helen mccormack | The Glasgow School of Art (original) (raw)

Papers by helen mccormack

Research paper thumbnail of Greenwich to Stirling to Greenwich: Splendorous Impulses and Composed Ornaments

Research paper thumbnail of Dr Hunter's Shield: Miscellaneous Curiosities and Antiquarian Debates

Ashgate eBooks, Sep 28, 2015

It is not surprising that in 1813 Captain Laskey referred to the Renaissance shield in Hunter's c... more It is not surprising that in 1813 Captain Laskey referred to the Renaissance shield in Hunter's collection as a work of 'great antiquity'. 1 There may be no surviving record of the object entering Hunter's collection, or any mention of this particular object in the Trustees' catalogues, but the shield represents a number of interesting points of practice in the field of antiquarianism during the eighteenth and the early nineteenth centuries in Britain. In 1813, Hunter's shield was categorised under 'miscellaneous curiosities' because scholarship and research of ancient artefacts, based on material evidence, was still a largely new practice. In fact, Hunter's shield points up the inconsistencies that characterised antiquarian methods whenever there was an attempt to reconcile ancient texts with physical objects or reproductions of those objects. The only clue that remains and is relevant to this object in Hunter's original collection is a letter from Dr Wilkinson to Dr Hunter dated August 17 th 1779. In this letter, Dr Wilkinson makes the offer of an ancient shield to be placed in Hunter's museum at 16 Great Windmill Street. 2 Dr Wilkinson was a physician, a member of the Society of Antiquarians and the Royal Society and the shield that he was offering was the famous 'Dr Woodward's shield'. This object, now in the British Museum, has a long and intriguing history which is worth recalling here as an example of the sorts of questions Hunter's shield would have prompted and as an indicator of Hunter's own expertise and connoisseurship. Dr John Woodward (1665/1668-1728) was Professor of Physic at Gresham College, London, a member of the Royal College of Physicians, London and first Professor of Geology at Cambridge University. 3 He is considered to be the founder of modern Geology and his ideas expressed in An Essay Toward a Natural History of the Earth (1695) 'stands at the beginning of modern historical paleontology'. 4 Woodward famously confronted Sir Hans Sloane at the Royal Society and fought a duel with Dr Richard Mead as well as publishing a satire on his character. 5 He was, however, an avid collector and his museum at Gresham College was visited by Ralph Thoresby, an antiquarian and collector from Leeds (1658-1724) and the traveller and writer, Zacharias Conrad von Uffenbach (1683-1734), among others notable intellectuals. He had an abiding interest in Roman antiquities and published a book on London's Roman 1 This appears to be the first reference to the shield in Hunter's collection. See Captain John Laskey, (1813) A Catalogue of the Hunterian Museum, Including Historical and Scientific Notices of the various Objects of Literature, Natural History, Anatomical Preparations, Antiquities, &c. In that Celebrated Collection, Glasgow. At p. 73, he writes: "Many other Miscellaneous Curiosities are placed on this side of the Room, the most prominent of which, and deserving of the highest attention from its great antiquity and workmanship, is a Roman Target or Shield, in a high state of preservation, and supposed to by unique. It consists of a hollowed round piece of wood, which is covered with a thick stronger leather, beautifully carved; the principal figure is Minerva helmeted, her right hand holding erect a spear or lance; her left reclining gracefully on an aegis or shield of an antique form, on which is portrayed Medusa's head. Her attributes, the Owl, Cock &c. surround the figure, the remainder of the surface is filled up by pointed tracery, foliage and flowers. It is an article of great rarity and beauty".

