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The Bath Butterfly
About Face article
The caricaturist and engraver James Gillray's biting satires about Sir Joseph Banks.
Queen Victoria
About Face article
Last Sunday I had the privilege of appearing at the Canberra Writers’ Festival in conversation with Julia Baird. The subject of our session was Julia’s recent biography, Victoria the Queen: An Intimate Biography of the Woman who Ruled an Empire.
Humdinger
About Face article
At a meeting by teleconference of the National Portrait Gallery Foundation last week, I found myself reporting that our forthcoming exhibition So Fine is going to be “a humdinger,” whereupon Tim Fairfax chuckled and said that he hadn’t heard that expression for years.
A reflection on conversation pieces
About Face article
There is in the collection of the Yale Center for British Art in New Haven, Connecticut, an English painting, datable on the basis of costume to about 1745, that has for many years exercised my imagination.
Portrait dendrochronology
About Face article
Angus's latest Trumbology is accompanied by the following caveat: 'This one is reeeeeeally geeky.'
Portraiture in a Bleak House
About Face article
It may seem an odd thing to do at one’s leisure on a beautiful tropical island, but I spent much of my midwinter break a few weeks ago re-reading Bleak House.