‘ The LORD is in His holy temple; the LORD’S throne is in heaven: His eyes behold, his eyelids try, the children of men. The LORD tries the righteous, but the wicked and those that love violence His soul hates. Upon the wicked, He will rain snares, fire and brimstone, and a horrible tempest; this will be their portion of their cup.’ Psalms 11: 5,6
What do these two very different people have in common. They loved gardens.
Where else could two people like this be met, but in a museum. We were in the British Museum.
This post will look at distractions first found when walking through the Enlightenment Gallery and then at last being in front of the small display of Mary Delany. Secondly, I will then follow some Lion hunt depictions before finally looking at those of the ancient gardens of Ashurbanipal as decorations of his palace.
Let us walk into the Enlightenment Gallery .
It is a record of goods bought by a woman called Wekhbel.
(Sasanian, Babylonia, Assyrian)
Although some of these were found in Nineveh and Babylon, most were acquired by travellers from local dealers.
It took a long time to spot Mary Delany’s cabinet.
Who was this woman?
At 17, she was made to marry a Member of Parliament, a man of 60 years old. She hated it. He had gout, and she went horseriding. They then moved to London, where she had to nurse him and did a lot of painting and embroidery work. All flowers. He began to drink excessively and then died, forgetting to include her in the will. She eventually met a widow who had the same gardening interests as her and encouraged her in Botany and painting. They had 25 years of a happy marriage, and when he died, she continued with her embroidering and writing. She was also a strong member of the blue stockings. A group of women who met for intellectual conversation and who were not terribly bothered about clothes.
At the age of 72, her vision faltered. She then began to work with tissue paper. Working to scale directly from the plant, the coloured tissue paper was cut into dozens and even hundreds of layers of finely cut parts. Thereby making the flower as much like the live speciman in front of her. Mary Delany went on to make 985 of these works and ranks among the most accomplished paper cutters of all time.
Here are two in the exhibition.
Our second place of interest is the section: Royal Palace of Ancient Assyria.
Ancient Assyria
Look for a while at the different textures on these human headed winged bulls, the lamassu. The human head symbolising intelligence, a bull’s body strength, and an eagle’s wings symbolising freedom.
Then walking in on a lion hunt with so many depictions of lions and men with spears it was difficult to see a peaceful garden scene.
Apparently, it has been thought that the hanging gardens of Babylon were really of Assyria. However, each was dramatic and well supported by aquifers, and I did see a reference to a garden and a relief..
If a king could kill a lion, he was saying he could dominate his enemies.
Here, a lion strolls peacefully with musicians.
A palace with a garden meant the king would provide peace for his people, hence the lions under control in a garden.
Some of the panels have dark areas showing the effect of fire.
A little time spent in a splendid place.
Take care,
Sandy 🙂
Very interesting Sandy! Thanks for sharing it with us
Yes, it is a GRAND place!
What a nice tour! Thank you for sharing these, Sandy!
Thank you. It is hard to imagine that what one is seeing is so delicate and then at the other extreme so old. I would enjoy spending more time there but it is tiring.