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14 Jan, 17 tweets, 5 min read
Good morning everyone but especially to #ThisPig A very square pig in our collection.
This extravagantly square pig, a portent of squareness, lives rent-free in the mind of each and every LEGO brick. Even the bravest Bionicles tremble in awe at the thought of it
After this pig was done striking the sublime into LEGO, it used its extremely crisp angles to single-handedly invent Minecraft
We are reminded of #ThisPig because archaeologists recently found the world's oldest animal cave painting: this incredible, 45,000 year old Sulawesi warty pig. What it lacks in right-angles it makes up for in length (metres) and length (existence)

bbc.co.uk/news/amp/world…
This, also a painting from our collection, is making the rounds again at the mo, and is worth us returning to in any thread collating Arrestingly Angular Animal Art

The painting at the top of this thread was by R. Whitford (object number MERL 65/354), produced in 1872. A beautiful year to be a pig on canvas

Why is this pig so square? Read our blog on the history of livestock portraiture

merl.reading.ac.uk/news-and-views…
The genre you didn't know your Thursday morning needed, and that we also didn't know your Thursday morning needed, until this pig appeared in our mind's eye, like a vision from a very square god, which is when we knew wholeheartedly that you did
This pig chat is coming full circle

This small pig has a big snout and an even bigger personality

it is also wearing, because of course it is, shoes
This is the closest yet that the evolution of pigs has come to Jigglypuff

If this is the kind of piggy bank they're giving to John F. Kennedy, just imagine how beautiful a piggy bank they'll be getting for #ThisPig

This pig saw 2021 coming

(It's a peccary. We just got excited)
We've also been advised by our august Pig Prints Dept. that if you'd like to buy a likeness of #ThisPig for the walls of your home, office, or to consecrate a shrine to swine, then today is your day, for you can do so via the @artukdotorg link below

artuk.org/shop/image-lib… Photo of a print of #ThisPig.
Live, laugh, prize-winning 19th century hog
This may rank as the most menacing of swine we have encounted yet, like a hog sent straight from Hades. But it is still our pleasure to invite it to pull up an appropriately spooky chair at this Table of Excellent Pigs

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More from @TheMERL

The Museum of English Rural Life Profile picture
4 Aug 20
Right now, a lot of folks are talking about cottagecore, an aesthetic category romanticising the rural idyll.

This is (almost literally) our field of expertise.

So, this morning, let's chat cottagecore and, specifically, a cottagecore icon: uh, Marie Antoinette.

[a thread] A painting of Marie Antoinette.
(painting by Marie Louise Elisabeth Vigée-Lebrun, from the collection of the Kunsthistorisches Museum, @KhmWien, accession nr Gemäldegalerie, 2772)
Marie Antoinette was the final Queen of France prior to the French Revolution.

Among other things, she is most well-known for saying something that she probably didn't say.

Even in the 1790s, the cake was probably a lie.
Read 17 tweets
The Museum of English Rural Life Profile picture
15 Jun 20
pigs but as you scroll they get longer — a thread A pig at a county show.
Pig at a county show.
A pig eating from a bucket.
Read 10 tweets
The Museum of English Rural Life Profile picture
25 Mar 20
Good morning everyone.

Do you have #AnimalCrossingNewHorizons?

Do WE have #AnimalCrossingNewHorizons?

You bet we do. And if you have it, we gots quite the challenge for ya. A photo of The MERL logo recreated in Animal Crossing.
Across rural history, people have worn all kinds of fancy outfits. Because while you're cultivating the land, you may as well also cultivate a fantastic look, to dazzle your peers and harvests.

These are both smocks: a beautiful use of sound and cloth.

Economy!
We're the museum of the countryside™, and in our collections there are wardrobes upon wardrobes of cool rural garms.

In fact, here's an online exhibition we curated last year featuring some highlights.

merl.reading.ac.uk/explore/online…
Read 29 tweets
The Museum of English Rural Life Profile picture
3 Feb 20
now THIS is our kind of selfie stick. Black and white photo of an elderly male shepherd holding a lamb and a cane.
This was snapped in the 1970s by John Tarlton (collections number PH1/3/4/1/1-12). It's of a lovely Cotswold lamb held by a shepherd, Jack Bond. The better of the Bond brothers.
heblo
Read 4 tweets
The Museum of English Rural Life Profile picture
14 Nov 19
Now that John Lewis has shared its Christmas advert, we thought it was about time for us to share ours

Or, at least, the script for it. If we could make one

#ExcitableEdgar, please meet: the Beale Family

#AMERLYChristmas
1/4 Full transcription available here: https://pastebin.com/TLag19gU.
2/4 Full transcription available here: https://pastebin.com/TLag19gU.
Read 7 tweets
The Museum of English Rural Life Profile picture
7 Nov 19
Hello! We're open for business. Annual lecture business.

#MERLAnnualLecture2019
Right now is the pre-lecture, which is great, because, in the pre-lecture hall, we have lots of amazing things to show you.

Including....
limited edition jam

limited edition merlberry jam A photo of jams by a local jam producer - the Caversham Jam Lady. She is the best.
Read 46 tweets

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