Dr Jennifer Howes

When’s TRIP’s next question time?

🎃 Happy Halloween! This appropriately spooky binding comes from a sammelband of works on the guillotine, containing thirteen items on its invention, history, use, and physiological effects.

YouTube video by Reagan Library President Reagan's Radio Address on Free and Fair Trade on April 25, 1987

I’m in Canada right now and it suddenly feels desperately important that everyone listens to this 5 minute speech from beginning to end.
youtu.be/5t5QK03KXPc?...

warburg.sas.ac.uk/news-events/...

Very excited about this!!

Illustration from folio 115b in the Ni’matnama (“Book of Delights”), a 15th century manuscript from the Sultanate Kingdom of Mandu. British Library, IO ISL.149

500 year old recipe for roasted meat: Dig pit, line with flowers & clay. Place stones in & light a fire. When hot, layer in packets of meat & game birds wrapped in banana leaves. When full, cover with banana leaves & flowers, seal pit, build fire on top, leave overnight. British Library, IO ISL.149.

Can you imagine tasting these for the first time? You’d have thought you’d gone to heaven. It’s the cumin-roasted salt and that final splash of rose water that gets my tummy rumbling.

Yes! Sound good, don’t they?
If you don’t have the musk of the deer you slaughtered, any musk will do.

Samosas being prepared for Sultan Ghiyath Shahi of Mandu. From the "Book of Delights", the Ni'matnama, compiled in around 1500 at the Sultanate Kingdom of Mandu, central India. This manuscript is now in the British Library. IO ISL.149, folio 83b.

500 year old recipe for samosas: Cook minced deer meat in ghee with fenugreek & saffron. Roast some salt & cumin. Add to the meat along with cloves, coriander, musk, minced onion & ginger. Add rose wate. Stuff samosas & fry in sweet smelling ghee until tender. @britishlibrary.bsky.social IO ISL.149

Illustrated folio on page 4b from a 460 year old illustrated book of recipes, the “Book of Delights”, the Ni’matnama of the Sultans of Mandu, 15th Century. In the British Library, IO Islamic,149.

15th c recipe for sweet milk pudding: Buy a black or yellow cow. Feed it sugarcane, grass, cotton seeds, date sugar, cinnamon, coconut, nutmeg & partridge eggs. Milk cow, boil milk, skim cream & strain. Add wheat flour. Fry in ghee with cloves, date sugar & pepper corns. British Library, IO ISL.149.

Mughal painting of Prince Azam Shah, 3rd son of Aurangzeb, c.1690. In the David Collection, Copenhagen (4/1980)

Detail in the lower right of an equestrian portrait of Prince Azam Shah, showing three elephants and cavalry soldiers. By a Mughal court artist, c.1690. David Collection, Copenhagen (4/1980)

Prince Azam Shah, 3rd son of Aurangzeb, on horseback. Below the horse is a cavalry division in miniature, including 3 elephants. By a Mughal court artist, c.1690. David Collection Copenhagen (4/1980)

“A Company of Englishmen”. Painting by an artist from Patna, c.1830. In the David Collection Copenhagen (5/2017)

Bad behaviour at Patna, c.1830. By an Indian artist, copied from a cartoon by Charles D’Oyly illustrating his burlesque poem, “Tom Raw the Griffin”. David Collection Copenhagen, 5/2017

Company painting of a bookbinder by an artist from Kolkata/Murshidabad/Lucknow, some time between 1798 and 1804. British library, Add.Or.1111.

Want to procure the paperback edition of my book? Go to Routledge's website and use the code TAOC25 to get a 25% discount. www.jenniferhowes.com/the-art-of-a...

Thanks for including me! It was a wonderful experience and was great to meet you and your colleagues. Was the talk recorded? Will it be posted on-line?

