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>
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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>
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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>
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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>
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