My blog of last September described the “Charles Stewart Conversations”, our regular series of salons here at the British Embassy in Vienna. I wrote how we decided to name the salon after Lord Charles Vane-Stewart, Third Marquess of Londonderry, the first British Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to the Emperor of Austria, from 1814-1823 (there’s a great picture at the link).
One of his claims to fame was for punching a horse and getting involved in a fight with the coachman.
These days our salons are more civilised, and no horse-punching takes place. I have been delighted with the response from senior Austrian participants to our salon format. As I said in my earlier blog, we have had a series of fascinating, wide-ranging discussions with a terrific group of participants. We held our latest salon in the series this week with a great range of top guests.
I was particularly pleased when the Director of the Jewish Museum in Vienna, Danielle Spera, suggested she interview me about our salon for their current exhibition: The Place to Be. Salons – Spaces of Emancipation (in German: Salons als Orte der Emanzipation). You can see the interview, which features in the exhibition, here:
I look forward to future salons, here at the Embassy in Vienna. I hope we can justify our inclusion in the exhibition at the Jewish Museum as being, indeed, “The Place to Be”.