Friday we had an appointment at the Royal College of Art to see another painting, #498 is “Flat Pack Rothmans” by Stephen Farthing.  The artist is the editor of the book “1001 Paintings…”, so of course he would have a painting on the list.  He actually has two, the second is in a private collection.  This guy has cost us a lot of money, but we’ve had a lot of fun, so I think we are ahead of the game.  Our appointment was with Neil, the Archives and Collection Manager at the College.  The painting was on display in the Senior Commons Room where people are not usually allowed.  So we went in for “a flying visit”.  On our way in we walked by what we thought were two guys standing in the hallway.  It turned out they were wax statues of David Hockney and Henry Moore.  These are two famous British artists associated with the Royal College, as is Stephen Farthing.  After we left the room Neil gave us a catalog of last year’s hanging in the Senior Commons Room.  He told us we were the first people chasing the paintings that he had met.  He had heard from a few people before, but nobody else had ever followed through and actually visited.  Those other guys must not be quite as obsessed as we are.

After this we went to the Natural History Museum that we had tried to visit twice before.  Today there were no lines and we were able to walk right in.  The building is beautiful inside and out and there are some really interesting displays.  After the museum we had lunch and we talked about a book we had been told about, “The History of the World In 100 Objects”.  So…Sue went home and I went to the British Museum to check out the book, and look around.  I of course bought the book, so we have another list to track down.  This should be a little easier since the objects are all at the British Museum.  Then I joined one of the free guided tours.  It was about Assyrian wall relief carvings, it was very interesting.  I have to tell you a little about the carvings.  Apparently there aren’t many stones for carving in Syria/Iraq, so they used gypsum.  I asked the guide about the gypsum.  She explained that the carvings were painted or coated and most were placed inside, because gypsum dissolves in the rain.  I told her I knew that water would destroy the gypsum because I used to work at U.S. Gypsum.  She asked what they did with the gypsum, she apparently is not familiar with wall board.  They do use wall board in the UK, we see it all the time when they are rehabbing shops on the High (Main) Street.

I took the photo of the Egyptian Funerary Portrait as more justification of why we can count that we have seen the Funerary Portrait that is listed in the “1001” book.  The Portrait in the book is at the Louvre, we have seen many Funerary Portraits at the Louvre, but not the ONE on the “1001" list.  My justification for counting that we’ve seen this painting is that there is nothing unique about the painting on the list from all the other Funerary Portraits.  They were all done by anonymous artists in the same style.  The British Museum also has a bunch of these Portraits, as I assume many other museums also have.  I even saw a book of Funerary Portraits for sale at the British Museum (I can’t believe I didn’t buy it) and it is remarkable how alike the portraits look.  And more importantly for including it as one we’ve seen, I’m doing the counting.

Sunday Steve and Hannah arrive, so tomorrow we’ll probably buy a few more groceries.

Oct 03 2014 Royal College 

Royal College October 03 2014