National Portrait Gallery
The National Portrait Gallery is one of my favourite places. I was lucky enough to visit often as a child and then regularly as a young adult and as mum to a young child. Since moving further away from London, my visits have become less frequent and until last summer (2024), I had not visited since before lockdown. I didn’t realise that the Gallery had undergone a major refurbishment project, having been closed from 2020 to 2023.
My fascination with King Richard III is a standing joke amongst friends and family as I was fairly obsessed with him long before there was any thought of him being found in a Leicester car park. His portrait used to hang on the stair case and I would drive people mad by insisting we ran in and up the stairs to see him whenever we were in London. As I got older, it was not unusual for an evening out to start with a visit to Richard! At some point, he was moved to another gallery, but this is where I have the fondest memories of seeing him!
These days there is an escalator for visitors to use, watched by an Antony Gormley statue, which takes you up to the Tudor galleries. Richard’s portrait(s) are here, along with many paintings which are so familiar to me from years of reading history books- and visiting this magical place.
Just outside the first Tudor gallery is Hans Holbein’s portrait of Thomas More’s family (please excuse the reflections) which led to a theory by Jack Leslau, an amateur art enthusiast, who believed that he stumbled across the answer to the riddle of the Princes in the Tower. The figure toward the right at the back marked as ‘Johanes heresius Thomae Mori famul: Anno 27‘ has long been believed to represent John Harris, Sir Thomas More’s long standing secretary. Leslau, however, believed that this figure was actually Dr John Clement, the husband of Margaret Giggs, Sir Thomas More’s adopted daughter, and, more controversially, that Dr John Clement was the assumed identity of Richard, Duke of York, the younger of the Princes in the Tower.
Having lingered long in these galleries- and the others showing royal portraits, I then went in search of my favourite authors. Again, I used to know exactly where I was heading; however, everything has moved!
Bryon, Coleridge and Keats - I love the Romantic poets- Mrs Gaskell and the Bronte sisters were just a few of my highlights as I wandered round the beautiful halls of this magnificent building. Founded in 1856 with the aim of collecting portraits of ‘the most eminent persons in British history’, the Gallery does have the most amazing collection of works
I really enjoyed seeing this portrait of Mary Seacole as it is not one which I have seen before. Apparently, it is the only known oil painting of Mary Seacole and was lost for many years before being rediscovered by accident in the 2000s.
Although I might not be able to visit as often as I used to, I am really grateful to have the opportunity to see all these wonderful portraits- and feel very lucky that the Gallery is still free to visit. A real treasure trove!
National Portrait Gallery
St. Martin's Place,
London
WC2H 0HE