1.
National Portrait Gallery, London
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The National Portrait Gallery is an art gallery in London housing a collection of portraits of historically important and famous British people. It was the first portrait gallery in the world when it opened in 1856, the gallery moved in 1896 to its current site at St Martins Place, off Trafalgar Square, and adjoining the National Gallery. It has been expanded twice since then, the National Portrait Gallery also has regional outposts at Beningbrough Hall in Yorkshire and Montacute House in Somerset. It is unconnected to the Scottish National Portrait Gallery in Edinburgh, the gallery is a non-departmental public body sponsored by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. The gallery houses portraits of important and famous British people, selected on the basis of the significance of the sitter. The collection includes photographs and caricatures as well as paintings, drawings, one of its best-known images is the Chandos portrait, the most famous portrait of William Shakespeare although there is some uncertainty about whether the painting actually is of the playwright. Not all of the portraits are exceptional artistically, although there are self-portraits by William Hogarth, Sir Joshua Reynolds, some, such as the group portrait of the participants in the Somerset House Conference of 1604, are important historical documents in their own right. Portraits of living figures were allowed from 1969, the three people largely responsible for the founding of the National Portrait Gallery are commemorated with busts over the main entrance. At centre is Philip Henry Stanhope, 5th Earl Stanhope, with his supporters on either side, Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay and it was Stanhope who, in 1846 as a Member of Parliament, first proposed the idea of a National Portrait Gallery. It was not until his attempt, in 1856, this time from the House of Lords. With Queen Victorias approval, the House of Commons set aside a sum of £2000 to establish the gallery, as well as Stanhope and Macaulay, the founder Trustees included Benjamin Disraeli and Lord Ellesmere. It was the latter who donated the Chandos portrait to the nation as the gallerys first portrait, Carlyle became a trustee after the death of Ellesmere in 1857. For the first 40 years, the gallery was housed in locations in London. The first 13 years were spent at 29 Great George Street, there, the collection increased in size from 57 to 208 items, and the number of visitors from 5,300 to 34,500. In 1869, the moved to Exhibition Road and buildings managed by the Royal Horticultural Society. Following a fire in buildings, the collection was moved in 1885. This location was unsuitable due to its distance from the West End, condensation. Following calls for a new location to be found, the government accepted an offer of funds from the philanthropist William Henry Alexander, Alexander donated £60,000 followed by another £20,000, and also chose the architect, Ewan Christian
2.
Dublin
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Dublin is the capital and largest city of Ireland. Dublin is in the province of Leinster on Irelands east coast, the city has an urban area population of 1,345,402. The population of the Greater Dublin Area, as of 2016, was 1,904,806 people, founded as a Viking settlement, the Kingdom of Dublin became Irelands principal city following the Norman invasion. The city expanded rapidly from the 17th century and was briefly the second largest city in the British Empire before the Acts of Union in 1800, following the partition of Ireland in 1922, Dublin became the capital of the Irish Free State, later renamed Ireland. Dublin is administered by a City Council, the city is listed by the Globalization and World Cities Research Network as a global city, with a ranking of Alpha-, which places it amongst the top thirty cities in the world. It is a historical and contemporary centre for education, the arts, administration, economy, the name Dublin comes from the Irish word Dubhlinn, early Classical Irish Dubhlind/Duibhlind, dubh /d̪uβ/, alt. /d̪uw/, alt /d̪u, / meaning black, dark, and lind /lʲiɲ pool and this tidal pool was located where the River Poddle entered the Liffey, on the site of the castle gardens at the rear of Dublin Castle. In Modern Irish the name is Duibhlinn, and Irish rhymes from Dublin County show that in Dublin Leinster Irish it was pronounced Duílinn /d̪ˠi, other localities in Ireland also bear the name Duibhlinn, variously anglicized as Devlin, Divlin and Difflin. Historically, scribes using the Gaelic script wrote bh with a dot over the b and those without knowledge of Irish omitted the dot, spelling the name as Dublin. Variations on the name are found in traditionally Irish-speaking areas of Scotland, such as An Linne Dhubh. It is now thought that the Viking settlement was preceded by a Christian ecclesiastical settlement known as Duibhlinn, beginning in the 9th and 10th century, there were two settlements where the modern city stands. Baile Átha Cliath, meaning town of the ford, is the common name for the city in modern Irish. Áth Cliath is a name referring to a fording point of the River Liffey near Father Mathew Bridge. Baile Átha Cliath was an early Christian monastery, believed to have been in the area of Aungier Street, there are other towns of the same name, such as Àth Cliath in East Ayrshire, Scotland, which is Anglicised as Hurlford. Although the area of Dublin Bay has been inhabited by humans since prehistoric times and he called the settlement Eblana polis. It is now thought that the Viking settlement was preceded by a Christian ecclesiastical settlement known as Duibhlinn, beginning in the 9th and 10th century, there were two settlements where the modern city stands. The subsequent Scandinavian settlement centred on the River Poddle, a tributary of the Liffey in an area now known as Wood Quay, the Dubhlinn was a small lake used to moor ships, the Poddle connected the lake with the Liffey. This lake was covered during the early 18th century as the city grew, the Dubhlinn lay where the Castle Garden is now located, opposite the Chester Beatty Library in Dublin Castle
3.
