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Period: to
Our Virtual Museum 1750 - 1800
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Pennsylvania State House (Independence Hall)
Independence Hall is the birthplace of America. The Declaration of Independence and U.S. Constitution were both debated and signed inside this UNESCO World Heritage Site. Designed in the Georgian style, the building exhibits a sense of proportion, balance and symmetry. Created as the Pennsylvania State House, this style infuenced American colonial architecture to this day. -
Hymns and Spiritual Songs - John Wesley and Charles Wesley
Charles Wesley was one of the most prolific hymn writers in history, writting over 6,500 hymns. Charles’ hymns influenced the developing Methodist movement and reform in the Church of England. Many volumes were released under his name and through collaborative work with his brother John. Their hymns are incorporated into contemporary worship services. -
Candide, ou l'Optimisme - Voltaire
Candide, ou l'Optimisme is a French satire by Voltaire, a philosopher of the Age of Enlightenment. Candide is recognized as Voltaire's greatest work. It is taught more than any other work of French literature and considered one of the 100 most influential books ever written. -
The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman - Laurence Sterne
A humorous novel, published in nine volumes over seven years, Tristam Shandy is the story of a central character who cannot explain anything simply. The novels are obscene, infuriating and very influential. Arthur Schopenhauer cited Tristram Shandy as one of the greatest novels ever written. -
Parnassus - Anton Raphael Mengs
This painting was a sketch for Mengs's fresco in the central part of the ceiling of the Villa Albani in Rome, commissioned by Cardinal Alessandro Albani. Mengs broke Baroque traditions and turned towards Neoclassical art. In the center is Apollo, patron of the arts and leader of the Muses. -
Arg of Karim Khan
The citadel by the Zand ruler Karīm Khan at his capital Shiraz (now Iran) is a large rectangular building, originally surrounded by a moat. The interior decoration once included marble and Shirazi-style patterns painted in gilt and lapis lazuli. Karīm Khan had this castle erected on the best site in the city by architects, bricklayers, carpenters, masons, painters, tunnelers, and other craftsmen from all parts of the country. -
Monticello - Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson started building Monticello when he was 26 years old. Located just outside Charlottesville, Virginia, the plantation was originally used for tobacco and mixed crops. The house, which Jefferson designed, was based on the neoclassical principles described in the books of the Italian Renaissance architect Andrea Palladio and design elements popular in late 18th-century Europe. Its name comes from the Italian "little mountain." -
The Blue Boy - Thomas Gainsborough
The Blue Boy is Gainsborough’s most famous work, based on the work of Anthony van Dyck, the 17th-century Flemish painter who had revolutionized British art. The blue satin is a spectrum of tints – indigo, lapis, cobalt, slate, turquoise, charcoal, and cream – which have been applied in extremely complex layers of vigorous slashes and fine strokes. -
She Stoops to Conquer - Oliver Goldsmith
She Stoops to Conquer is a comedy by Anglo-Irish author Oliver Goldsmith that was first performed in London in 1773. The play is a favorite for study by English literature and theatre classes in Britain and the United States. It is one of the few plays from the 18th century to have an enduring appeal, and is still regularly performed today. -
The Sorrows of Young Werther - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
The Sorrows of Young Werther is an epistolary and loosely autobiographical novel by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. Werther was an important novel of the Sturm und Drang period in German literature. Sturm und Drang (“Storm and Stress”), was a literary movement of the late 18th century that exalted nature, feeling, and human individualism and sought to overthrow the Enlightenment cult of Rationalism. -
Common Sense - Thomas Paine
The pamphlet Common Sense challenged the authority of the British government and the royal monarchy. The plain language that Paine used spoke to the common people of America and was the first work to openly ask for independence from Great Britain. -
The School for Scandal - Richard Brinsley Sheridan
The School for Scandal is a comedy of manners, a play satirizing the behavior and customs of upper classes through witty dialogue and an intricate plot with comic situations that expose characters' shortcomings. The author mainly satirizes malicious gossip and hypocrisy in the fashionable society of London in the 1770s. -
Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect - Robert Burns
Robbie Burns is Scotland’s national poet, and his birthday is a national celebration. The first edition of Burns’ Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish dialect was printed by John Wilson of Kilmarnock with a print-run of 612 copies. It sold out within a month. Burns, who was just 27, had been planning to emigrate to the West Indies. Following the success of the book, he stayed in Scotland and moved to Edinburgh where he became Scotland's famorite son. -
The Marriage of Figaro - Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Count Orsini-Rosenberg, director of the imperial theatre, asked Mozart to write a comic opera. It was an instant success and spawned so many encores that the emperor issued an edict to limit encore performances. It is one of the top ten most-performed operas worldwide today. -
Bust of Thomas Jefferson - Jean-Antoine Houdon
Of the many life portraits of Thomas Jefferson, Houdon's bust of 46-year-old Jefferson is the most well known. Jefferson became acquainted with Houdon during his service as Minister to France (1784-1789). Recognized for its portrayal of Jefferson as a sensitive, intellectual, aristocratic, and idealistic statesman, it is considered a superb likeness. It has served as the model for other images of Jefferson, including the nickel. -
Tomb of Pope Clement XIII – Antonio Canova
Begun in 1783 and finished in 1792, the Monument to Clement XIII by Antonio Canova introduced neoclassicism into St. Peter's Basilica at the Vatican. -
The Marriage of Heaven and Hell - William Blake
A series of texts written in imitation of biblical prophecy expresses Blake's personal Romantic and revolutionary beliefs. Like his other books, it was published as printed sheets from etched plates containing prose, poetry and illustrations. The work was composed between 1790 and 1793, in the period of political conflict immediately after the French Revolution. The book describes the poet's visit to Hell, a device adopted by Blake from Dante's Divine Comedy and Milton's Paradise Lost. -
The Death of Marat - Jacques-Louis David
The Death of Marat is a painting by Jacques-Louis David of the murdered French revolutionary leader Jean-Paul Marat. It is one of the most famous images of the Revolution. The painting shows the radical journalist lying dead in his bath on 13 July 1793 after his murder by Charlotte Corday. Painted in the months after Marat's murder, it has been described as the first modernist painting, for using poitics as the theme. -
Symphony No. 104 in D major (London Symphony) - Franz Joseph Haydn
Since the death of J.C. Bach in 1782, Haydn's music had dominated the concert scene in London. His two visits to London, 1791–1792 and 1794–1795 made Haydn the toast of the town and his performances made him financially secure. In all, twelve London symphonies were composed between 1791 and 1795, but the last, No. 104 in D major, his final symphony, is considered to be the consummate composition. -
Piano Sonata No. 8 in C minor, Op. 13, (Sonata Pathétique) - Ludwig van Beethoven
Written when Beethoven was only 27, this piece was created for Prince Karl von Lichnowsky. One of Beethoven’s earlier pieces, this cemented his reputation as a composer. -
Los Caprichos - Francisco Goya
Los Caprichos is a series of eighty engravings and aquatints of a satirical nature. Goya, acknowledged as the "last of the great masters and the first of the moderns" is more commonly known for his oil portraits for the court of King Carlos IV. Goya's whole style changed in his mature years, coinciding with a mystery illness the artist contracted in 1792. -
Zephyrus and Flora - Claude Michel Clodion
Specializing in small-scale, highly finished terra-cotta statuettes and reliefs, Clodion gave his compositions liveliness and a touch of eroticism. He excelled in translating the antique into his own modern vision. Winged Zephyrus, god of the west wind, embraces his bride Flora, crowning her with a wreath of roses.
