Sir John Soane's Museum

Our last London visit of note was Sir John Soane's Museum, a house museum 20 minutes' walk from our studio. Soane was a noted Georgian/Regency architect, professor of architecture at the Royal Academy, and collector of thousands of sculptures, casts, prints, drawings, paintings and more, all preserved as he left them at his death in 1837. This is so is because he willed it all to the Nation, in order to disown his profligate son. By an act of Parliament no less. Wikipedia has an excellent and detailed account of it all, including the collection, and I'll post just a few pix from the house. The place is jam-packed with collection items, close-quartered, without a lift, also without much in the way of signage, and admits no more than 90 visitors at a time. There are knowledgeable docents in all the rooms, however. No reservations, and almost always a queue. Next time, rather than the general admission, we'll be reserving (early!) and signing up for the special guided tour.

Thanks, Wikipedia

So I asked, early in the visit, whether Marie Kondo had ever toured
the place; "she would be barred at the door" was the docent's answer,
noting that everything in the place evidently sparked Soane's joy

Canaletto

Original from Hogarth's Rake's Progress

The entire series!

Soane and Turner were friends; one of three Turners

Inscriptions filling the inside of a large Egyptian sarcophagus

Pretty incredible, overwhelming place

Courtauld Gallery

London has several smaller, independent museums, sometimes built upon the collections of a single individual. One such is the Courtauld Gallery, named for its principal benefactor, Samuel Courtauld, and is now located in Somerset House, on the Strand. Courtauld's collection has been joined by many, many others, and, together with the Courtauld Institute is now one of the world's art and art history powerhouses. Much of the Courtauld's Impressionist collection traveled to Paris while Somerset House was being renovated, to the Louis Vuitton Foundation, where we saw it in 2019. But there were other attractions for us in 2022: a special exhibition of paintings by the early Edvard Munch; the breadth of the general collection; and the Courtauld's other fame, figuring in Fake or Fortune, which we watch when we can, in which the Courtauld occasionally features (Bendor!). And then there's this: the Courtauld occupies the rooms formerly housing the Royal Academy, where its summer exhibitions were held from 1780 to 1837. It's not hard to imagine Turner or Reynolds or Gainsborough, et al., jockeying for space to hang their entries for the annual competition.

Courtyard of Somerset House, on the Strand

It's rare to see an entire set of paintings representing the evolution
of a painter's style; but that's what this exhibition, from Bergen, did;
we'd seen a fair amount of Munch in Oslo, some years back, and 
Vicki is a fan; Morning, 1884, just 20 years old when he painted it,
already leaning toward Impressionism

House in Moonlight, 1893

Melancholy, 1894

Spring Day on Karl Johan [an Oslo boulevard], 1890; Munch

acquired the nickname "Bizarro" for this one (Pizzaro?)

Self-Portrait in the Clinic, 1909; interesting brush work

Bathing Boys, 1909

Child Playing in the Street, 1901

Four Stages of Life, 1902

Evening on Karl Johan, 1892; The Scream would appear a year
later

And now to just a few of the Courtauld's biggies: Manet's A Bar
at the Folies-Bergere

Monet's Antibes

Van Gogh's Peach Trees in Blossom

"Cut myself shaving"

Renoir's La Loge

Botticelli's Trinity with John the Baptist and Mary
Magdaline

A Florentine wedding chest; posted here to show the context
for such biggies as Botticelli's Venus and Mars, etc.

One of Cranach's more than 50 Adam and Eves

Fantastical Peter Breughel, elder, landscape...Flight to Egypt
(they're in there somewhere)

Among several Rubens, this portrait of Jan Breughel
(elder) and family; Pedro-Paulo and Jan collaborated
now and then

SuperBloom At The Tower!

That was the plan. Fill the moats with wildflowers for the Jubilee. Sell tickets. People will buy them and come to see the color and wonder. We did. The spring drought pretty much rained on this parade, so to speak, and the Tower authorities even refunded all the tickets sold before June 15th. Which we gratefully accepted. But we went to see the SuperBloom anyway, partly for laughs, and partly because it was not that far out of the way.

Theory

Moat, walls, and towers

Imposing place; we've visited enough times before

Sadly, not much in the way of a superbloom; even the grass looks
a bit pekid

An industrious 10 year old could probably pick them all in one day

We figure the guy who thought up the Marble Arch Mound 
subsequently got a job with the Tower and had this great idea...

Just about the time we were leaving, a cannon
began firing, repeatedly...

We surmised, correctly, the this had something to do
with the Horse Guard Parade and the Jubilee; I lost
count but I expect the cannon(s?) fired 75 times

We made our way back past this imposing monument,
which I've yet to identify, to the Tower Hill station and
then points west

Stopping at the Inns of Court to see if we could peek in at The
Temple (closed: holiday; duh...)

Past the Royal Courts, also closed

To the Strand, where thousands of Britons were returning
from the Horse Guards thing; and to Somerset House and the
Courtauld Gallery, both of which were, thankfully, open, or I
(cruise director for the day) would have been in really big trouble