Wuppertal in 1959. The castle was thereafter abandoned and started to degrade. A Syndicate for the Preservation of Drachenburg was established in 1963, and they were successful in getting the castle designated as being worth preserving. Paul Spinat, a local textile businessman, bought it in 1971 and had it extensively restored before opening it to the public and using it for entertaining. He passed away in debt in 1989, and the State of North-Rhine, Westphalia assumed control of the estate and oversaw additional restoration work that lasted for another 20 years. The presence of several postcards and other illustrations that Jacob Biesenbach had ordered for his initial tourist effort at the turn of the 20th century was very helpful to the restoration. The North-Rhine, Westphalia Foundation is now in charge of managing the structure
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Early eighteenth-century Irish portrait painter, translator, and art collector Charles Jervas lived between 1675 and 2 November 1739. Around 1675, John Jervas, son of Elizabeth, daughter of Captain John Baldwin of Shinrone Castle & Corolanty, High Sheriff of County Offaly, was born in Shinrone, County Offaly, Ireland. Between 1694 and 1695, Jervas worked as a working assistant for Sir Godfrey Kneller in London, England. Following the sale of several miniature copies of the Raphael Cartoons to Dr. George Clarke of All Souls College in Oxford in around 1698, he moved to Paris and Rome the following year, staying there for the majority of the following ten years before coming back to London in 1709 and getting good results as a portrait painter. Charles Jervas became a well-known artist who was frequently mentioned in the works of literary figures of the time by painting portraits of the intelligentsia of the city, including personal friends like Jonathan Swift and the poet Alexander Pope. Jervas succeeded Kneller as the Chief Painter in Ordinary to King George I in 1723 and later to King George II as a result of his expanding renown. He relocated to Hampton, London, after getting married to Penelope Hume, a wealthy widow who was rumoured to be worth £20,000. Up until his passing in 1739, he remained a resident of London. Jervas was the first to offer an introduction to the book, which also included a review of earlier translations of Don Quixote. Even though it was printed numerous times throughout the nineteenth century, it has received both great praise for being the most accurate translation of the book to that point and harsh criticism for being stilted and humourless [Information and Image Credit : Charles_Jervas, Wikipedia; Wikipedia-Link : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Jervas ] [image: Self-portrait of Jervas] [The Image (Work) a faithful photographic reproduction of a two-dimensional, public domain work of art. The (Image) Work is in the public domain in its country of origin and other countries and areas where the copyright term is the life of Author plus 100 years or fewer. The Work is believed to be in Public Domain in the United States as well. (Kindly Relate to Individual Source Image URLs for More Usage Properties)] [Wikipedia-Source Image URL :: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Charles_Jervas.jpg ] #Art
Helen Mabel Trevor was an Irish landscape and genre painter who lived from 20 December 1831 to 3 April 1900. On December 20, 1831, Helen Mabel Trevor was born in Lisnagead House in Loughbrickland, County Down. Trevor was the oldest daughter of Edward Hill Trevor, Esq. Father of Trevor gave her a studio as an early kind of support when she started to draw. She left Ireland in the 1870s, and until the 1890s, she was able to travel and pursue her education thanks to money from the Loughbrickland estate. Later in life, Trevor become deaf. On April 3, 1900, she suddenly passed away in her studio in Rue du Cherche Midi from a heart attack. She submitted The Youthful Mechanic and Portrait of William III to the Dublin Exhibition in 1853 before presenting Sketch from Life to the Royal Hibernian Academy in 1854. She later submitted artwork featuring a dog, a kitten, the hounds of the Newry Hunt, as well as a portrait, to the RHA in 1856. She provided two paintings of dogs in 1858. She spent four years studying at the Royal Academy of Arts in London in the 1870s after her parents passed away. Trevor relocated to Paris in 1880 and pursued studies there under Jean-Jacques Henner, Luc-Olivier Merson, and Carolus-Duran. In 1881 and 1882, she visited Brittany and Normandy with her sister Rose. The RA received her 1881 picture, Breton boys en retenue. Two Breton girls, another piece, was most likely created during this period. In 1883, she visited Concarneau, where it is possible that she ran upon the realism Jules Bastien-Lepage. The sisters travelled and studied the Old Masters during their six-year of travel and study in Italy after moving there in 1883. In 1889, Trevor went back to Paris and started working again for Carolus-Duran. During this time, she made regular trips to Brittany, but she spent the rest of her life in Paris at several addresses. She displayed at the Paris Salon in 1889, 1893, and 1899. She was given a honourable mention for her 1898 piece, Breton Interior. Fourteen of her paintings were sent to the RHA between 1889 and 1897, while others were sent to the RA. Two paintings by Trevor were left to the National Gallery of Ireland. Later, she was highlighted in The Centenary of Impressionism: Nineteenth Century French Art and Ireland, a 1974 NGI exhibit
