The yolk of fresh hens’ eggs used as a binder for fine and thin brushstrokes, from about 1250-1500, and revived in 19th and 20th centuries.
Stanhope
More painted friezes from Gustav Klimt, Ferdinand Hodler, Evelyn De Morgan, Dante Gabriel Rossetti and others.
Keeping the aspidistra flying in the homes of the respectable middle classes, in paintings from Carl Larsson to Paul Signac and Harriet Backer.
The harrowing of Hell, and the Resurrection in the paintings of William Blake, Jan Brueghel the Elder, William Holman Hunt, and others.
Paintings from cities like London, Paris and Oslo, by Ford Madox Brown, Jean-Louis Forain, Félicien Rops, Christian Krohg, and others.
Curtains around 4-poster beds, revealing hidden opinions, framing a cameo landscape, showing time and place, and in a trompe l’oeil still life.
Gullible young women trafficked into prostitution, or were whole families squeezed out because of cold weather, crop failure including potato blight, loss of common land, and war.
Newly wed Eurydice is bitten by a snake and dies. Orpheus rescues her from the Underworld, but on their way back he looks back to check on her. All in magnificent paintings.
Charon ferrying the dead to the Underworld, and rarely back again, Psyche in her quest, the centaur Nessus, and lots of sheep and cattle.
From William Hogarth’s series “A Harlot’s Progress”, to the descent of the seamstress from sewing machine to prostitution. A popular 19th century story.
The Eclectic Light Company 