Tuesday 16th April 2024 at 10.45am
Lecturer: Tim Stimson replaces Louise Schofield who is indisposed.
The lecture title is from the song celebrating this cheery Dutchman’s knighthood during Queen Victoria’s diamond jubilee. It conveys the widespread affection with which he was regarded by his public, and the riches he enjoyed through the popularity of his accurate and amusing recreations of Roman life. His pictures were once criticised as “Victorians in togas”, yet that is their charm now; and the parallels between the Roman and the British empires are entertainingly apt. The partially disguised eroticism, of course, did no harm to the sales of his sumptuous evocations of delightful decadence.