Sisters

Daguerreotype (6th plate) from around 1850

Casper van Wittel - The Tiber near the Porto di Ripa Grande in Rome

Casper van Wittel (Amersfoort, 1653 – Rome, 1736): The Tiber near the Porto di Ripa Grande in Rome. Painted in circa 1711. Location: Galleria dell'Accademia di San Luca, Rome.

Gene Tierney Movie Card

Gene Tierney Movie Card

Captain King

Captain King, horse artillery. Photo made by Roger Fenton during the Crimean War, 1855.

Baku

City walls of Baku, Azerbaijan.

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Cabinet Card

Cabinet cards were a larger version of CDVs. Almost twice as big, a cabinet card measured 4½ by 6½ inches. They supplanted the cartes de visite by the early 1870s. The larger size and greater detail appealed to the public, and they were frequently taken at Christmas time to send to friends and family. Cabinet cards remained popular until Kodak introduced home snapshot photography in the early twentieth century.

Anthon van Dyck - Family Portrait

Family Portret by Anthon van Dyck (1599-1641)

In 2009 I visited the famous Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg, Russia. For me this painting was one of the highlights. It is painted in circa 1621 by Anthon van Dyck. It is possible that the family is that of the landscape painter Jan Wildens. Look at the gaze of the man and the woman.

Self-portrait painted in 1641. He died shortly afterwards.

Anthony van Dyck was born in Antwerp. He became famous in England where he became the leading court painter.

Horse Artillery

A horse train pulling a gun carriage during the Crimean War. Roger Fenton, 1855.

Horse artillery was a type of light, fast-moving and fast-firing artillery which provided highly mobile fire support to European and American armies (especially to cavalry units) from the 17th to the early 20th century. It consisted of light cannons or howitzers attached to light but sturdy two-wheeled carriages called caissons or limbers, with the individual crewmen riding either the horses or the caissons into battle. This was in contrast to field artillery where the pieces were heavier and the crew marched on foot.

A model of a 1850 Swedish horse-drawn artillery on display at the Army Museum in Stockholm.

When the riding artillery advanced on the enemy it could easily be confused with cavalry. A riding battery had a front of 52 artillerymen on horseback and moved at a gallop. When the six-horse strong carriages wheeled around and unlimbered (made ready for fire) the cannons, they could be an unpleasant surprise for the enemy. Trials performed in the late 18th century showed that it could be done rapidly: 'To take 300 paces, unlimber and fire took only one minute'.

Pola Negri - The Secret Hour

Sheet Music featuring the song The Beggar, from the 1928 Pola Negri movie The Secret Hour.

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