Brighton
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Brighton /ˈbraɪtən/ is a seaside resort on the south coast of England. It is part of the county of East Sussex, within the historic county of Sussex. Archaeological evidence of settlement in the dates back to the Bronze Age, Roman. The ancient settlement of Brighthelmstone was documented in the Domesday Book, Brighton began to attract more visitors following improved road transport to London and becoming a boarding point for boats travelling to France. The town also developed in popularity as a resort for sea bathing as a purported cure for illnesses. Brighton continued to grow as a centre of tourism following the arrival of the railways in 1841. Many of the attractions were built in the Victorian era, including the Grand Hotel, the West Pier. Brighton attracted 7.5 million day visitors in 2015/16 and 4.9 million overnight visitors, Brighton has also been called the UKs hippest city, and the happiest place to live in the UK. Brightons earliest name was Bristelmestune, recorded in the Domesday Book, although more than 40 variations have been documented, Brighthelmstone was the standard rendering between the 14th and 18th centuries. Brighton was originally a shortened form, first seen in 1660, it gradually supplanted the longer name. Brighthelmstone was the official name until 1810, though. The name is of Anglo-Saxon origin, most scholars believe that it derives from Beorthelm + tūn—the homestead of Beorthelm, a common Old English name associated with villages elsewhere in England. The tūn element is common in Sussex, especially on the coast, an alternative etymology taken from the Old English words for stony valley is sometimes given but has less acceptance. Brighthelm gives its name to, among other things, a church, the town was originally split in half by the Wellesbourne, a winterbourne which was culverted and buried in the 18th century. Poet Horace Smith called it The Queen of Watering Places, which is widely used. Novelist William Makepeace Thackeray referred to Doctor Brighton, calling the one of the best of Physicians. London-by-Sea is well-known, reflecting Brightons popularity with Londoners as a resort, a commuter dormitory. The Queen of Slaughtering Places, a pun on Smiths description, the mid 19th-century nickname School Town referred to the remarkable number of boarding, charity and church schools in the town at the time
4.
