The long nineteenth century, defined by Eric Hobsbawm (after Fernand Braudel's "long 16th century" idea), a British Marxist historian and author, refers to the period between the years 1789 and 1914. 

Hobsbawm lays out its analysis in 

  • The Age of Revolution: Europe, 1789–1848; 
  • The Age of Capital: 1848–1875; 
  • The Age of Empire: 1875–1914.
 TimeLine The Long 19th Century

1750  Industrial Revolution begins in western Europe with mining and textiles
1764  British control of Bengal
1770  Invention of steam engine by James Watt
1774  White Lotus Society risings in China
1775-1783 American Revolution
1780s-1790s First writings by modern feminists- Mary Wollstonecraft and others
1787  Sierra Leone founded as British colony for freed slaves
1789-1799 French Revolution
1807-1834 Trans-Atlantic slave trade abolished

 
 
 
 
 

History Painting and the Classic Ideal

Benjamin West, Death of General Wolfe. 1770 oil on canvas, 5'x7'
National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa- British History Painting



 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Benjamin West, 
Death of General Wolfe.
1770
oil on canvas, 5'x7' 
National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa
British History Painting

Jacopo Pontormo, 
Deposition, 
c. 1528 Oil on wood, 
313 x 192 cm
Cappella Capponi, 
Sta Felicita, Florence
Italian Mannerism

 
Jacques-Louis David 
Oath of the Horatii-1784 
oil on canvas, 10'x14' 
Louvre Museum, Paris 
French Neoclassicism

 


 
 
 
 
 
 



 
 
 
 
 

Jacques-Louis David 
Oath of the Horatii-1784
oil on canvas, 10'x14' 
Louvre Museum, Paris
French Neoclassicism

Jean-Antoine Watteau. 
Pilgrimage to the Island 
of Cythera. 1717
oil/canvas 4'3"x6'4" 
Louvres, Paris
French Rococo

 


Jacques-Louis David Oath Tennis Court 1791



 
 
 

Jacques-Louis David.
Death of Marat. 1793.
oil on canvas, 5'5"x4'2" 
Royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique, Brussels
French Neoclassicism

 
 
 
 
 
David, Death of Socrates, 1787
Horatio Greenough 
George Washington (1804)
American Neoclassical
David, Death of Socrates, 1787

 

Stele of Hegeso c410BCE
Greek Classical, 

Angelika Kauffman 
Cornelia's Jewels 1785
oil on canvas 40"x50" 
Fine Arts Museum of Richmond Virginia
Swiss but worked in England, Neoclassical History Painting


Jacques-Louis David,  Madame Recamier a.k.a.. Madame Geoffrine 1800


Jacques-Germain Soufflot. Pantheon 1755-92
Begun in 1757 as the Church of Sainte-Geneviève, 
the Pantheon is now a civic building housing the remains 
of some of France's most famous citizens.






Thomas Jefferson,  Monticello
1770-1776 American Neoclassicism










 
Chiswick House, 
by Lord Burlington (Richard Boyle), 
at Chiswick, England, 1729.
Gardens and Interior by William Kent 1730
English Neoclassicism


Josiah Wedgwood and factory, 
[The apotheosis of Homer], 1786. 
ceramic pottery vase. English. 
Wedgwood, Josiah Apotheosis Vase 1786


The vase shows a kithara-player mounting a platform, watched by a winged figure of Victory, a judge and other onlookers. Modern scholars believe that it shows the winner of a music contest. But in the eighteenth century it was thought to show the 'Apotheosis of Homer' - the poet Homer becoming a god.









 




     Calyx-krater (wine bowl)
Greek, about 440 BC,
attributed to an artist working in the manner of the Peleus Painter
Made in Athens, Greece; found in the river Gela, Sicily
Classic Greek

Hamilton hoped that his collection would improve the work of artists and artisans in Britain, and this vase did prove to have a considerable influence. John Flaxman (1755-1826) copied the scene for a plaque for mantelpieces and Josiah Wedgwood used it on a jasper ware vase, known as the 'Homeric vase' or 'Pegasus Vase'. Wedgwood donated one of these vases to the British Museum in 1786 and considered it 'the finest & most perfect I have ever made'.



 
 
 

 
 
Marie Louise Elisabeth Vigee-Lebrun 
Self Portrait 1790
Labille-Guiard, Adelaide 
Self-Portrait with Two Pupils, 1785, 
oil on canvas, 
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
Artemisia Gentileschi 
Self Portrait as Allegory of Painting or
"La Pittura" 1630

 
 
 

Vigee-Le Brun with her daughter Julie - 
1789 121 x 90 cm, The Louvre, Paris
Marie Louise Elisabeth Vigee-Lebrun 
1755-1842 
Marie Antoinette 1787
oil on canvas 9'x7'
Versailles


Angelica Kauffman, Cornelia Pointing to Her Children as Her Treasures,
1785. oil on canvas, 40"x50" Virginia Mueum of Fine Arts, Richmond, Virginia
Neoclassic, worked in England born in Switzerland



 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Angelica Kauffman, 
Cornelia Pointing to Her Children as Her Treasures, 1785. 
oil on canvas, 40"x50" 
Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, Virginia
Neoclassic, worked in England born in Switzerland
Stele of Hegeso
c.410-400 BC, Marble, 5'9"
Athens. Classic Greek