Research paper thumbnail of House and Home in Georgian Ireland, Spaces and Cultures of Domestic Life

Journal of Design History

Research paper thumbnail of Enlightened Eclecticism: The Grand Design of the 1st Duke and Duchess of NorthumberlandLondon’s ‘Golden Mile’ The Great Houses of the Strand, 1550–1650

Journal of Design History, Sep 8, 2022

Research paper thumbnail of The Anatomist at Home: The Great Windmill Street Anatomy School and Museum

Research paper thumbnail of Animalia, Autopsia, Natura: George Stubbs' The Moose (1770)

Research paper thumbnail of Exhibition review - Anatomy Acts at the City Art Centre, Edinburgh, Summer 2006 and A Healing Passion at Hunterian Museum, Glasgow

Research paper thumbnail of Elizabeth: A Film by Katherine Meynell

Elizabeth, A Film by Katherine Meynell, shown at the Glasgow School of Art on Friday December 2nd... more Elizabeth, A Film by Katherine Meynell, shown at the Glasgow School of Art on Friday December 2nd 2016. Organised by Dr. Laura Guy

Research paper thumbnail of Collecting ambitions (1770–83)

William Hunter and his Eighteenth-Century Cultural Worlds, 2017

Research paper thumbnail of William Hunter’s Great Windmill Street Museum and Anatomy Theatre

Research paper thumbnail of Thomas Pennant on the Isle of Bute

University of Wales Centre for Advanced Welsh and Celtic Studies and the University of Glasgow, Jun 3, 2019

This short essay describes a visit to the Isle of Bute made in 1772 by the Welsh naturalist, Thom... more This short essay describes a visit to the Isle of Bute made in 1772 by the Welsh naturalist, Thomas Pennant (1726-1798) as part of his Tour of Scotland, which he published that year. The essay follows in Pennant's footsteps, tracing his route across the island, describing the locations, landscape, natural features, flora and fauna of the place. Written in the style of a travel account, the essay reflects on Pennant's interests in the island as part of a 'northern empire of knowledge' during this period; and while he depicts the transformations taking place in Scotland after the Act of Union of 1707, his writings are punctuated by a sympathy for the recent troubles of the Earl of Bute at that time, John Stuart (1713-1792), the third earl, and described in the essay. Pennant encounters modern improvements in the landscape and people of the isle of Bute but he also expresses these new developments alongside a poetic impression of the land that includes ancient myth and language; and darker aspects of the island, including medieval barbarity, religious intolerance, torrential storms and bitter plants. As an account of a visit to the Island in July 2019, tracing Pennant's path, the essay brings to light contemporary features of climate, heritage and landscape that the naturalist would recognise, and most likely remark upon, today

Research paper thumbnail of Book Review: The Society of Dilettanti, Archaeology and Identity in the British Enlightenment by Jason M. Kelly, New Haven and London, Yale University Press, 2009. Submitted for publication in the Journal for Eighteenth-Century Studies, 2011

Journal for Eighteenth-Century Studies published by Wiley, 2011

's broad view of eighteenth-century Dilettanti 'culture' casts new light on the implicit understa... more 's broad view of eighteenth-century Dilettanti 'culture' casts new light on the implicit understanding of that society's fraternal composition. Male companionship and sociability, often of a riotous nature, has dominated the historiography of this group and obscured the commitment to intellectual inquiry deeply-held by its original members. Kelly's book 'takes a more sophisticated look at the society and its members, recognising their social and cultural personae', and in doing so reveals how the Dilettanti Society helped pioneer a new approach to the study of antiquity and forged the way for archaeology to take its place among other subjects of scientific investigation and academic rigour. Therefore the 'Identity' in the book's title can be seen to refer to both the identity of the Dilettanti itself and the subject of archaeology within British society more generally.

Research paper thumbnail of Patronage and patriots

William Hunter and his Eighteenth-Century Cultural Worlds, 2017

Research paper thumbnail of Banham’s ‘Unhouse’ as Anti-Interiority: Towards Twenty-First-Century Theories of Design and Domesticity

The British architectural historian, critic and writer, Reyner Banham, formed the concept of ‘unh... more The British architectural historian, critic and writer, Reyner Banham, formed the concept of ‘unhouse’ in a period of intense technological transformation during the middle years of the twentieth century. His unhouse proposed the seemingly radical idea to dematerialize the walls and roof of a house, to remove the strictures that tie buildings, and thus people, to the encumbrances of what he termed: ‘the dead weight of domestic architecture’ (A Home is Not a House, 1965). Presented as an accumulation of technological services, including landscape flood lights, TV and stereo speakers, radio and tape deck, electric cooker and refrigerator, the unhouse would cater for all essential human needs, providing a convenient and transportable ‘standard of living package’. Combined with a ‘power membrane’, which would furnish a curtain of hot or cold air around the unhouse, the design proposed that the exterior building or fixed structure might be dispensed with altogether. While recognized as d...

