Month: May 2018

Westminster Palace: Analysis of the 1844 Trial of Strafford Painting (Part 1)

My apologies if I seemed to have gone “offline” for a few weeks. It’s taken quite a bit of sorting to be sure nothing got lost from the trip to the UK. I also took time for a badly needed camping and mountain biking trip to Moab (which in turn cost me a bit more time to heal from a crash I had on one of those truly fabulous trails)!

I’ve been keen to share the presentation I gave at Westminster, but struggled mightily to get it into a single article. Having failed that, this will be the first of three in which I will take you through the analysis I shared with the Office of the Curator of the Parliamentary Art Collection last month. This analysis regards the “Trial of Strafford” painting that hangs in the House of Lords side of the parliamentary complex at Westminster, London. Continue reading “Westminster Palace: Analysis of the 1844 Trial of Strafford Painting (Part 1)”

Breakthrough – The Chance Discovery of a Photograph of the Lost Portrait of Sir Richard Lane!

I have searched for the Lost Portrait of Sir Richard Lane(or any image of it) for three years – with no luck. That just changed!

Imagine spending three years researching someone you’ve never seen an image of.  We humans are a visual tribe.  The mind will fill a visual void with a “placeholder” concept of who you picture that person to be. What would it be like to one day finally discover what they really looked like? Would their real appearance affect your understanding of who they were?  Did you expect the person to be handsome or homely?  Tall or short? Imposing or bookish?  Proud or humble? Had I expected Sir Richard Lane be portly, like his predecessor, Lord Keeper Littleton? Or perhaps gaunt? Would his hair be fair, thin and curly,  or perhaps thick, straight and black? It seems a human truth that we never seem to feel a tangible sense of someone until we have the chance to “look them in the eye”…

Continue reading “Breakthrough – The Chance Discovery of a Photograph of the Lost Portrait of Sir Richard Lane!”

Homecoming of the Quest for the Lost Lord Keeper

I just love a dramatic breakthrough.  And a month before my recent trip to the UK, the Quest for the Lost Lord Keeper had a couple of them – so it seemed high time to throw a “coming out” party for the Quest!

Continue reading “Homecoming of the Quest for the Lost Lord Keeper”