Fez Carpet marketBob CromwellLet me examine some of the connections between Morocco and Europe I was familiar with. Visitors to the Paros Gallery in Greece should see the Sèvres Imperial Hunting tea service 1812, commissioned by Napoleon as a gift his second wife Empress Marie-Louise. The porcelain and silver gilt cups, saucers and pots each…

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Map of Lowestoft in Suffolk,facing Amsterdam across the North Sea.A few years ago I asked my students to select an article on Lowestoft porcelain and they thought Antiques Trade Gazette to be particularly helpful. Clay was found on the Gunton Hall Estate near Lowestoft in Suffolk in 1756, leading to a partnership of local men that established…

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The Apollo Awards have been celebrated since 1992 with fine ceremonies. It’s still as important as ever to celebrate outstand­ing ach­ieve­ments in the museum world. Yet senior museum com­m­entators warn­ed that mus­eum culture may not endure with its cur­rent sense of purp­ose; funding for both national and regional instit­utions being squeez­ed still further. Thus the…

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This is the strangest Faked Art story I've ever seen. Tom Keating (1917–84) was born into a poor London family. His father worked as a house painter, and barely made enough to feed the household. At 14, Keating was turned away from the college of his choice, so the teenager started working for the family business…

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Andy Willimott wrote an excellent journal article on a generation of young Russians who embraced new ideals of socialist living. I have added my own family’s experience in this amazing era. Communist Youth League/Komsomol,  The youth were healthy, ideological and proud 1924 poster The October Revolution, which started when the Bolsheviks seized the Winter Palace on 25th Oct…

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In 1900 the Exposition Universelle drew thousands of art lovers to Paris, many arriving by train at the new Gare d’Orsay. Op­en­ed in 1986 and located on the Left Bank of the River Seine oppos­ite the Louvre, the building’s conversion into Musée d’Orsay was led by architects Bardon, Colboc and Phil­ippon. Now home to c100,000…

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