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Dover Castle is a Grade I listed mediaeval castle located in Dover, Kent, England. It was established in the 11th century, and because of its defensive importance throughout its timeline it has been called the — Key to England. It is reportedly the biggest castle in England, a claim that Windsor Castle also makes. Before the Roman invasion in AD 43, this site may have been fortified with earthworks during the Iron Age or earlier. This is hypothesised based on the unique layout of the earthworks, which does not seem to fit the mediaeval castle perfectly. Iron Age occupancy in the area of the castle has been revealed by excavations, but it is unclear whether this is connected to the fort on the hill. The location is also home to one of the two Roman lighthouses or pharoses of Dover, the highest and most comprehensive standing Roman building in England and one of the just three Roman-era lighthouses that are still in existence today. It is also touted as being the oldest standing structure in Britain. The five-level, eight-sided tower, which was constructed in the first century, was layered with red bricks, Kentish ragstone and tufa. After being transformed into a belfry in the Saxon era about 1000 A.D., having a new upper tier erected around 1430 A.D. and being largely renovated in 1913–1915, the castle lighthouse has endured the test of time. On the opposite Western Heights, across from Dover, are the meagre remnants of the other Roman lighthouse, also known as the Bredenstone. William the Conqueror and his troops proceeded to Westminster Abbey for his crowning in October 1066, following the Battle of Hastings. They travelled in circles, passing via Romney, Dover and Canterbury. Dover has been a founding member of the Cinque Ports from its founding in 1050; it Is possible that it was this that originally caught the eyes of William and earned Kent the title of Invicta. Eight knights were chosen on a tenured basis in 1088 to protect Dover Castle. The castle started to take on a distinctive shape during the era of Henry II. This period is represented by the great keep, the inner and outer baileys, etc. The keep was constructed by Maurice the Engineer. The King invested approximately £6,500 in the castle between 1179 and 1188, a significant sum given that his annual income was probably in the neighbourhood of £10,000 at the time. A group of insurgent lords encouraged the future Louis VIII of France to claim the English throne in 1216, during the First Barons War. Although he made considerable progress in penetrating the defences of the castle, he ultimately failed. It was maintained for the king during the English Civil War but was later seized by Parliamentarian supporters in 1642 without a single fire being shot. Dover Castle served as a key observation post for the cross-Channel sightings of Anglo-French Survey, which linked the Royal Greenwich Observatory and the Paris Observatory using trigonometric computations. During the Napoleonic Wars at the end of the 18th century, there was extensive renovation. For the extra forces and their gears, Dover needed barracks and storage spaces as it transformed into a garrison town. To the south of the castle, brand-new quarters for the officers were built between 1856 and 1858. The tunnels were transformed first as an air-raid shelter and then into a military control station and an underground hospital after the Second World War began in 1939. Dover Castle is still protected from unsanctioned changes as a Scheduled Monument, making it a Nationally Important historic structure and archaeological site. [Information and Image Credit : Dover_Castle, Wikipedia] [Image : An Aerial View of the Castle; Author: Chensiyuan, Wikipedia] [Image Availed Under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International (Kindly Relate to Individual Source Image URLs for More Usage Properties)] [License-Link :
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Alexandre Nikolayevich Benois (3 May, 1870 -- Saint Petersburg – 9 February 1960, Paris) was a founder member of the Russian art movement and periodical Mir iskusstva (World of Art), as well as an artist, art critic, historian, and preservationist. [Image : At the German Quarter (1911) by Alexandre Nikolayevich Benois] [Information and Image Credit : Alexandre_Benois , Wikipedia] [Image Availed Under Public Domain Work (Please Relate to Individual Image URL for More Usage Property)] [Source-Image-URL : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Nemetskaya.jpg ]
She was the Wife of another Man, but when Paris, a handsome and woman-loving prince of Troy saw Helen, whom Aphrodite declared the most beautiful woman in the world, Paris had to have her. Helen and Paris fled together and led to a decade of Trojan War. According to mythology, Helen was a demigod, the daughter of Queen Leda and the god Zeus. Zeus had taken the Shape of a Swan to seduce Her Queen. The romantic role of Helen and Paris in one of the greatest epic ever will not be forgotten! (Info-Credit :: https://www.townandcountrymag.com/leisure/arts-and-culture/news/g3233/greatest-love-stories-in-history/ )
