Long List

Off the top of my head this... thoughts from the past 2 or 3 months.... it's early days and in fact prior to completion of the first TMA I'm putting myself under no pressure to trim this list down...


Tomb of Henry VII - how and why did an Italian come to design (how much did he design) and build this magnificent Westminster Abbey monument? Compared to contemporary tombs, just how "Italian" is it?

Depictions of the Serpent in the Creation Story - where did the tradition of showing the serpent augmented with Eve's face originate, and what patronage/artistic forces determined this choice of depiction. Key works (from): Mariotto Albertinelli's at the Courtauld and the Pieter Van Aelst that was featured on C4s "The Bible: a History" (which I have on tape) for a "Serpent as Eve" depiction vs. Cranach's at the Courtauld & Van Aelst's at Dulwich Picture Gallery for "Serpent as Snake (i.e. trad.)"

Something (!) on Leonardo's Virgin of the Rocks - simply out of love for this painting, the first work I ever visited the National Gallery for.

The Verrocchio that has just returned to the NG after 18-odd months restoration. How does this help us to re-assess his place in the canon?

Memling's Donne triptych at the NG - how did Donne come to patronise Memling? What were his other options? Did he for once consider having his altarpiece made in England/Wales?

Another angle on Torrigiano and/or Tudor-era funerary monuments: what was Wolsey planning? What was Henry VIII planning? Do investigations into tombs of other members of the family help us to build a theme - I'm thinking of Arthur, Prince of Wales (buried at Worcester), the Beaufort ancestors (Westminster Abbey and St George's Windsor)

Didn't Van Eyck (possibly) paint Bishop Henry Beaufort - I need to check my Van Eyck book! - if so, how did this come about?

Painted realistic portrait depictions of English 15thC Kings & Queens - or rather, why aren't there any good ones! At the same time that Gozzoli was creating brilliant likenesses of Lorenzo and Giuliano de' Medici, why do the images we have of Henry VI / Edward IV / Richard III and wider members of the Royal family simply not compare? How did it come to be that the English renaissance ended up a literary phenomenon culminating in Shakespeare whereas our Italian and Flemish trading partners created such wonderful visual art? A starting point here might be the crappy portraits of English Kings that Edward Alleyn collected for his new-born Dulwich College and are now held by DPG. The problems here are manifold: a) they are not on display in the gallery, and DPG's storage site is in Wales!, b) I'm not sure from the look I got at them at last year's "Best of British" exhibition that monarchs up to the Wars of the Roses are included, I recall more the likes of the Conqueror and the Lionheart being on show, and c) I doubt the paintings themselves were "antique" from Alleyn's point of view... I think he got them made in the early-1600s. I can easily check the catalogue for the last two but there's no getting round the first point!

Portrait of a Young Man by Piero de Cosimo at DPG - in the main, just because it's there (i.e. local, membership so free, would love to make contacts), but also because I have always genuinely liked this work. Beautiful blue and red - distinctly "Florentine" in the use of primary colours, to my eye. Also, interesting that this was bought by Desenfans and Bourgeois (gallery benefactors) on the premise that it was a Leonardo; I'm always intrigued by anonymous early (i.e. 15th/early-16thC) portraits... has anyone out there got any views on who it might be, or at least what the red "bib" garment represents?; it's not a firm attribution, and that is by reference to the Rijksmuseum double Sangallo portrait that just happens to be in the NG on a long-term loan..... been thinking about this one for a while, BUT at the fin de la jour it's only a small-ish portrait of nobody in particular that's probably not even by Piero. Not that much has been written about it... can I get much mileage out of it?

The 2 Raphael predella saints (Francis & Anthony of Padua) also in DPG - you can tell that in an ideal world the Picture Gallery would have a collection totally skewed toward the renaissance (which it certainly does not!) and I would have my pick. These 2 are tiny, I'd wager they'd be the smallest works anyone has done an IE on! But thinking positively, the rest of the altarpiece is known to be split up and distributed between the NG and the Met in NY. I can get to the former at least...


Right, 'tis enough for now... think that has unloaded my mind