Lord Chesterfield's Letters
Lord Chesterfield's Letters

Author: Lord Chesterfield

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2008-09-11

Total Pages: 481

ISBN-13: 0199554846

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`My object is to have you fit to live; which, if you are not, I do not desire that you should live at all.' So wrote Lord Chesterfield in one of the most celebrated and controversial correspondences between a father and son. Chesterfield wrote almost daily to his natural son, Philip, from 1737 onwards, providing him with instruction in etiquette and the worldly arts. Praised in their day as a complete manual of education, and despised by Samuel Johnson for teaching `the morals of a whore and the manners of a dancing-master', these letters reflect the political craft of a leading statesman and the urbane wit of a man who associated with Pope, Addison, and Swift. The letters reveal Chesterfield's political cynicism and his belief that his country had `always been goverened by the only two or three people, out of two or three millions, totally incapable of governing', as well as his views on good breeding. Not originally intended for publication, this entertaining correspondence illuminates fascinating aspects of eighteenth-century life and manners. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

Only the Best
Only the Best

Author: Katharine Baetjer

Publisher: Metropolitan Museum of Art

Published: 1999

Total Pages: 181

ISBN-13: 0870999265

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This volume and the exhibition it accompanies bring together eighty of the finest masterpieces in the collection of the Calouste Gulbenkian Museum, Lisbon. All of the works of art are richly illustrated in color and described in authoritative texts by the curators of the Gulbenkian Museum. These magnificent pieces, which reflect the renowned art collector Calouste Gulbenkian's eclectic taste, include paintings by Rubens, Fragonard, Gainsborough, Turner, and Manet; silver from services created for the nobility of Russia and Western Europe; Roman medallions; Ottoman ceramics; Japanese lacquerware; jewelry by Lalique; and books and textiles from both East and West. These works of art offer dazzling testimony to Gulbenkian's devotion to the quality of the individual object and to his refined connoisseurship. The Calouste Gulbenkian Museum was created under the terms of Gulbenkian's will in order to preserve under one roof the artworks in his collection--one of the preeminent art assemblages of the first half of the twentieth century. Gulbenkian, a successful businessman who was born in 1869 in Ottoman Turkey to an Armenian family, made his fortune in the oil industry. In April 1942, in the midst of World War II, he arrived in Lisbon seeking a peaceful place to live. Portugal had remained neutral in the conflict that was engulfing the world. Gulbenkian spent the rest of his life in Lisbon, where he died in 1955. As a collector--whether of ancient Egyptian art, Islamic art, or European painting and decorative arts--Gulbenkian acquired "only the best."