Royal Academy of Arts
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The Royal Academy of Arts is an art institution based in Burlington House on Piccadilly in London. The Royal Academy of Arts was founded through an act of King George III on 10 December 1768 with a mission to promote the arts of design in Britain through education and exhibition. Supporters wanted to foster a national school of art and to encourage appreciation, fashionable taste in 18th-century Britain was based on continental and traditional art forms, providing contemporary British artists little opportunity to sell their works. From 1746 the Foundling Hospital, through the efforts of William Hogarth, the success of this venture led to the formation of the Society of Artists of Great Britain and the Free Society of Artists. Both these groups were primarily exhibiting societies, their success was marred by internal factions among the artists. The combined vision of education and exhibition to establish a school of art set the Royal Academy apart from the other exhibiting societies. It provided the foundation upon which the Royal Academy came to dominate the art scene of the 18th and 19th centuries, supplanting the earlier art societies. Sir William Chambers, a prominent architect, used his connections with George III to gain royal patronage and financial support of the Academy, the painter Joshua Reynolds was made its first president. Francis Milner Newton was elected the first secretary, a post he held for two decades until his resignation in 1788, the instrument of foundation, signed by George III on 10 December 1768, named 34 founder members and allowed for a total membership of 40. William Hoare and Johann Zoffany were added to this list later by the King and are known as nominated members, among the founder members were two women, a father and daughter, and two sets of brothers. The Royal Academy was initially housed in cramped quarters in Pall Mall, although in 1771 it was given temporary accommodation for its library and schools in Old Somerset House, then a royal palace. In 1780 it was installed in purpose-built apartments in the first completed wing of New Somerset House, located in the Strand and designed by Chambers, the Academy moved in 1837 to Trafalgar Square, where it occupied the east wing of the recently completed National Gallery. These premises soon proved too small to house both institutions, in 1868,100 years after the Academys foundation, it moved to Burlington House, Piccadilly, where it remains. Burlington House is owned by the British Government, and used rent-free by the Royal Academy, the first Royal Academy exhibition of contemporary art, open to all artists, opened on 25 April 1769 and ran until 27 May 1769. 136 works of art were shown and this exhibition, now known as the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition, has been staged annually without interruption to the present day. In 1870 the Academy expanded its programme to include a temporary annual loan exhibition of Old Masters. The range and frequency of these exhibitions have grown enormously since that time. Britains first public lectures on art were staged by the Royal Academy, led by Reynolds, the first president, a program included lectures by Dr. William Hunter, John Flaxman, James Barry, Sir John Soane, and J. M. W. Turner
5.
Royal Dublin Society
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The Royal Dublin Society is the name given in 1820 to a philanthropic organisation which was founded as the Dublin Society on 25 June 1731 to see Ireland thrive culturally and economically. The RDS is synonymous with its campus in Ballsbridge in Dublin, the society was founded by members of the Dublin Philosophical Society, chiefly Thomas Prior and Samuel Madden, as the Dublin Society for improving Husbandry, Manufactures and other Useful Arts. On 8 July 1731 – a couple of weeks after initial foundation – the designation, the Royal prefix was adopted in 1820 when George IV became Society patron. The society purchased Leinster House, home of the Duke of Leinster, in 1815, the society acquired its current premises at Ballsbridge in 1879, and has since increased from the original fifteen to forty acres. The premises consist of a number of halls, a stadium, meeting rooms, bars, restaurants. The RDS Main Hall is a centre for exhibitions, concerts. It hosts, for example, the Young Scientist and Technology Exhibition each January, Simmonscourt is where the show jumping horses are stabled during Dublin Horse Show week. The RDS Arena was developed to host equestrian events, including the annual Dublin Horse Show and it is often used for other sporting events however – primarily football and rugby. In 2007 and 2008 the arenas capacity was expanded to 18,250, the club also moved their Leinster Rugby Store to the RDS, and it is open on match days. The covered Anglesea Stand is the oldest stand in the ground below which there is an amount of terracing. Opposite the Anglesea Stand is the Grandstand which contains the TV gantry and was covered with a roof in 2008, behind the goals are the uncovered North and South stands which are removed for showjumping events to allow for extra space. The DART runs close to the RDS premises with Lansdowne and Sandymount being the closest stops, the RDS is served by bus route numbers 4,7,18 and 27x, which stop outside the Main Hall Entrance to the RDS on Merrion Road. The first solely Society-run Horse Show was held in 1868 and was one of the earliest leaping competitions ever held, over time it has become a high profile International show jumping competition, national showing competition and major entertainment event in Ireland. As an exhibitor, walking through those gates in Dublin 4, is the highlight of the year, to be able to compete in one of the four Royal Dublin Society arenas, in which you will showcase your hard work and partnership you have with your horse. If you are enough to come and watch the action at the Dublin horse show. Form equestrian stores to antiques, there is something for everybody at the Dublin Horse Show, a Great, fun-filled family day out. In recent years, the venue has used as a music venue, for many rock, heavy metal. He played for 40,000 people during The Rising Tour in May 2003,115,500 people at the arena during his Magic Tour in May 2008, in June 2008, American band Paramore played their debut Irish concert in the RDS Arena
6.