Europe and the world, 1500-1800, IHR seminar, Mondays, 17:30. 6 October: Margot Finn: At the Cusp of the Modern? Tipu Sultan, the Family & East India Company Rule 10 November: Sari Nauman: Between Categories: Migration, War, and Refuge in the Early Modern Baltic Sea 17 November Roger Lee Jesus: Colonialism and Land: Rethinking Imperial and Local Agency in the Portuguese Empire in Asia 1 December: Ana Lucia Araujo: Dahomey: A West African Kingdom in the Centre of the World During the Eighteenth Century

FIRST SESSION THIS MONDAY! Join us for "At the Cusp of the Modern? Tipu Sultan, the Family & East India Company Rule", a paper by @eicathomefinn.bsky.social with comment by @jhowesuk.bsky.social

All welcome in person @ihr.bsky.social & on zoom (register for link: www.history.ac.uk/news-events/...)

Muzzle of a cannon protruding from the pavement, BBD Bagh, Kolkata. The cannon and the curb next to it have been painted sky-blue. I took this picture in 2023.

Large cannon muzzle protruding from the cobblestone pavement of BBD Bagh, Kolkata. Behind the cannon there is a shop stall. I took this picture in 2023.

Up-ended cannons used as ash trays, BBD Bagh, Kolkata.

Oh golly, OOPS!!

I’m pleased to be taking part in the first seminar in this series, on 6 October 2015, with Margot Finn!!

Wheat paste poster that says the all the world is dying and the new world struggles to be born now is the time of monsters. There's a picture of Elmo

Morning walk

On 6 October 2025 I’ll be the discussant for @eicathomefinn.bsky.social’s paper, “At the Cusp of the Modern? Tipu Sultan, the Family & East India Company Rule”. IHR Europe & the World Seminar, Senate House, London. Hybrid event! Details here www.history.ac.uk/news-events/...

Autumn vibe

Portrait of James Skinner, attributed to Ghulam Husayn Khan, c.1836. British Library collections (F9), now in permanent display in the National Portrait Gallery London (room 10).

Ran into Col James Skinner in the National Portrait Gallery’s “Colonial Expansion & Experience” room! He was the founder of the irregular cavalry regiment, “Skinner’s Horse”, in early 19th Century India. On permanent loan from @britishlibrary.bsky.social (F9)

www.npg.org.uk/collections/...

Before the internet

Banksy 'judge' mural scrubbed from Royal Courts of Justice wall The artwork of a judge hitting a protester with a gavel has been removed from the listed building.

'Banksy confirmed he was responsible for the work with a post on Instagram, showing the graffiti before it was covered over.'

A woman in Greco-Indian costume genuflecting towards a statue of Vice-Admiral Charles Watson. Below her is an inscription reading “Calcutta Freed January 11 1757”.

“Calcutta Freed January 11 1757”, from Vice Admiral Charles Watson’s memorial in Westminster Abbey. I’ll be talking about this and other sculptures on a tour of East India Company monuments in Westminster Abbey & St Paul’s Cathedral, Tuesday October 7. Details here: www.bacsa.org.uk/event/westmi...

Westminster Abbey and St Paul's Cathedral: Tour of East India Company and British India-related Memorials and Monuments - BACSA Tour of East India Company and British India-related Memorials and Monuments at Westminster Abbey and St Paul's Cathedral

On Tuesday 7 October I’m giving a tour of East India Company monuments in Westminster Abbey and St Paul’s Cathedral.
Details here…
www.bacsa.org.uk/event/westmi...

The statue of Edward Colston, on permanent display in the Bristol People Gallery of the M-Shed Gallery, 2025. It lies recumbent in a massive glass box, surrounded by displays that explain who he was, how the people of Bristol perceive him today, and what happened to the statue in the summer of 2020.

Bristol's statue of Edward Colston (1636-1721), made in 1895, is on permanent display in the M Shed Museum's "Bristol People" Gallery. It's a 10 minute walk from the plinth where it stood until 2020.

Memorial to Mountstuart Elphinstone in the crypt of St Paul’s Cathedral, London. On one side of his statue is a trolley for cafeteria trays and on the other side there’s a fire extinguisher.

In the crypt of @stpaulscathedral.bsky.social, Mountstuart Elphinstone (1779-1859), Governor of Bombay & Historian of India, has been patiently standing in the cafeteria queue for decades.