With jealousy!   Because he did not write it.

Initially published anonymously in the last year of the Regency, this racy novel telling the tales of a young Greek's adventurous travels through the Levant was a runaway best seller and remained in print for thirty years. Yet few today even know of its existence. It was originally attributed to Lord Byron, but in the second edition, published the following year, the shy yet cultured man who wrote it admitted his authorship. And practically no one believed him.

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Last week I wrote about the display of paintings in public galleries. This week my topic is how paintings were displayed in large private homes during the decade of the Regency. Some of the methods for the display of art in public galleries were also employed in private homes, especially the homes of royalty and the aristocracy. But there was more leeway to deviate from these practices in private galleries, and many wealthy connoisseurs indulged their whims as they pleased. Not only in how they displayed their art, but in the type of art they chose to collect, some of which was not suitable or appropriate for display in mixed company or for public viewing.

The secrets of the display of art in the private spaces of the Regency ...

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What could there possibly be to say about the hanging of paintings? One simply hangs them on the wall, ensures they are relatively straight and is done with it. Not really. The way paintings were hung in public art galleries during the Regency is not the same as the way paintings are hung in art galleries and museums in modern times. Should someone from the Regency walk into a museum today, they would be shocked at what they would perceive as the poor use of the space. However, most artists from the Regency would much prefer the way paintings are now typically hung in most galleries and museums.

The display of paintings in Regency art galleries and the now antiquated practice of skying ...

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Though I have not yet read a Regency novel in which an orrery has been introduced, these complex and often exquisite objects were very popular during that decade. Many cultured gentlemen, or gentlemen with pretensions to culture, would have had an orrery on display in their library or book room, often alongside a terrestrial globe, usually paired with a celestial globe.

A brief history of the orrery and some personal recollections of these elegant devices ...

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