The Artist's Studio (L'Atelier du peintre): A Real Allegory of a Seven Year Phase in my Artistic and Moral Life, 1855, 359 cm × 598 cm (141 in × 235 in), oil on canvas, Musée d'Orsay, Paris (Credit: Gustave_Courbet , Wikipedia)
The Slave Market is a painting first exhibited at the Paris Salon of 1886 by the French artist Gustave Boulanger, who specialized in classical and Orientalist genre scenes. Its title in the Salon catalogue was Un Maquignon desclaves à Rome (A Slave Dealer in Rome), but as early as 1888 it was called Vente descalves (Sale of Slaves) in the French press, and in English it has become known as The Slave Market. (Credit: The_Slave_Market_(Boulanger_painting), Wikipedia) (Link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Boulanger-gustave-clarence-rudolphe-french-1824-1888-the-slave-market.png )
Napoleon I on his Imperial Throne, 1806, oil on canvas, 260 x 163 cm, Musée de l'Armée, Paris -- Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres (29 August 1780 – 14 January 1867). He was a French Neoclassical painter. Ingres was profoundly influenced by past artistic traditions and aspired to become the guardian of academic orthodoxy against the ascendant Romantic style. (Credit: Jean-Auguste-Dominique_Ingres , Wikipedia)
Le Déjeuner de jambon, Chantilly, musée Condé, 1735 --
Nicolas Lancret (22 January 1690 – 14 September 1743). He was a French painter. Born in Paris, he was a brilliant depicter of light comedy which reflected the tastes and manners of French society during the regency of the Duke of Orleans and, later, early reign of King Louis XV. (Credit: Nicolas_Lancret , Wikipedia) (Link : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:D%C3%A9jeuner_de_jambon_-_Nicolas_Lancret_-_mus%C3%A9e_Cond%C3%A9.jpg ) #Art#ArtWork
Rococo less commonly Roccoco or Late Baroque, is an exceptionally ornamental and theatrical style of architecture, art and decoration which combines asymmetry, scrolling curves, gilding, white and pastel colors, sculpted molding to create surprise and the illusion of motion and drama. It is often described as the final expression of the Baroque movement. Rococo originated in Paris in the early 18th century but was soon adopted throughout France and later in other countries, principally Germany and Austria. It is characterized by lightness, elegance, and an exuberant use of curving natural forms in ornamentation. The Rococo style began in France in the 1730s as a reaction against the more formal and geometric Louis XIV style. It was known as the "style Rocaille", or "Rocaille style". It also came to influence the other arts, particularly sculpture, furniture, silverware, glassware, painting, music, and theatre. Although originally a secular style primarily used for interiors of private residences, the Rococo had a spiritual aspect to it which led to its widespread use in church interiors, particularly in Central Europe, Portugal, and South America. (Credit: Rococo, Wikipeia) (Credit: Rococo, Britannica) (Link: Image Left: Ballroom ceiling of the Ca Rezzonico in Venice with illusionistic quadratura painting by Giovanni Battista Crosato (1753) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Kaisersaal_W%C3%BCrzburg.jpg ) (Image Right: Integrated rococo carving, stucco and fresco at Zwiefalten Abbey (1739–45) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Zwiefalten_28_04_2011_23.jpg )
Princess von Esterhazy as Ariadne, 1793 -by
Élisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun (16 April 1755 – 30 March 1842). She was also known as Madame Le Brun, was a French portrait painter in the late 18th century. Her artistic style is generally considered part of the aftermath of Rococo with elements of an adopted Neoclassical style. Vigée Le Brun created 660 portraits and 200 landscapes Vigée Le Brun created a name for herself in Ancien Régime society by serving as the portrait painter to Marie Antoinette, the Last Queen of France. She enjoyed the patronage of European aristocrats, actors, and writers, and was elected to art academies in ten cities In addition to many works in private collections, her paintings are owned by major museums, such as the Louvre Paris, Uffizi Florence, Hermitage Museum Saint Petersburg, National Gallery in London, Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and many other collections in continental Europe and the United States. (Credit: Élisabeth_Vigée_Le_Brun, Wikipedia) (Image-Link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Portrait_of_Princess_Maria_Josefa_Hermenegilde_von_Esterhazy_(1793)_Le_Brun.jpg )
Armand Guillaumin war ein französischer Impressionist, befreundet mit Cézanne, bewundert von van Gogh. Doch anders als diese scheint er fast übersehen. Das 1874 entstandene -- Die Seine bei Paris -- ist typisch für seine gefühlvollen Landschaften unter wechselhaftem Himmel. (Credit: Helge Hesse, Facebook) (Image Source: https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=1150379675505884&set=a.161698714373990 ) #Art#ArtWork#NFT#Artist