Sporting Arts

This 14th c. manuscript shows a galleon as a banquet table centerpiece for kings.

Renaissance Robotic Art – A Mechanical Galleon and Clock

It’s likely my fascination with “automata,” or automatons, dates back to a New York City…
On Shed – As We Remember Them in the Last Days of Steam.

David Shepherd:  And There Were Also Trains

Artist David Shepherd (1931–2017) once said that he was attracted to all things “jumbo,” from…
Winter of '43, Somewhere in England

David Shepherd: Before Elephants, There Were Aircraft

David Shepherd’s is a well-rehearsed life in its telling. The same tales oft repeated and…
Horse Surprised by a Lion, ca. 1850

Barye Bronzes to Visit the NSL&M in Middleburg, Virginia

by Brooke Chilvers I wish I could say the larger-than-life lions in front of Manhattan’s…
Stevens-Pope in three volumes, by Warren Greatbatch and Tom Rowe. The books are massive, the photography wonderful, and the information enough to satisfy the most voracious lover of single-shot rifles.

Big Books. Big Big Books.

Some years ago, at a cocktail party connected with one of the big gun shows,…
The kings derived power from wearing jaguar pelts.

Mayan Jaguar Kings – divided we fall…

With all I’ve learned in life, it seems I never knew that by the time…
Dog Painting (1840–1940), a social history of the dog in art.

William Secord and Dogs in Art

Finally, it’s happening.  We are getting out of town in winter to go birdwatching in…
"Scaffold Creek," study in oil, C.D. Clarke

Abaco Colors, Abaco Light

So when my childhood pal, Myron, said his favorite place in Paradise was a three-mile-long…
Two Greyhounds and a Mastiff belonging to the Duke of Hamilton, Sawrey Gilpin
Two Greyhounds and a Mastiff belonging to the Duke of Hamilton, Sawrey Gilpin

Stubbs & Gilpin – This Time, on Dogs

Thank goodness so many 18th century portraits of beloved thoroughbreds and hunting dogs are adequately…
Gulliver Addressing the Houyhnhnms

Sawrey Gilpin

It’s likely you have a greater inkling of British equine horse artist George Stubbs (1724–1806)…
John Swan, "Rangeley Boat"

John Swan

John Swan’s art often pays tribute to the world’s most beautiful fishing landscapes, from the…
Canvasbacks
Canvasbacks

Rediscovering Francis Lee Jaques:  Part I

I knew nothing of museum artist, illustrator, and painter Francis Lee Jaques (1887–1969).  It was…