Research paper thumbnail of Animating Anatomy: 16 Great Windmill Street

The origins of William Hunter’s town house at 16 Great Windmill Street, Westminster, began with a... more The origins of William Hunter’s town house at 16 Great Windmill Street, Westminster, began with a petition to the First Lord of the Treasury, the third Earl of Bute, requesting a piece of land on which to build a ‘great school’ of anatomy. Hunter believed a school dedicated to the science and patronised by the King, would reflect a work of ‘publick magnificence’ commensurate with the capital’s cultural and commercial ambitions. In this sense, Hunter’s project belongs amongst the fiercely contested sites of London’s elite environs during the second half of the eighteenth century; sites such as those delineated by John Gwynn in his London and Westminster Improved (1766). While Hunter’s proposed scheme was never realised, his house at Great Windmill Street surpassed its initial objective, as Robert Mylne’s design incorporated a school of anatomy alongside an extensive collection of natural history, books, coins, paintings, prints and drawings. The interiors were designed to reflect the...

Research paper thumbnail of The Great Windmill Street Anatomy School and Museum

William Hunter and his Eighteenth-Century Cultural Worlds, 2017

He did not lose time trying out small pilot projects, gathering samples. His first project was gr... more He did not lose time trying out small pilot projects, gathering samples. His first project was great and worthy, either for the boldness of his views or for the sacrifices he was ready to make for its success. He buys land, builds there at great cost a monument he dedicates to anatomy and natural history. In this building, where luxury is permitted because he intends it for public use, a beautiful amphitheatre is to be used for teaching; and in a superb cabinet, where everything down to the light is arranged with art, will be organised the specimens of different species… 1 Felix Vicq d'Azyr, Paris, 1805 From its very inception William Hunter's house at Great Windmill Street, designed and built between 1767 and 1768, was a bold project. In his eulogy to Hunter, Vicq d'Azyr, who would have been familiar with the story of how the Great Windmill Street anatomy theatre and museum came into being, makes reference to this history. Hunter had been extremely meticulous in organising the principal parts of the building and, in the way his museum was presented, he was attentive to every detail, from the application of decoration and ornament to the arrangement of the light. William Hunter's house at Great Windmill Street is presented in this paper as a significant project that helps to place it within a chronology of the development of museums and sites of scientific interest in London in the eighteenth century. Vicq d'Azyr comments that Hunter did not waste time on 'small pilot projects, gathering samples' because his ambition by the 1760s was to create a different kind of research centre for his work, 'a centre of calculation'. 2 However, Hunter was also acutely aware that his 'laboratory' was located in a highly visible and commercially motivated city. He could not afford to waste time on small samples or trying to operate in isolation because the role of the scientist had changed so remarkably by the 1760s and the anatomist, in particular, was now a very public figure. Therefore,

Research paper thumbnail of Pursuing the imitation of nature in and beyond the Royal Academy of Arts

Research paper thumbnail of Dr Hunter's Shield: Miscellaneous Curiosities and Antiquarian Debates', in William Hunter's World: The Art and Science of Eighteenth-Century Collecting, Ashgate 2013

An 1813 guide to William Hunter’s collection describes a Renaissance shield under ‘miscellaneous ... more An 1813 guide to William Hunter’s collection describes a Renaissance shield under ‘miscellaneous curiosities’ and my research here describes how scholarship and research of ancient artefacts, based on material evidence, was still a largely new practice during the early nineteenth century. This analysis demonstrates inconsistencies in antiquarian methods whenever there was an attempt to reconcile ancient texts with physical objects or reproductions of such objects.

