Trumbolosophy

Christmas Island is in the Indian Ocean, 364 kilometres (226 miles) south of Jakarta, Indonesia, 1,211 kilometres (815 miles) south of Singapore, and 2,621 kilometres (1,629 miles) northwest of Perth, Western Australia. It is 134 square kilometres (52 square miles) in area, and 70% of this is predominantly pristine tropical rainforest. Its coastline is approximately 72 kilometres (45 miles) long. The highest point above sea level is 361 metres (1,184 feet). The climate is tropical, with annual rainfall of approximately 2,000 millimetres (79 inches), most of which is concentrated into the November to May wet season. The island lays claim to an exclusive fishing zone of 200 nautical miles (370 kilometres). Much of this stretch of ocean is greater than three miles (2,640 fathoms, or 15,840 feet) deep. The present permanent population is approximately 2,070 (65% Chinese, 20% Malay, 10% European and 5% Indian and Eurasian). The Cocos (Keeling) Islands at 12° 10’ 15.15” S, 96...

Lustre, held by a Groom, ca. 1762 by George Stubbs One of the chief aims of George Stubbs, 1724–1806 , the late Judy Egerton’s great 1984–85 exhibition at the Tate Gallery was to provide an eloquent rebuttal to Josiah Wedgwood’s famous remark of 1780: “Nobody suspects Mr Stubs [ sic ] of painting anything but horses & lions, or dogs & tigers.” Yet in his lifetime, the horse was of course as much a problem for Stubbs’s reputation as it was the cornerstone of his artistic practice. He did much to make it so. Though Stubbs was the Vesalius of the horse, and painted some of the greatest equine portraits that exist, within the institutional framework of the London art world he was stuck with the label of “horse painter,” and tried in vain to shed it. His work as an anatomist was at times a problem too, though it brought him into contact with the Hunters, William and John. It was probably Stubbs’s work on midwifery in York around 1751 that caused Sir Thomas Frankland to describe S...

Hans Heinrich Thyssen-Bornemisza and David R. L. Litchfield at Villa Favorita, Lugano, Switzerland, 1989 © Nicola Graydo Books seldom make me angry but this one did. At first, I was powerfully struck by the uncanny parallels that existed between the Mellons of Pittsburgh and the Thyssens of the Ruhr through the same period, essentially the last quarter of the nineteenth century. But that is where the resemblance ends. Upon re-reading this piece just now, which was first published in  The Times Literary Supplement  (with a few irritating edits that I take the liberty, here, of reversing), I’m really struck by a strength of tone, notes even of indignation, that feel most unfamiliar to me. I’m a pretty equable sort of bloke. Nevertheless, the sharp tone of this piece was genuine and I’m proud of it. The Thyssen Art Macabre David R. L. Litchfield in collaboration with Caroline Schmitz Quartet Books, 2006 Beginning in the third quarter of the nineteenth century, ...

I wrote the following piece while I was teaching alongside Keith Wrightson in the Yale-in-London program during the summer of 2007, and it was the first of my review articles to be accepted by the late Holly Eley for publication in The Times Literary Supplement . They even gave me the cover illustration: a large, lurid flea. It was also the very first piece I wrote following a sobering, indeed unforgettable medical emergency that took place early on one bright frigid morning the previous February. It seems perfectly obvious now why the subject so intrigued me, but I am not sure it was so clear at the time. Nothing at all was. The best horror stories are real. A flea sinks its proboscis into the skin of a sick black rat, feeds on its blood, and ingests lethally multiplying bacteria. In the confined space of its tiny alimentary canal, the bacteria multiply to such an extent that they form a blockage in the stomach of the flea. In desperation, after it senses a drop in the body temperat...