The Waddesdon Bequest was left to the British Museum in 1898 by Baron Ferdinand Rothschild's will. Taken from his New Smoking Room at Waddesdon Manor, it consists of almost 300 pieces, including jewellery, plate, enamel, carvings, glass and maiolica. Earlier than most objects is the Holy Thorn Reliquary, probably created in the 1390s in Paris for John, Duke of Berry. The wide-ranging collection is in the tradition of a treasure house, such as those owned by the Renaissance princes of Europe. Most of the objects are from late Renaissance Europe; there are several important medieval pieces, and outliers from classical antiquity and medieval Syria. Rothschild selected intricate, superbly executed, highly decorated and rather ostentatious works of the Late Gothic, Renaissance and Mannerist periods for this collection. Few of the objects relied on the Baroque sculptural movement for their effect, though several come from periods and places where many Baroque pieces were being made.

Read more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waddesdon_Bequest

_______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries:

1875:

French composer Georges Bizet's opera Carmen (poster pictured), based on the novella of the same title by Prosper Mérimée, premiered at the Opéra-Comique in Paris. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carmen

1945:

Second World War: The Royal Air Force mistakenly bombed the neighbourhood of Bezuidenhout in The Hague, killing 511 evacuees. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_the_Bezuidenhout

1972:

The British rock band Jethro Tull released Thick as a Brick, a parody concept album allegedly adapted from an eight-year-old boy's epic poem. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thick_as_a_Brick

2012:

Two passenger trains collided near Szczekociny, Poland, resulting in 16 deaths and 58 injuries. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Szczekociny_rail_crash

_____________________________ Wiktionary's word of the day:

biomass: 1. (biology) 2. The total mass of a living thing or a part thereof (such as a cell). 3. The total mass of all, or a specified category of, living things within a specific area, habitat, etc. 4. Organic matter from living things which were recently alive (especially vegetation) used as a fuel or source of energy, especially if cultivated for that purpose; also, fuel produced from such organic matter; biofuel. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/biomass

___________________________ Wikiquote quote of the day:

It has an unhappy effect upon the human understanding and temper, for a man to be compelled in his gravest investigation of an argument, to consider, not what is true, but what is convenient. The lawyer never yet existed who has not boldly urged an objection which he knew to be fallacious, or endeavoured to pass off a weak reason for a strong one. … Above all, the poet, whose judgment should be clear, whose feelings should be uniform and sound, whose sense should be alive to every impression and hardened to none, who is the legislator of generations and the moral instructor of the world, ought never to have been a practising lawyer, or ought speedily to have quitted so dangerous an engagement.   --William Godwin https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/William_Godwin