Day: June 30, 2025

Triceratops, Albertosaurus and Satie

Erik Satie, who died 100 years ago last Saturday.

Triceratops

A young Triceratops was the star of the opening film in Walking with Dinosaurs #2.

Albertosaurus

I like the way the series links new discoveries and speculation about the lives of dinosaurs with the fossils themselves, filmed at digs in America, North Africa and Portugal.

Brought up on Ray Harryhausen dinosaurs, I would never have assumed that Albertosaurus might be lilac with a ginger crew cut but at that time we thought of dinosaurs as giant lizards. Now that we’re aware how closely they were related to birds the colouring makes sense: it reminds me of the prehistoric-looking cassowary.

sketches

Turner’s Watercolour Box

watercolour box

At the current Harewood House exhibition Austen and Turner: A Country House Encounter I got a close look at this watercolour box that belonged to Turner, dating from around 1842, so possibly a set he used on one of his visits to Harewood.

watercolours

As in so many watercolour boxes, it’s the darker earth colours that have been neglected and he’s gone for the reds, blues and yellows.

Watercolour cakes were something new but I’m wondering what the three white trays – two of them all but empty – are made of. In a modern box they’d be plastic but these don’t look to me like ceramics or enamel.