Commemorating the Crimean War: The Provenance and Symbolism of a British Medal of 1856

With the exception of the Great Exhibition of 1851, and its long ‘afterlife’ following the relocation at Sydenham of the glass-and-iron Crystal Palace which housed it, perhaps no other event during the Victorian era engendered such an extensive and varied material culture as the Crimean War (1854-6).[1] Medallists, ceramists, artists, and others commemorated the age-defining conflict fought by the allies – Britain, France, the Ottoman Empire, and Piedmont-Sardinia – against Russia in a cornucopia of objects, many of which survive

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Art Revolutions in the Nineteenth Century

Serena Trowbridge, Birmingham City University This post relates to some research to which I return regularly, wondering where it will lead me. I’m interested in the ways in which ideas move, between people, across continents, and manifest themselves in art and literature as well as political ideology. Related to this, I am organising a conference on ‘Cultural Cross-Currents between Russia and Britain in the nineteenth century’, co-hosted by Birmingham City University and the State University of Tomsk. The cultural situation

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