| Photo Information |
Copyright: Lili Segal (lilisegal)
![Silver Note Writer [C: 3 W: 0 N: 25]](http://i1.treklens.com/misc/n-n-s.gif) (216) |
| Genre: Places |
| Medium: Color |
| Date Taken: 2006-04-16 |
| Categories: Architecture |
| Camera: Olympus C4000z |
| Exposure: f/2.8, 1/800 seconds |
| More Photo Info: [view] |
| Photo Version: Original Version |
| Date Submitted: 2006-04-22 15:02 |
| Viewed: 646 |
| Points: 0 |
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| [Note Guidelines] Photographer's Note |
The Sheldonian Theatre in Oxford is a beautiful building built in 1664-8 from plans by Sir Christopher Wren who died some years earlier. It is surrounded by 13 square pillars topped by head-and-shoulder busts. The technical term for such heads is "herms"; the original accounts describe them as "termains"; and some people call them philosophers. But Sir Max Beerbohm called them "Emperors" in his novel Zuleika Dobson, and that is the name that has stuck. Each head shows a different type of beard. The present heads are the third set. The first set lasted 200 years, but by 1868 they were crumbling and new ones were erected; undergraduates, however daubed these in paint, and the harsh cleaning they received caused them to wear badly. Between 1970 and 1972 the sculptor Michael Black, with 2 assistants, carved new heads for the Sheldonian, copying the originals. Each head took a minimum of thirty hours' work.
(www.headington.org.uk/oxon/broad/history/emperors.htm) |
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