Richard Cosway, R.A.


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Richard Cosway


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Richard Cosway was one of the most significant multifaceted artistic personalities active in Regency Britain. He was arguably the pre-eminent pupil of William Shipley as well as a versatile oil portraitist and a sophisticated draftsman of subject compositions. He was undoubtedly the most important, influential, and fashionable portrait miniaturist active during the last two decades of the eighteenth century and the beginning of the nineteenth; his delicate style and flattering portrayals have come to epitomize Regency society. Cosway's flamboyant personality, eccentric mysticism, and brilliant marriage to Maria Hadfield during the 1780s brought him celebrity and notoriety. He was the principal recorder of the Prince of Wales's image from 1780 to 1808, as well as having exerted a great influence on his patron's artistic taste and collecting during that period. Perhaps Cosway's greatest achievement, however, was as a connoisseur, virtuoso, and collector - particularly of0914660195







Richard & Maria Cosway


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Minley Manor


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Minley Manor was a large family house that became part of a military training establishment and then an Officers Mess for the Corps of Royal Engineers. Yet the story of Minley Manor is also a story about the Currie family, whose three generations living at Minley created a magnificent manor house in an innovative architectural style. In Minley Manor, author Major Ian C Mattison shares the untold history of Minley Manor and the Currie familys hand in making it into a hidden jewel on the borders of North Hampshire and Surrey. After coming into possession of some long-lost documents and a narrative history of the manor, Ian offers a tribute to the manor and to the Currie family. First exploring the manors compelling architectural history and design, we are beckoned to look deeper into the manor to discover the fascinating story of a family involved in the political and financial affairs of the United Kingdom and at the heart of government. Minley Manor is a story not just about the buildings, the estate, and the gardens; it is the story of four generations of the Currie family who dwelt there. The Currie family of Minley may well have been passed over in history, but the hope is that they may now take their rightful place as a dynasty who did indeed make significant and very worthwhile contributions to the very fabric of English society in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.







The Connoisseur


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Mr. Jefferson's Women


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From the acclaimed author of A Wilderness So Immense comes a pioneering study of Thomas Jefferson's relationships with women, both personal and political. The author of the Declaration of Independence, who wrote the words “all men are created equal,” was surprisingly uncomfortable with woman. In eight chapters, Kukla examines the evidence for the founding father's youthful misogyny, beginning with his awkward courtship of Rebecca Burwell, who declined Jefferson's marriage proposal, and his unwelcome advances toward the wife of a boyhood friend. Subsequent chapters describe his decade-long marriage to Martha Wayles Skelton, his flirtation with Maria Cosway, and the still controversial relationship with Sally Hemings. A riveting study of a complex man, Mr. Jefferson's Women is sure to spark debate.