The Blue Boy 

Please join the David Starkey Members' Club via Patreon www.patreon.com/davidstarkeytalks or Subscribestar www.subscribestar.com/david-starkey-talks and submit questions for members Q & A videos. Also visit www.davidstarkey.com to make a donation and visit the channel store shop.davidstarkey.com. Thank you for watching.

Brilliant. Is there anything this educated English gentleman cannot make accessible. A true national treasure.

Oh this is fantastic.. First time I’ve caught the live show and so far I’m glued to my seat! You truly are a national treasure Mr Starkey.

Mr. David Starkey... One of the few sane people on this planet!

It's so lovely to hear real appreciation for Englishness. Despite my name I am fully English, and despair at the demise of my nation.

I grew up close to the Huntington Library & Gallery. My brother and I rode our bikes over there at least once a month to spend a day in the gardens and looking at paintings..Did it for years. The Huntington was free to visit in those days. Even to this day, some 65 years later I think often of "The Blue Boy" and "Pinkie". They were so beautiful and huge! Our visits there were certainly a frequent highlight of our youth. The gardens of course were a fairy land and we played invented games for hours at a time, especially in the summers. I was fortunate to live in an area (Los Angeles) that had a lot of museums and galleries and a mother that took us often to them.

You, Sir are a national treasure.

Dr. Starkey didn't mention the magnificent gardens surrounding the house and Library at the Huntington, where there is, for example, a garden dedicated solely to plants and flowers mentioned by Shakespeare. He also passed over the dominant role played by Huntington's wife, the formidable Arabella. I was also surprised that he didn't mention the other famous companion Gainsborough "Pinkie" which was hung next to the "Blueboy" an unforgettable artistic pairing.

Such a wonderful channel - never miss an episode. It remedies my long neglected education. Thank you Dr Starkey.

Would love to meet you Dr. Starkey, love your work. Left school with nothing, but over the years learnt so much from you. Thank you so much.

I disagree with Dr Starkie on everything from climate to politics. But thank goodness for him..a sane voice from the "other side" I am so insanely jealous of anyone who has been taught by him. Dr Starkie should be knighted for his lasting contribution to our understanding of history in such an accessible way. Deplatforming is vile...debate is necessary in a functioning society.

It was wonderful listening to you, your knowledge, nostalgic ramblings, all expressed with the beautiful use of our great language! I enjoyed my dose of “medicine” .......a spoonful of honey! Thank you!

Thank you so very much. I went to school in England, lived a few blocks from The Huntington, and I have learned more in this video than I did at either locale.

Keep speaking Sir ..don,t let them muzzle you !!!

Keep talking, sir. Thank you. 🇺🇸🇬🇧🇺🇸🇬🇧

Thank you for bringing the depth that those who should are either too lazy or too foolish to be able to do so.

Interesting, such as it is. I long for David's commentary on contemporary politics: the crisis facing Western culture, historical revisionism and the rise of anti-truth.

It was Marin Marais who wrote the piece of music about being cut for the stone, for the viola da gamba (a wonderful composer by the way).

I remember, as a kid, seeing knock offs of this in the living rooms of little old ladies. There was usually a blue boy and a pink lady.

Having visited the Huntington Library on several occasions, myself; Dr. Starkey's memories and appreciation of this cultural landmark in Los Angeles is a welcome expansion of its historical significance and treasures.

Entertaining, but also of course informative. Thanks Dr.S!

I’m addicted to these wonderful lectures.

I saw Blue Boy at the Huntington Library estate several years ago. Incredibly beautiful and larger than I’d thought. And, if I may say so, he had a lovely home away from home.

Hello, your knowledge is so incredible x I would love if you ever had an episode about English manuscripts, and perhaps how handwriting documents have shaped history. Thank you x

Dr Starkey, the Huntington Library is my most favorite place, been going there since I was a teenager. I consider the Blue Boy an old friend. Thanks for making this video! 🤓

When I think of "English national dress", I picture a three-piece Saville Row suit and a bowler hat.

Dr Starkey looks rather smart too. Love the Vaiella shirt, which looks great with the dark colour gillet.

The Huntington Library, Art Museum and the magnificent gardens are the highlight of any trip to LA. It’s all very beautiful but it’s the quality of the curatorship, world class, which elevates it. San Marino is filled with gorgeous Edwardian-up-to-1930s mansions, now mostly occupied by the astonishingly wealthy self-made Korean community that you never hear about in race reports on USA. Raymond Chandler set some of his richer characters in that neck of the woods. It’s all next to beautiful Pasadena too, 5 mins from the Huntington is the Norton Simon Art Museum, another jewel.

