Rare books, manuscripts, music, ephemera…
31st January 2013
In 1843, a small party of engineers was sent from Belgium to study various British coal mines, in particular the English practice of tubbing (‘the lining of a pit-shaft or tunnel with a watertight casing’, OED). The Belgians toured the country, covering some 1500 km thanks to the ‘admirable rail network’, from London to Sheffield, […]
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13th March 2012
These extraordinary engravings are the last words written by Louis XVI (his will, Christmas Day, 1792) and his wife, Marie-Antoinette (a letter to her sister-in-law, 6 October 1793), turned into silhouettes, probably in the 1830s. I’ll admit it took me a while to find out some information on the engraver, Alphonse Pélicier, who […]
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