#Barnard Castle

[the-home]

[galleryofart]

Barnard Castle

Artist: Joseph Mallord William Turner (British, 1775–1851)

Date: circa 1825

Medium: Watercolor, pen and black ink, gouache and scratching out on medium, slightly textured, cream wove paper, mounted on thick, smooth, cream wove paper

Collection: Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, CT, United States

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Jérôme in his daddy long leg era

Portrait of Jérôme Bonaparte by François-Joseph Kinson, c. 1807-1813, The Bowes Museum

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Barnard Castle. County Durham

[onarangel]

The Bowes Museum is an art gallery in the town of Barnard Castle, in County Durham in northern England. It was built to designs by Jules Pellechet and John Edward Watson to house the art collection of John Bowes and his wife Joséphine Benoîte Coffin-Chevallier, and opened in 1892.

It contains paintings by El Greco, Francisco Goya, Canaletto, Jean-Honoré Fragonard and François Boucher, together with items of decorative art, ceramics, textiles, tapestries, clocks and costumes, and objects of local historical interest. Some early works of Émile Gallé were commissioned by Coffin-Chevallier. There is an eighteenth-century Silver Swan automaton, which periodically preens itself, looks round and appears to catch and swallow a fish.

More on Wikipedia

[mrsctlandscapes]

Barnard Painting, prints for sale on Amazon

[lahilden]

Bowes Museum is located in the town of Barnard Castle, England. Designed in the French chateau style by French architects Jules Pellechet and John Edwards Watson of Newcastle, the museum was built as a public art gallery by founder John Bowes and his wife Josephine Chevalier, Countess of Montalbo. Unfortunately, they passed before their museum was opened in 1892. The museum houses paintings from many famous artists such as Francisco Goya and Francois Boucher. There are rooms of decorative arts with ceramics, textiles, tapestries, clocks, and costumes, as well as artifacts from the area. The diverse museum collections include Napoleon relics, picture galleries, old China, and jewels. The most well-known attraction at the Bowes Museum is the automaton Silver Swan from the 18th century. The museum underwent improvements in 2005 with updates to the three art galleries and visitor facilities.

[expertuser]

[angelholme]

Remember when Cummings is testifying that he drove from one end of the country to the other when he and his family had symptoms of Covid, and that he and his family took a day out to Barnard Castle while the rest of us were in lockdown.

He might be trying to make himself out to be the only honest man in a government of fools and liars, but don't be fooled or mislead -- at the time he was ass bad as the rest of them, and this is just an attempt to rehabilitate himself.

[travelingue]

Barnard Castle: the gift of kings

Barnard Castle is a charming old town in north-east England.  It is thus named because it has a castle which was built by a man called Barnard.

The place has been visited by a string of historical figures. King John stayed there while fighting northern rebels in 1216.  In the 1400s the castle was owned by Richard III, who left his heraldic mark on it.  More recently, Dominic Cummings broke Covid restrictions by driving to the town.

The origins of the castle go back to the Norman conquest.  William gave the land to a pal of his, Guy de Balliol ("Bailleul", in French, but the English couldn't pronounce it).  It occupies a choice position overlooking the river Tees.  The bishops who ran the Durham region had claimed the site and were peeved by William's land grab.

The castle was built in the 1100s by Guy's nephew, the aforementioned Barnard (actually "Bernard", but by then the family were used to having their names mangled).

The Balliols thrived in Plantagenet England.  In 1263, one scion endowed the Oxford college that bears the family name.  His son ascended Scotland's throne.  Then the clan's luck ran out.  Although they had elected him king, the Scots took to bullying John Balliol as an English stooge. He was turfed out and his son died childless.

The prince bishops of Durham were never above kicking a bloke when he's down and seized the castle. Outraged at such opportunism, King Edward I sent them packing and gave it to one of his pals, the earl of Warwick, in 1306.

The basic story repeated itself in later centuries.  The Warwicks prospered.  One of their daughters married the future King Richard III (hence his brief ownership).  Richard was killed in a power struggle with his rival Henry Tudor, who in turn gave the castle to a pal.

The castle had various careless keepers under the Tudors (some were careless to the point of remaining devout Catholics after the Reformation).  When the Stuarts took over in 1603, James I gave what was left of it to a pal, who plundered the materials.  The Civil War completed its ruination.  Barnard Castle did not become fashionable again until the late 18th century when medieval ruins captured romantic fancy.

The castle still cuts a suitably forlorn figure. The rest of the town is well preserved. The oldest house, built in 1485, is an inn where Cromwell supped in 1648, on his way to crushing royalist Scots.

It's still a restaurant, which doubles as a home furnishings shop (pictured above).  We had a good dinner there, in wonderfully quaint surroundings.

Barnard Castle's architectural jewel is the Bowes Museum (below).  Built in the 1890s by John Bowes, heir to a north-eastern coal fortune, it replicates a provincial French château.  Nikolaus Pevsner wrote of it: "In scale it is just as gloriously inappropriate for the town to which it belongs."

The museum boasts works by Canaletto, El Greco, Courbet and Turner.  Unfortunately there was not time for a visit as we had to travel north.

[castingbythemoon]

Scrapbook #March 2023

[heimatstern]

Barnard Castle, UK - 2021

[empirearchives]

Porcelain cup covered in gold leaf made in France in 1810, Napoleonic era

The Bowes Museum

[lordbettany]

"Howl had eyes like glass marbles and Sophie did not like being glared at by eyes like glass marbles."

Aneurin Barnard - Howl's Moving Castle Moodboard IV

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