The writer Fanny Burney has left a searing account of her mastectomy undertaken by Naploeons surgeon Baron Larrey in 1811. I love that Pepys kept his "stone" in a vessel on his mantlepiece and had an annual sing song to commemorate his deliverance - also his delicious account of how the well informed in London were submitting to a pile treatment administered by the deft finger of a woman with a jar of Goose fat. Glad to see you take on the sloppy scholarship of some art history.

I live five minutes from the Huntington Library. The Library and its gardens are everything Dr. Starkey describes and more. The painting of "The Blue Boy" has been in restoration for quite some time. It is displayed opposite from "Pinkie" by Thomas Lawrence. You can't think of one without the other. The Huntington Library is the jewel box of Los Angeles. Thank you Dr. Starkey for bringing attention to this wonderful painting.

History tea time 🍵🍵🍵

I hadn't heard Blue Boy had left. I went to the Huntington Library a few times before I escaped California and loved looking at that painting (and "Pinkie" too).

Thank you. We live in a world where mean spirited people of no discernible talent are lauded for their attempts to tear down their betters, and their achievements, in the hope of reducing everything to their low and petty level. 'Achieving' only a little fleeting notoriety in the process. Has it always been so? Even I can see The Blue Boy is a great painting. If I am minded to discover more I will find out form those who know more than me, not less. Thank you Dr Starkey.

I haven’t heard the term “beaker” in a very long time. Gods on you DS!

David is brilliant.

Henry E Huntington was the nephew of Collis P Huntington from the Big 4 who built part of the first transcontinental railroad. Collis P Huntington later went into shipbuilding and established the shipyards in Newport New VA.

If you come to the Southeastern part of the United States, you'll find we still do know how to make a lovely afternoon tea! My grown daughters (35 and 32) can still produce quite a delicious spread, including tea made in a warmed China teapot. We'd love to have you!

Love this!

Loved the trip down memory lane coupled with these tidbits of lesser known history. Fabulous!

This is what should be on mainstream channels. Listening to Starkey makes me want to pour a glass of red and sit by an open fire. A radiator and a cuppa tea will have to do.

I know a couple people that have the Blue Boy on their walls. I always wondered who it was and why it was so popular.

these gems of historical context

Well this was the easiest subscription I could hit on. This works so perfectly on RU-vid.

The Blue Boy and Pinky are in California in the Huntington Library! It looks like a mini British Castle. Oh so it came back to England ...fancy that.

I always think of Beau Brummel starting English mens style, which became the universal modern style.

In the summer of 1764 just 6 years before The Blue Boy was painted, the 8 year old Mozart arrived in London. He was dressed in the fashionable French-style clothing of the time. Given that we had just ended the Seven Years' War with France, this faux pas drew a number of rude remarks and his father Leopold quickly acquired more suitable English style clothing for him.

The pub at Farnham in Surrey was called the Blue Boy I think it’s been renamed now

Someone quipped that 'The upper classes of England went into mourning over the French Revolution and never came out again'-at least till the 1960s.

we are still there

I like this sanity.

Although you are correct to say that LA had a vast streetcar network. One thing to point out is they were at street grade. Therefore, if they survived, they would be a "bus on rails" subject to the same street traffic and lights as the rubber wheeled buggers. You in the UK at least have your rail separated from the streets.

David Starkey talks about everything but The Painting of the Blue Boy should be the title 😳

Top tier history jokes from Dr Starkey 😂

Wow. This and Grannyoptrix for a perfect dose of sagacity.

The title of this video is 'The Blue Boy' even though the painting is barely discussed.

Could you imagine lunch with Mr. David Starkey? What conversation wouldn't you have?

Thought it was generally accepted that the subject is Jonathan Buttall, the son of a friend of Gainsbrough's. He came from a fairly prosperous merchant family. Side note about the owner: although Henry Huntington was a fan of British portraiture, the place is also distinctly Californian. The gardens have one of the world's great collections of cactus specimens.

Thank you

Wonderful lecture. But more examples (pictures) of what you are talking about wouldn't hurt a bit.

Tableau de l’Opération de la Taille by, actually, Marin Marais, a student of Lully

Can anyone tell me how to get subtitles on RU-vid? Excellent talk again, thanks.

