06 September 2017

Roman Postcards from the UK (& France)

I have been a bit focused in the history of Rome lately, and a friend sent me some Rome-related postcards from the UK:


Trajan's Column in the Cast Courts, in the Victoria and Albert Museum.This is a plaster cast taken about 1864, after the marble originals. The idea behind the gallery sounds very interesting:
Opened in 1873, the Cast Court collections were originally assembled to allow people who could not travel abroad to admire some of the major European monuments and works of art. The galleries house faithful copies commissioned or bought from some of the leading cast manufacturers of the nineteenth century, when collecting such casts was at its most popular.



A Coign of Vantage, 1895, by Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema (1836-1912).
Three Roman women watch the return of galleys from a corner, or 'coign'. (...) A Dutch painter who moved to England in 1870, Alma-Tadema has a successful career (...) His Neo-Classical portrayals of ancient Roman, Greek and Egyptian life were highly popular with Victorian society. They also showed the artist's knowledge of archaeology and social history.


Cantwaraburg. anglo Saxon Canterbury, about A. D. 750. Artist view by Ivan Lapper, based on expert archaeological research.
The Saxon town, established in St. Agustine's time, flourished inside the repaired Roman walls. Only the ruined Theatre survived of the Roman buildings: new houses, workshops and markets grew up in a changed layout around new monuments -Cathedral, King's Palace and Abbey.


Fresco from the North wall showing initiation rites. First century. Pompeii. This (big!) postcard came from an exhibition in the British Museum.


A funny one!

And the last one was sent by Fabienne (France). What has this church to do with Romans? Well, as you can read on the image, it was built on the site of the ancient Forum of Trajan.

11 comments:

  1. Heureuse que ma petite lettre soit bien arrivée !

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    1. Oui, merci! :)
      Mais l'autre dont tu me parlais, elle n'est jamais arrivée, malheureusement.

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    2. Dommage d'autant plus que j'avais mis des timbres à l'intérieur ,bon elle a peut être fait plaisir à une autre personne !

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  2. How nice!
    I grew up with Roman (and Greek) mythology and the city of my childhood - Nijmegen - has been founded by the Romans, 2 millenia ago. So there is some deep interest here (or might that have been caused by the Asterix comics which were my childhood's favourite books!? :-) )

    By the way, there is a statue of Trajan (Trajanus we name him here) at the entrance of the city of Nijmegen (at the Trajanusplein, Trajanus Square, close to my favourite bridge :-) ).
    I've never seen postcards of this statue, but if I'll find one, one day, I know to whom to send it!

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    1. They never made postcard of really important things ;-)

      I also studied Latin & Ancient Greek, and now I have a renewed interests in those parts of history. I've been reading a lot about, lately.

      Have you got any postcard from my recent trip?

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    2. :-)
      Well, it is a nice statue, but close to it there's a large colourful flower clock, which attracts even more attention (and has been pictured on postcards..)

      I've received one card, last week, from Ikaria - thank you so much!!

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  3. The Romans and Vikings in the beach in Thanet are a bit Asterix-like!
    Thanet is on the north coast of Kent, in the south-east of England, and the cities mentioned have very nice beaches. Nowadays, they are invaded by rowdy families like mine!

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    1. I thought immediately of Asterix when I saw the postcard (more exactly,of Obelix smashing Romans...).

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Thank you for coming. All your comments make me extremely happy.