Research paper thumbnail of Pennant, Hunter, Stubbs and the Pursuit of Nature

The essay explores the close connections between Thomas Pennant, William Hunter and George Stubbs... more The essay explores the close connections between Thomas Pennant, William Hunter and George Stubbs and their promotion and understanding of knowledge of natural history and natural philosophy as embodied within the fine arts, in drawings, prints and oil paintings. The essay explores affiliations between the visual arts and the project of Enlightenment science and puts Pennant into conversation with his close contemporaries. It describes how, during the 17770s, Pennant’s empirical, observational approach to the natural world became explicitly connected to the work of these two men, and how the ideas they exchanged were absorbed into the debates ‘surrounding the imitation and representation of nature within the cosmopolitan world of the Royal Academy of Arts and polite culture in London’. The essay explains how contemporary notions of ‘truth to nature’ and direct observation which underlay the rhetoric of the travel narrative can also be read in terms of an anatomical tradition of auto...

Research paper thumbnail of Animating Anatomy: 16 Great Windmill Street Westminster

The origins of William Hunter’s town house at 16 Great Windmill Street, Westminster, began with a... more The origins of William Hunter’s town house at 16 Great Windmill Street, Westminster, began with a petition to the First Lord of the Treasury, the third Earl of Bute, requesting a piece of land on which to build a ‘great school’ of anatomy. Hunter believed a school dedicated to the science and patronised by the King, would reflect a work of ‘publick magnificence’ commensurate with the capital’s cultural and commercial ambitions. In this sense, Hunter’s project belongs amongst the fiercely contested sites of London’s elite environs during the second half of the eighteenth century; sites such as those delineated by John Gwynn in his London and Westminster Improved (1766). While Hunter’s proposed scheme was never realised, his house at Great Windmill Street surpassed its initial objective, as Robert Mylne’s design incorporated a school of anatomy alongside an extensive collection of natural history, books, coins, paintings, prints and drawings. The interiors were designed to reflect the...

Research paper thumbnail of Greenwich to Stirling to Greenwich: Splendorous Impulses and Composed Ornaments

Research paper thumbnail of Dr Hunter's Shield: Miscellaneous Curiosities and Antiquarian Debates

Ashgate eBooks, Sep 28, 2015

It is not surprising that in 1813 Captain Laskey referred to the Renaissance shield in Hunter's c... more It is not surprising that in 1813 Captain Laskey referred to the Renaissance shield in Hunter's collection as a work of 'great antiquity'. 1 There may be no surviving record of the object entering Hunter's collection, or any mention of this particular object in the Trustees' catalogues, but the shield represents a number of interesting points of practice in the field of antiquarianism during the eighteenth and the early nineteenth centuries in Britain. In 1813, Hunter's shield was categorised under 'miscellaneous curiosities' because scholarship and research of ancient artefacts, based on material evidence, was still a largely new practice. In fact, Hunter's shield points up the inconsistencies that characterised antiquarian methods whenever there was an attempt to reconcile ancient texts with physical objects or reproductions of those objects. The only clue that remains and is relevant to this object in Hunter's original collection is a letter from Dr Wilkinson to Dr Hunter dated August 17 th 1779. In this letter, Dr Wilkinson makes the offer of an ancient shield to be placed in Hunter's museum at 16 Great Windmill Street. 2 Dr Wilkinson was a physician, a member of the Society of Antiquarians and the Royal Society and the shield that he was offering was the famous 'Dr Woodward's shield'. This object, now in the British Museum, has a long and intriguing history which is worth recalling here as an example of the sorts of questions Hunter's shield would have prompted and as an indicator of Hunter's own expertise and connoisseurship. Dr John Woodward (1665/1668-1728) was Professor of Physic at Gresham College, London, a member of the Royal College of Physicians, London and first Professor of Geology at Cambridge University. 3 He is considered to be the founder of modern Geology and his ideas expressed in An Essay Toward a Natural History of the Earth (1695) 'stands at the beginning of modern historical paleontology'. 4 Woodward famously confronted Sir Hans Sloane at the Royal Society and fought a duel with Dr Richard Mead as well as publishing a satire on his character. 5 He was, however, an avid collector and his museum at Gresham College was visited by Ralph Thoresby, an antiquarian and collector from Leeds (1658-1724) and the traveller and writer, Zacharias Conrad von Uffenbach (1683-1734), among others notable intellectuals. He had an abiding interest in Roman antiquities and published a book on London's Roman 1 This appears to be the first reference to the shield in Hunter's collection. See Captain John Laskey, (1813) A Catalogue of the Hunterian Museum, Including Historical and Scientific Notices of the various Objects of Literature, Natural History, Anatomical Preparations, Antiquities, &c. In that Celebrated Collection, Glasgow. At p. 73, he writes: "Many other Miscellaneous Curiosities are placed on this side of the Room, the most prominent of which, and deserving of the highest attention from its great antiquity and workmanship, is a Roman Target or Shield, in a high state of preservation, and supposed to by unique. It consists of a hollowed round piece of wood, which is covered with a thick stronger leather, beautifully carved; the principal figure is Minerva helmeted, her right hand holding erect a spear or lance; her left reclining gracefully on an aegis or shield of an antique form, on which is portrayed Medusa's head. Her attributes, the Owl, Cock &c. surround the figure, the remainder of the surface is filled up by pointed tracery, foliage and flowers. It is an article of great rarity and beauty".

