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Auction houses [ Trade ]

… to Town’. 8  The auction house pursued this ideal of sociable parity and community, making it the very motor of its spectacle, as bids that settled the price and ownership of artefacts were supposedly taken from the crowd … lots he attributed both fuelled polite conversation and provided the décor for sociable meetings. Auction doubled as a spectacle where people looked at unique artefacts while observing how other bidders’ appraised them, prompted by the … to ensure that sales did not translate into loss. There remained powerful anxieties around the participation in such a spectacle of greed, financial dispersion and old money pitted against new money – these powerful currents threatened …

Phaeton [ Transport ]

… drivers to conspicuously display their control, daring, and skill. It was a carriage designed for performance and spectacle. This carriage model enabled people to perform their elite status to others and encouraged others to assess … commotion of the horses and phaeton obscures the elaborate coach in the background of the print that was all part of the spectacle and performance of the carriage promenade on the Rotten Row. Therefore, the phaeton both enabled new forms of …

Scientific experiments [ Politics & Society / Science ]

… society. 4 . Gentleman’s Magazine 15 (1745), pp. 193-7, quoted in Simon Schaffer, ‘Natural Philosophy and Public Spectacle in the Eighteenth Century,’ History of Science 21 (1983), pp. 1-43, p. 6. By the 1740s, scientific lecturing … and electricity. Scientific experiments took their place in a metropolis that offered an unprecedented range of visual spectacles. A visitor to the city in 1807 took in demonstrations of a steam engine, a purported perpetual motion machine, … City, 1800-1840  (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992), p. 129–42. Schaffer, Simon, ‘Natural Philosophy and Public Spectacle in the Eighteenth Century’, History of Science (vol. 21, 1983), p. 1–43. Shapin, Steven, and Simon Schaffer, …

Rifā‘a Rāfi‘ al-Tahtāwī (Arab discovery of European sociability) [ Travel / Translation, Dissemination & Reception ]

… for entertainment purposes in places the French called al-tiyātr ( le theatre ), a venue for al-sibiktākil (the spectacle). He observed all these activities with the curiosity of the traveller but also with the gaze of the reformer … as follows: amusement improves the morals ʼ (al-Tahtawi, An Imam in Paris , 228-229). 5 For al-Tahtāwī, the greatest spectacle in Paris was the one called al-ūbbira (the opera), in which the best musicians, dancers and singers performed …

Ascot [ Games & Sports / Sports & Leisure ]

… toujours les journaux anglais et par contrecoup les journaux de Paris. S.M.L. a assisté aux courses de chevaux d’Ascot, spectacle tout anglais, et elle a fondé un prix de 12,500 fr. qui seront payés annuellement toute sa vie durant. Une … ainsi leurs possibilités de gain, et des commerçants qui en tirèrent profit pour leurs négociations. En outre, des spectacles plus populaires de jongleurs, comme les exhibitions, ou des petites expositions dans les kiosques étaient … News (London, vol.1, Jan-Jun 1844, p. 368) Au-delà de la performance sportive, les courses de chevaux offraient un spectacle hétérogène, révélateur des mœurs et des pratiques de sociabilité anglaises. Cette rencontre d’exception devint …

Playbills [ Print culture / Sports & Leisure ]

… she exclaims, ‘now her eyes have gone down to her play-bill! Sir Harry, do take it from her.’ 11   Distracted by the spectacle of the play and its playbill, Lady Isabel is at risk of bypassing the attention of Major P. As both an aide … of Devonshire’s support for the campaign of Charles James Fox: 14 . John Barrell, ‘Radicalism, Visual Culture, and Spectacle in the 1790s’, Romanticism on the Net (n° 46, 2007), p. 20. 15 . This has also been discussed by Russell in …