New Blog Header (again)

Since I've started blogging again I've been toying with the layout and various elements of the blog. I failed out of computer programming but with the help of google changing fonts, colors, sizes, etc is so easy I can't help but tweak.

My first blog header used a gorgeous William Morris design aptly named Tudor Roses.


Image via moma

When I started blogging again I had a header all ready to go. During my summer at the Walpole I bookmarked tons of little drawings that friends of Horace had done, including a watercolor design for a frame by Mr. Bentley.


shown here in the folio in which it resides
Image via the walpole

Leah, my delightful sister and sometimes co-blogger, rejected my new header. So it was back to the drawing board, or rather the many amazing collections Yale houses. I was researching at the Yale Center for British Art for my thesis (the thesis I'm supposed to be working on right now) when I came across the paintings of Jacques-Laurent Agasse (1767-1849). Most famous for his paintings of animals, Jacques-Laurent Agasse was a Swiss painter who spent most of his adult life in England painting pictures of dogs for wealthy patrons. He also painted exotic animals like zebras and clouded leopards.


Image via the YCBA

Given the many hours I have spent researching the symbolism of flowers in early modern England, I was particularly taken with Agasse's studies of flowers. And so, with some help from picnik, a new blog header was born.


Image via the YCBA, editing by me