Research paper thumbnail of House and Home in Georgian Ireland, Spaces and Cultures of Domestic Life

Journal of Design History

Research paper thumbnail of Enlightened Eclecticism: The Grand Design of the 1st Duke and Duchess of NorthumberlandLondon’s ‘Golden Mile’ The Great Houses of the Strand, 1550–1650

Journal of Design History, Sep 8, 2022

Research paper thumbnail of The Anatomist at Home: The Great Windmill Street Anatomy School and Museum

Research paper thumbnail of Animalia, Autopsia, Natura: George Stubbs' The Moose (1770)

Research paper thumbnail of Exhibition review - Anatomy Acts at the City Art Centre, Edinburgh, Summer 2006 and A Healing Passion at Hunterian Museum, Glasgow

Research paper thumbnail of Elizabeth: A Film by Katherine Meynell

Elizabeth, A Film by Katherine Meynell, shown at the Glasgow School of Art on Friday December 2nd... more Elizabeth, A Film by Katherine Meynell, shown at the Glasgow School of Art on Friday December 2nd 2016. Organised by Dr. Laura Guy

Research paper thumbnail of Collecting ambitions (1770–83)

William Hunter and his Eighteenth-Century Cultural Worlds, 2017

Research paper thumbnail of William Hunter’s Great Windmill Street Museum and Anatomy Theatre

Research paper thumbnail of Thomas Pennant on the Isle of Bute

University of Wales Centre for Advanced Welsh and Celtic Studies and the University of Glasgow, Jun 3, 2019

This short essay describes a visit to the Isle of Bute made in 1772 by the Welsh naturalist, Thom... more This short essay describes a visit to the Isle of Bute made in 1772 by the Welsh naturalist, Thomas Pennant (1726-1798) as part of his Tour of Scotland, which he published that year. The essay follows in Pennant's footsteps, tracing his route across the island, describing the locations, landscape, natural features, flora and fauna of the place. Written in the style of a travel account, the essay reflects on Pennant's interests in the island as part of a 'northern empire of knowledge' during this period; and while he depicts the transformations taking place in Scotland after the Act of Union of 1707, his writings are punctuated by a sympathy for the recent troubles of the Earl of Bute at that time, John Stuart (1713-1792), the third earl, and described in the essay. Pennant encounters modern improvements in the landscape and people of the isle of Bute but he also expresses these new developments alongside a poetic impression of the land that includes ancient myth and language; and darker aspects of the island, including medieval barbarity, religious intolerance, torrential storms and bitter plants. As an account of a visit to the Island in July 2019, tracing Pennant's path, the essay brings to light contemporary features of climate, heritage and landscape that the naturalist would recognise, and most likely remark upon, today