Edmund Burke
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Burke criticized British treatment of the American colonies, including through its taxation policies. Burke is remembered for his support for Catholic emancipation, the impeachment of Warren Hastings from the East India Company, in the nineteenth century Burke was praised by both conservatives and liberals. Subsequently, in the century, he became widely regarded as the philosophical founder of modern conservatism. Burke was born in Dublin, Ireland, Burke adhered to his fathers faith and remained a practising Anglican throughout his life, unlike his sister Juliana who was brought up as and remained a Roman Catholic. Although never denying his Irishness, Burke often described himself as an Englishman, according to the historian J. C. D. Clark, this was in an age before Celtic nationalism sought to make Irishness and Englishness incompatible. As a child he spent time away from the unhealthy air of Dublin with his mothers family in the Blackwater Valley in County Cork. He received his education at a Quaker school in Ballitore, County Kildare, some 67 kilometres from Dublin. He remained in correspondence with his schoolmate from there, Mary Leadbeater, in 1744, Burke started at Trinity College Dublin, a Protestant establishment, which up until 1793, did not permit Catholics to take degrees. The minutes of the meetings of Burkes Club remain in the collection of the Historical Society, Burke graduated from Trinity in 1748. Burkes father wanted him to read Law, and with this in mind he went to London in 1750, after eschewing the Law, he pursued a livelihood through writing. The late Lord Bolingbrokes Letters on the Study and Use of History was published in 1752 and this provoked Burke into writing his first published work, A Vindication of Natural Society, A View of the Miseries and Evils Arising to Mankind, appearing in Spring 1756. Burke imitated Bolingbrokes style and ideas in a reductio ad absurdum of his arguments for atheistic rationalism, Burke claimed that Bolingbrokes arguments against revealed religion could apply to all social and civil institutions as well. Lord Chesterfield and Bishop Warburton initially thought that the work was genuinely by Bolingbroke rather than a satire, all the reviews of the work were positive, with critics especially appreciative of Burkes quality of writing. Some reviewers failed to notice the ironic nature of the book, a minority of scholars have taken the position that, in fact, Burke did write the Vindication in earnest, later disowning it only for political reasons. It was his only purely philosophical work, and when asked by Sir Joshua Reynolds and French Laurence to expand it thirty years later and it was to be submitted for publication by Christmas 1758. G. M. Young did not value Burkes history and claimed that it was demonstrably a translation from the French. Lord Acton, on commenting on the story that Burke stopped his history because David Hume published his, Burke remained the chief editor of the publication until at least 1789 and there is no evidence that any other writer contributed to it before 1766. On 12 March 1757, Burke married Jane Mary Nugent, daughter of Dr Christopher Nugent and their son Richard was born on 9 February 1758, an elder son, Christopher, died in infancy
7.
Joshua Reynolds
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Sir Joshua Reynolds RA FRS FRSA was an influential eighteenth-century English painter, specialising in portraits. He promoted the Grand Style in painting which depended on idealization of the imperfect and he was a founder and first president of the Royal Academy of Arts, and was knighted by George III in 1769. Reynolds was born in Plympton, Devon, on 16 July 1723 the third son of the Rev. Samuel Reynolds and his father had been a fellow of Balliol College, Oxford, but did not send any of his sons to the university. One of his sisters was Mary Palmer, seven years his senior, author of Devonshire Dialogue, in 1740 she provided £60, half of the premium paid to Thomas Hudson the portrait-painter, for Joshuas pupilage, and nine years later advanced money for his expenses in Italy. His other siblings included Frances Reynolds and Elizabeth Johnson, as a boy, he came under the influence of Zachariah Mudge, whose Platonistic philosophy stayed with him all his life. The work that came to have the most influential impact on Reynolds was Jonathan Richardsons An Essay on the Theory of Painting, having shown an early interest in art, Reynolds was apprenticed in 1740 to the fashionable London portrait painter Thomas Hudson, who had been born in Devon. Hudson had a collection of old master drawings, including some by Guercino, although apprenticed to Hudson for four years, Reynolds only remained with him until summer 1743. Having left Hudson, Reynolds worked for some time as a portrait-painter in Plymouth Dock and he returned to London before the end of 1744, but following his fathers death in late 1745 he shared a house in Plymouth Dock with