National Gallery Of Art

Of all London's many wonderful museums, the National Gallery of Art is still our favorite. We were there five times on this campaign (free admission, as with all the national museums) augmented by watching all of the Teaching Company's videos on the museum. I'm sure I've posted scores, if not hundreds of pix from the National Gallery [search box!] over the years, so here I'll mercifully post just a few of new or notable interest. 2024 is the 200th anniversary of the National Gallery, and quite a few of its best known paintings were out on loan to other museums in the Nation.

Uccello, Battle of San Romano, c. 1440; episode #4,334

Uccello, St. George and the Dragon, 1470

A very late Botticelli, Mystic Nativity, 1500

Definitely never seen before by us at the National Gallery...six of the
nine Mantegna paintings entitled The Triumphs of Caesar; acquired in
1629 by Charles I, and retained, very exceptionally, by the Commonwealth
after his, um, untimely death (retained along with the Raphael cartoons at the
V&A), and housed for most of these centuries at the palace at Hampton
Court...

But now housed temporarily at the National Gallery until 2026,
while their special gallery at Hampton Court is being renovated

Up closer of one...extremely famous in art history;
late 15th century

We're accustomed to seeing the largest crowds at the Prado looking
at Bosch's Garden of Earthly Delights...but seeing these crowds, on
every occasion, before van Eyck's Arnolfini Portrait (1434) was a
bit of a surprise...maybe he's making a comeback

Up closer of the mirror in the Arnolfini Portrait;
first instance of a reflected scene in art history; to
become a standard flourish in Flemish painting and
subsequent art...one of several firsts in this 1434
work

Leonardo, Virgin on the Rocks; original in the Louvre

Vermeer, A Young Woman Seated at a Virginal, 1670

Leonardo's so-called Burlington House Cartoon

Bosch, Christ Mocked, 1510; love the chaperons they're
all wearing

van Ruisdael, Landscape with a Ruined Castle and Church, 1670;
great sky

Team Rubens, Portrait of the Archduke Albert, 1615;
we wondered whether this might be the inspiration of
Jonathan Yeo's recent portrait of Charles III ("Red Chuck") 

Rembrandt, Belshazzar's Feast, 1638; note wife Saskia as a model

Masaccio, Virgin and Child, 1426; tempera, gold,
International Gothic, lack of perspective...not what
he's famous for...at all

Piero della Francesca, Nativity, 1470; aka the Adoration of the
Lute Players

Jan Gossart, An Elderly Couple, 1520; resonated with us

Peter Brueghel the Elder, Adoration of the Kings, 1564

Gainsborough, The Market Cart, 1786; many of the
other famous landscapes out on loan...

What was he thinking? department...Edgard Degas, Portrait
Of Princess Pauline de Metternich, 1865; from a photograph;
trying to make a painting look like a photograph...?

Frederic, Lord Leighton, Cimabuie's Celebrated Madonna, 1855;
a massive painting, Queen Victoria purchased it on its first day of
exhibition in the Royal Academy; depicts a procession taking the
painting from Cimabuie's studio to the St. Mary Novella church in
Florence

Poussin, Not the Last Supper, 1636

Poussin, Eucharist, 1637; note reclining disciples

Turner's Chelsea House

Turner's Covent Garden birthplace and Marylebone house and studio are gone now, but the house in which he infamously shacked up with owner Mrs. Booth (incognito; calling himself "Admiral Booth") during the last several years of his life, and died in 1851, still stands on Cheyne Walk, in Chelsea, a decent walk from our flat in Pimlico. I had to make the pilgrimage. (A cottage he designed, with Soane's assistance, in Twickenham, further up the river, was beyond my range; next time).

Famous neighbors along the way

Two-fer

Subject of Vaughn-Williams' Sinfonia Antarctica, a favorite

No blue disc but this bronze plaque 

118-119 Cheyne Walk, Chelsea, facing the river

And on the river these days, looking upstream, a colony of house boats...

British Museum And New Bond Street

On August 31st we made our final visit to the British Museum and then carried on to New Bond Street for further adventures...

10:15 in the morning, and, as this photo from the steps of the BM shows,
there is no line at the entrance; inside, however, it was just as crowded as ever

While Vicki did some of the Egyptian stuff, I headed for the Enlightenment
Hall, site of the old British Library, originally housing George III's library,
now a sort of history of the British Museum's earliest days, of the explorers
and collectors whose "finds" became its earliest collections; "exploration,
knowledge, and imperialism"  

Artsy perspective

By the late 18th century, anti-slavery sentiment was
growing in Britain; here, a medallion struck by Wedgewood:
"Am I not a man and a brother?"

Adoration of the Mystic Ram (in the big Egyptian hall)

Fist-bumping with Ramses II (or possibly Amenhotep, or Akhenaten,
or someone else)

On previous visits this year, the hall with the Assyrian reliefs was
closed, but this morning it was open...here, fishing in the Tigris; or
possibly the Euphrates

Marching among the date palms

Working in the quarries

In the vast collection of mummies and mummy cases

Moving right along, the Cuerdale Hoard, Viking, early 10th
century, all silver, found in Lancashire

Helpful model of the BM

Frieze on the Odeon Theater; not Assyrian

Sights along the way to New Bond Street; sort of
Art Deco

Among the statues adorning what is now the Royal
Academy of Art; if calculus is beautiful, Leibniz was
an artist

Peering into 19th century Burlington Arcade

On New Bond Street, approaching the rather smaller but attractive
Royal Arcade, said to be London's oldest

Street scene

In the Royal Arcade

Shoe shop with a nod to heritage

Equestrian statue; does not look comfortable

Transatlantic if imagined conversation

Not in Paris anymore

Today's wedding pic

Today's Bond Street footwear

Inspired by an automotive oil filter

Sic transit, Gloria (soon to become a Starbuck's)