Research paper thumbnail of Book Review: The Society of Dilettanti, Archaeology and Identity in the British Enlightenment by Jason M. Kelly, New Haven and London, Yale University Press, 2009. Submitted for publication in the Journal for Eighteenth-Century Studies, 2011

Journal for Eighteenth-Century Studies published by Wiley, 2011

's broad view of eighteenth-century Dilettanti 'culture' casts new light on the implicit understa... more 's broad view of eighteenth-century Dilettanti 'culture' casts new light on the implicit understanding of that society's fraternal composition. Male companionship and sociability, often of a riotous nature, has dominated the historiography of this group and obscured the commitment to intellectual inquiry deeply-held by its original members. Kelly's book 'takes a more sophisticated look at the society and its members, recognising their social and cultural personae', and in doing so reveals how the Dilettanti Society helped pioneer a new approach to the study of antiquity and forged the way for archaeology to take its place among other subjects of scientific investigation and academic rigour. Therefore the 'Identity' in the book's title can be seen to refer to both the identity of the Dilettanti itself and the subject of archaeology within British society more generally.

Research paper thumbnail of Patronage and patriots

William Hunter and his Eighteenth-Century Cultural Worlds, 2017

Research paper thumbnail of Banham’s ‘Unhouse’ as Anti-Interiority: Towards Twenty-First-Century Theories of Design and Domesticity

The British architectural historian, critic and writer, Reyner Banham, formed the concept of ‘unh... more The British architectural historian, critic and writer, Reyner Banham, formed the concept of ‘unhouse’ in a period of intense technological transformation during the middle years of the twentieth century. His unhouse proposed the seemingly radical idea to dematerialize the walls and roof of a house, to remove the strictures that tie buildings, and thus people, to the encumbrances of what he termed: ‘the dead weight of domestic architecture’ (A Home is Not a House, 1965). Presented as an accumulation of technological services, including landscape flood lights, TV and stereo speakers, radio and tape deck, electric cooker and refrigerator, the unhouse would cater for all essential human needs, providing a convenient and transportable ‘standard of living package’. Combined with a ‘power membrane’, which would furnish a curtain of hot or cold air around the unhouse, the design proposed that the exterior building or fixed structure might be dispensed with altogether. While recognized as d...

Research paper thumbnail of Animating Anatomy: 16 Great Windmill Street

The origins of William Hunter’s town house at 16 Great Windmill Street, Westminster, began with a... more The origins of William Hunter’s town house at 16 Great Windmill Street, Westminster, began with a petition to the First Lord of the Treasury, the third Earl of Bute, requesting a piece of land on which to build a ‘great school’ of anatomy. Hunter believed a school dedicated to the science and patronised by the King, would reflect a work of ‘publick magnificence’ commensurate with the capital’s cultural and commercial ambitions. In this sense, Hunter’s project belongs amongst the fiercely contested sites of London’s elite environs during the second half of the eighteenth century; sites such as those delineated by John Gwynn in his London and Westminster Improved (1766). While Hunter’s proposed scheme was never realised, his house at Great Windmill Street surpassed its initial objective, as Robert Mylne’s design incorporated a school of anatomy alongside an extensive collection of natural history, books, coins, paintings, prints and drawings. The interiors were designed to reflect the...