his sisters. In 1749, Reynolds met Commodore Augustus Keppel, who invited him to join HMS Centurion, of which he had command, while with the ship he visited Lisbon, Cadiz, Algiers, and Minorca. From Minorca he travelled to Livorno in Italy, and then to Rome, while in Rome he suffered a severe cold, which left him partially deaf, and, as a result, he began to carry a small ear trumpet with which he is often pictured. Reynolds travelled homeward overland via Florence, Bologna, Venice, and he was accompanied by Giuseppe Marchi, then aged about 17. Apart from a brief interlude in 1770, Marchi remained in Reynolds employment as an assistant for the rest of the artists career. Following his arrival in England in October 1752, Reynolds spent three months in Devon, before establishing himself in London, where he remained for the rest of his life. He took rooms in St Martins Lane, before moving to Great Newport Street and he achieved success rapidly, and was extremely prolific. In 1760 Reynolds moved into a house, with space to show his works and accommodate his assistants. Alongside ambitious full-length portraits, Reynolds painted large numbers of smaller works, in the late 1750s, at the height of the social season, he received five or six sitters a day, each for an hour. By 1761 Reynolds could command a fee of 80 guineas for a full-length portrait, the clothing of Reynolds sitters was usually painted either by one of his pupils, his studio assistant Giuseppe Marchi, or the specialist drapery painter Peter Toms. Lay figures were used to model the clothes and he had an excellent vantage from his house, Wick House, on Richmond Hill, and painted the view in about 1780
8.
George Romney (painter)
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George Romney was an English portrait painter. He was the most fashionable artist of his day, painting many leading society figures – including his artistic muse, Emma Hamilton, Romney was born in Beckside in Dalton-in-Furness, Lancashire, the 3rd son of John Romney, cabinet maker, and Anne Simpson. Raised in a cottage named High Cocken in modern-day Barrow-in-Furness, he was sent to school at nearby Dendron and he appears to have been an indifferent student and was withdrawn at the age of 11 and apprenticed to his fathers business instead. He proved to have an ability for drawing and making things from wood – including violins. All costs were to be borne by Georges father, in October 1756, Romney married Mary Abbot, but the couple were immediately separated when he was called away to York on business by his employer. After a year, Steele eventually agreed to cancel the apprenticeship, at Georges request, in 1757, Romney rejoined his wife and young son in Kendal, working as a portraitist, landscape and historical painter. In this period he became friends with Adam Walker, the inventor and writer, in March 1762, he parted from his wife, son and daughter, to seek his fortune in London, where he stayed until 1799. Throughout the separation, he maintained contact with his family and financially supported them, in 1763, Romney entered his painting, The Death of General Wolfe, into a Royal Society of Arts competition. According to friends of Romney, he was awarded the prize of 50 guineas. It is said that Sir Joshua Reynolds himself was the mover behind this decision. Despite his later success, Romney was never invited to join the Royal Academy of Arts, though he was asked, urged even and this decision certainly cost him valuable royal patronage and support from others connected at court. His own career supported this belief, and it was only towards the end of his life that he expressed the slightest regret for his views and his early years in the capital were something of a struggle financially. In September 1764, he travelled to Paris for a few weeks to study the works of the old masters, in 1765 he again won the second prize of 50 guineas in the Royal Society of Arts competition. In 1768, he made the acquaintance of Richard Cumberland, the dramatist, whose portrait he painted, and he also became friends with miniature painter Ozias Humphrey. In 1770 he started to exhibit his work at the Chartered Society of Artists rather the rival Free Society of Artists, by 1772 Romney was financially secure enough to make the journey to Italy to study the great artists of the past, as he had always intended. He set off in March, making his way through Europe, a letter of introduction allowed him to meet the Pope, Clement XIV, who allowed him to set up scaffolding in the Vatican to study the frescoes of Raphael. He spent 18 months in Rome making studies and sketches of the art works on view there. He returned to London in July 1775 after an absence of over 2 years, on his return, in 1775, Romney moved to Cavendish Square, in a house formerly owned by noted portraitist Francis Cotes
Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Shee, Sir Martin Archer". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.
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