Dr Annette Rubery

Great Rusty pre-dinner moment; he got @RichardBratby’s attention by somehow wriggling into the curtain loop and then couldn’t get out.

I went to the Wright of Derby show at the National earlier this year. Now in Derby. It was great to see it in his home city, nestled amongst his non chiaroscuro works. Head there if you can.

Periodic reminder that Michelangelo was only 24 when he carved the Pietà

@SueCooperBridge They have a film - with 3D glasses! - about lifting the wreck which I found quite moving (I also remember it on the tv). It was a top-class museum. We spent hours in there!

@AnnetteRubery It was very early days when we went. I can imagine it's quite amazing now. Wow, smelling those ancient timbers! I shall never forget the day it surfaced and it saw the light of modern day.

#HistoryNotes📜 #OTD 1545 #KingHenryVIII’s favourite flagship the #MaryRose capsized & sank along with 100s of its crew during the #BattleoftheSolent against the French. On an early visit to the Mary Rose exhibition to see the ship & artefacts, I bought a replica pocket sundial.

@SueCooperBridge Staffordshire - who knew?!

@AnnetteRubery Beautiful Wren church!

Today we visited the only Wren church outside of London - St Mary’s, Ingestre. Stunning plasterwork and carving, some of it by Grinling Gibbons. The clock on the tower has a single hand.

Her YouTube channel is amazing.

@SueCooperBridge Thank you! Think I got his character. 🧡

@AnnetteRubery Love this...that IS Rusty!

Rusty trying to get treats.

A black behind from rolling in flower pots and now ek ekkk ekkking at a bird.

@modcultureuk 😂 Like your idea, thanks!

@AnnetteRubery Gandalf obviously. Though the staff and gourd suggest a pilgrim saint, St James perhaps.

Saw this fellow standing in the empty carpet shop in Lichfield. Who is he do you reckon? Ecclesiastical figure with a bag tied with rope? Or is he Gandalf?

@RichardBratby @arthistorynews Good collection. And Vanbrugh’s Baroque facade - what’s not to like? Thornhill’s kings in the Great Hall too.

@arthistorynews @AnnetteRubery The caption on the frame insists that Hudson is actually the future James II! The Grimsthorpe collection is rather wonderful because it so closely mirrors the particular tastes (and lapses in taste) of one family over four centuries. Lots and lots of Knellers...

Saw a supposed van Dyck at Grimsthorpe Castle yesterday. Tricky to photograph, however @RichardBratby declared it couldn’t be by him on account of the dog. Maybe van did some of the faces and later demanded of his assistants: “OK, who did that awful dog?”

@charlotte_m_z @RichardBratby Yes, the volunteer told us it was Jeffery Hudson.

@AnnetteRubery @RichardBratby How peculiar... the figure on the left looks like Jeffery Hudson, from the Van Dyck portrait of him with the Queen. Figure in the centre looks based on the young Charles II in the 'Great Peece', though the face is a bit off and the scale a bit wrong.

@artist_stanley @RichardBratby @arthistorynews Yes indeed. But see my other tweet - it was thought a “miserable copy” in 1789! Wonder if bad restoration is the culprit.

@AnnetteRubery @RichardBratby And as the wonderful Bendor Grosvenor @arthistorynews has shown in his much missed series - Britain’s Lost Masterpieces - sections of paintings often get (badly) overpainted

Read today an account of visiting Grimsthorpe in 1789: “[The Duke] brag’d of a Vandyke, King C[harles]’s Family, which is a most miserable copy”. Busted!

@Thievesbook @RichardBratby I think he mainly dislikes being photographed.

@RichardBratby @AnnetteRubery Not a happy cat

Furious at his failure to purloin our cocktail snacks, Rusty seizes the commanding heights of the wood shed.

Cocktail hour.