Research paper thumbnail of The Great Windmill Street Anatomy School and Museum

William Hunter and his Eighteenth-Century Cultural Worlds, 2017

He did not lose time trying out small pilot projects, gathering samples. His first project was gr... more He did not lose time trying out small pilot projects, gathering samples. His first project was great and worthy, either for the boldness of his views or for the sacrifices he was ready to make for its success. He buys land, builds there at great cost a monument he dedicates to anatomy and natural history. In this building, where luxury is permitted because he intends it for public use, a beautiful amphitheatre is to be used for teaching; and in a superb cabinet, where everything down to the light is arranged with art, will be organised the specimens of different species… 1 Felix Vicq d'Azyr, Paris, 1805 From its very inception William Hunter's house at Great Windmill Street, designed and built between 1767 and 1768, was a bold project. In his eulogy to Hunter, Vicq d'Azyr, who would have been familiar with the story of how the Great Windmill Street anatomy theatre and museum came into being, makes reference to this history. Hunter had been extremely meticulous in organising the principal parts of the building and, in the way his museum was presented, he was attentive to every detail, from the application of decoration and ornament to the arrangement of the light. William Hunter's house at Great Windmill Street is presented in this paper as a significant project that helps to place it within a chronology of the development of museums and sites of scientific interest in London in the eighteenth century. Vicq d'Azyr comments that Hunter did not waste time on 'small pilot projects, gathering samples' because his ambition by the 1760s was to create a different kind of research centre for his work, 'a centre of calculation'. 2 However, Hunter was also acutely aware that his 'laboratory' was located in a highly visible and commercially motivated city. He could not afford to waste time on small samples or trying to operate in isolation because the role of the scientist had changed so remarkably by the 1760s and the anatomist, in particular, was now a very public figure. Therefore,

Research paper thumbnail of Pursuing the imitation of nature in and beyond the Royal Academy of Arts

Research paper thumbnail of Dr Hunter's Shield: Miscellaneous Curiosities and Antiquarian Debates', in William Hunter's World: The Art and Science of Eighteenth-Century Collecting, Ashgate 2013

An 1813 guide to William Hunter’s collection describes a Renaissance shield under ‘miscellaneous ... more An 1813 guide to William Hunter’s collection describes a Renaissance shield under ‘miscellaneous curiosities’ and my research here describes how scholarship and research of ancient artefacts, based on material evidence, was still a largely new practice during the early nineteenth century. This analysis demonstrates inconsistencies in antiquarian methods whenever there was an attempt to reconcile ancient texts with physical objects or reproductions of such objects.

Research paper thumbnail of Pennant, Hunter, Stubbs and the Pursuit of Nature

The essay explores the close connections between Thomas Pennant, William Hunter and George Stubbs... more The essay explores the close connections between Thomas Pennant, William Hunter and George Stubbs and their promotion and understanding of knowledge of natural history and natural philosophy as embodied within the fine arts, in drawings, prints and oil paintings. The essay explores affiliations between the visual arts and the project of Enlightenment science and puts Pennant into conversation with his close contemporaries. It describes how, during the 17770s, Pennant’s empirical, observational approach to the natural world became explicitly connected to the work of these two men, and how the ideas they exchanged were absorbed into the debates ‘surrounding the imitation and representation of nature within the cosmopolitan world of the Royal Academy of Arts and polite culture in London’. The essay explains how contemporary notions of ‘truth to nature’ and direct observation which underlay the rhetoric of the travel narrative can also be read in terms of an anatomical tradition of auto...

Research paper thumbnail of Animating Anatomy: 16 Great Windmill Street Westminster

The origins of William Hunter’s town house at 16 Great Windmill Street, Westminster, began with a... more The origins of William Hunter’s town house at 16 Great Windmill Street, Westminster, began with a petition to the First Lord of the Treasury, the third Earl of Bute, requesting a piece of land on which to build a ‘great school’ of anatomy. Hunter believed a school dedicated to the science and patronised by the King, would reflect a work of ‘publick magnificence’ commensurate with the capital’s cultural and commercial ambitions. In this sense, Hunter’s project belongs amongst the fiercely contested sites of London’s elite environs during the second half of the eighteenth century; sites such as those delineated by John Gwynn in his London and Westminster Improved (1766). While Hunter’s proposed scheme was never realised, his house at Great Windmill Street surpassed its initial objective, as Robert Mylne’s design incorporated a school of anatomy alongside an extensive collection of natural history, books, coins, paintings, prints and drawings. The interiors were designed to reflect the...