That was quite entertaining! Yes, one best not consider English national dress, much as you'd not think of English fashion or English cuisine 😉

Dear David, don't let the madness and stupidity of the words of people today upset you, it will only serve to drive you mad. Just remember in every age there have been those with accurate knowledge and (far more) ignorent cretins, and it has always seemed that such cretins have the loudest voices 😢

Yes, sir, in our daily devotion to our Lord through the Litany of the Holy Name of Jesus, we know that the word DOCTOR means TEACHER. Teacher of Evangelists. JMJ Amen

Genius

I enjoyed that, but it was a bit all over the place chronologically. It also wasn't totally clear what the problem with the Telegraph article was. Incomplete and focused on unimportant minutiae?

I have a copy of it the blue boys eyes follow you it was my mums

New scarf, David? Christmas present??

English national dress- if only more Brits wore it.

I thought you were about to deal with a 17th-century subject, oh well

Ihave a smaller pic of blue boy, another much larger in maroon and larger one of a young girl with maroon bonnet/sash and shoes

What happens to the video at 3:40? Something has been elided, a bit confusing.

Another surprise...

Dr. Starkey, please take note of the pronunciation of "Los Angeles". It's not Greek. It's not "Los Angeleeze", it's "Los Angeless". This is a mistake that far too many British people make.

Who do you think speaks English better than the English?

RU-vid is not giving me "bell" notifications for Dr Starkey's videos (yes i have the channel notifications set to "all") I was wondering if anyone else was having the same issue. I worry that this might be a "shadow ban" by RU-vid

I hope Dr Starkey will talk one day about the history of gay sex in Tudor England. I am sure it would be both fascinating and entertaining.

Men seem to get one fashion per century. I thought there was hope for men's fashion back in the 60s. but it fizzled out. Historically what ought to be the next dress style we get? Please let full bottomed wigs come back.

Your views on the unvaccinated are unacceptable

HG Wells was a dreadful "historian."

I read Pepys and was blown away. I learnt nothing until I left school, was told I'd never amount to much more than a hod carrier. I became a pilot, I adore people like you, who educate...thank you sir!

Dr Starkey is a tonic for the malady of the age …..so refreshing…..

Dear Dr Starkey, I do so enjoy watching your videos. Your erudition and articulacy are delicious. However, as a half Welsh, Australian, Catholic, I do not always agree with your views. Does that mean that you should be "cancelled"? No! One good thing to come out of this though is this channel. I would not be able to hear your views otherwise, living as I do in regional New South Wales,,,

So great that you explore something like this that really most would never know or consider. Marvellous. Thank you.

The Huntington Gardens and Gallery rank as one of the great museum-going experiences in America. Combine it with a trip to the stunning Getty Museum not far away and be delighted and elevated. I guess that I will have to return to the U.K. if I'm to ever see The Blue Boy again.

Dr David’s Daily Dose against the Claptrap if not the actual Clap (though frankly, it’s hard to know which is worse, in this era of history). Anyway, I am certainly clapping.

Very interesting -- the comment about the Roman centurion as model, and the 'up-modelling' of the plaid into something less blanket-y and smarter. Particularly in light of the wonderful exploration of this subject by the late Hugh Trevor-Roper (in his book, The Invention of Scotland).

I am so very excited to hear you speak so wonderfully about the city I grew up in with those wonderful words Dr Starkey!!!! I had no idea how important Mr Huntington was to our city by building that railroad system & giving us the amazing Huntington!! I went on a field trip there in 1984 when I was in the 6th grade, I was so excited the night before we went that I was completely unable to sleep! I was a singularity at my elementary school - absorbed with reading history & science books, watching documentaries on PBS(public television channel) with my grandmother, & I particularly loved(I still do) going to the National History Museum & the California Science Center, located right across from the USC campus, as you probably remember from your time in our sunny city!! I read what the encyclopedia had to say about the paintings at the Huntington, at the time both the Blue Boy & Pinky portraits were there & they were breathtakingly beautiful! I had such an excellent time on that trip & have wanted to go back again with fresh eyes & 30 yrs of history to fully appreciate everything they have on display, perhaps this summer as I've been in Phoenix Arizona for @20 years but still drag my family to my favorite history & science museums every time! I get the emails from the Huntington telling about what's going on, thats how much the Huntington Museum & Library mean to me still! I can't thank you enough for all the wonderful things you said about Los Angeles, all we ever hear folks say about home tends to be a bit less complimentary! I think I'm going to watch this Talk again right now so I can find out a bit more history of my hometown!!!

Thank you.

👏👏👏👏😍

Loved this

That was splendid.

Legend.

Thank you.