Portrait of a Flute Player

Image: Portrait of a flute player, attributed to Mather Brown, oil on canvas. Image: Frick Photo Archive. Here is a painting which must have an interesting history. It depicts a young black flute player, of c.1780-90, holding his instrument and sheet music in front of him. Attributed to the Anglo-American painter Mather Brown, I found……

Florence Mackubin Copies Van Dyck

Image: Portrait of Queen Henrietta Maria (after Van Dyck), by Florence Mackubin, Maryland State House, Annapolis, USA. In May 2018 I published a blog bringing attention to a seventeenth century portrait of Queen Henrietta Maria that had received the chop. The picture in question was sold from Warwick Castle in 2015, where it had been……

Lines On Visiting The Tomb of J W Chandler

Image: Detail of Self portrait, John Westbrooke Chandler, Sold Christie’s 2019. Whilst conducting some research on the vast amount of online resources being increasingly made available, I happened to stumble upon a poem previously unknown to me. Printed in La Belle Assemblee (Vol. 3, 1807, p. 103), it was seemingly written on the death of……

Canaletto’s view of Warwick Castle bequeathed to the MET

Image: Giovanni Antonio Canaletto, South Front of Warwick Castle, dated 1748. Metropolitan Museum of Art, Bequest of Mrs. Charles Wrightsman, 2019. Some wonderful news has arrived that the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York has been bequeathed Canaletto’s view of Warwick Castle from the South Front. Dated to 1748, and being the smallest canvas……

Sounds of Goddesses, Nymphs and Warriors: National Gallery

Image: Detail from The Battle of San Romano, Paulo Uccello. National Gallery, London. The kind people of the National Gallery have invited me to come and give another free lunchtime talk and performance on 9th September 2019 @ 1pm. Entitled ‘The Sounds of Goddesses, Nymphs and Warriors’, this event will be examining music that related……

A Melancholic Portrait

Image: A portrait of a melancholic gentleman, English School c.1600, oil on panel 29 1/4 x 23 7/8 in. With Darnley Fine Art. I recently had the pleasure of being shown a very beautiful and enigmatic Elizabethan painting by a London Art Dealer. This fine portrait had hung in Warwick Castle, whose collection has occupied……

A Coughton Court Mystery

Image: Portrait of Sir John Yate (?), attributed to Pieter Leermans, L – Coughton Court, NT, Warwickshire / R – Sold Bonhams 2016. Coughton Court, located north of my old school-town of Alcester in Warwickshire, contains many beautiful things. Amongst the portraits I have pored over there is a modest picture hanging amongst some rather……

A portrait by Joan Carlile reappears

Image: A portrait of Catherine Lyttleton by Joan Carlile Instagram via. Pip Shergold @Shergoldco The business of attribution is a curious thing. At times, we can suggest in an instant that this picture must be by so-and-so. Yet, at other times, attributions to certain painters requires the slow burn of research and rumination. Whilst swiping……

A curious portrait of Emma (?)

Image; A portrait, ‘catalogued’ as Emma Hamilton by George Romney (?), coming up for sale in February 2019 in a regional auction house. A rather intriguing picture is coming up for sale in a regional auction house in early February. The oil on canvas is catalogued (in full) as a painting by George Romney (1734-1802)……

Is pleasure anything but a dream?

“One hears nothing of quarrels, nor murmurs there; it is the land of soft peace. The only noise that one hears is that of the river of forgetfulness, which flowing over small stones, makes a soft murmur that invites rest.” Ovid on Cimmeria the residence of Sleep I was recently shown a picture belonging to……