artfirstprimo at the NG - morning tour: 16-08-12

Welcome back art lovers. For those of you who don't yet know, let me remind you the National Gallery, London offers free lecture tours everyday at the same times of 11:30 and 14:30; leaving from the new part of the building - The Sainsbury Wing, just next to the main shop. National Gallery's Permanent Collection consists of over 2,500 paintings.

I hope that those of you, who were able to attend my free guided tour at the National Gallery today, Sunday 5th August, enjoyed the choice of paintings. But if you missed them or just want a reminded of which pictures we looked at so you can visit them again with a friend. Here is a list of those paintings:

We began with: The Wilton Diptych (about 1395-9), English or French (?). We also compared this briefly to a central panel in the same room called Christ Glorified in the Court of Heaven (about 1423-4) by Fra Angelico (active 1417; died 1455), both images exhibited a flag of the Resurrection.  We then looked at La Madonna della Rondine (The Madonna of the Swallow) (after 1490) by Carlo Crivelli (about 1430/5 - about 1494), with its image of St George and St Jerome as a cardinal in red. Moving to room 9 we looked at two paintings: Mars and Venus (about 1590) by Palma Giovane (1554 - 1628). This was followed The Rape of Ganymede (about 1575), attributed to Damiano Mazza (active 1573). We then took an unscheduled detour to look at Bacchus and Ariadne (probably 1700-10) by Sebastiano Ricci (1659 - 1734), and finally ended in room 34 with An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump (1768), by Joseph Wright 'of Derby' (1734 - 1797).

My next guided tours of the National Gallery will be on Sunday 26^th August at the usual times of 11:30 and 14:30, and I will also be giving a Ten Minute talk on Lady Cockburn and Her Three Eldest Sons (1773), by Sir Joshua Reynolds (1723 - 1792) in room 34 at 16:00 also on Sunday 26^th August.