Admiring the King's legs, among other things...

In 3 hours at The National Portrait Gallery, you can discover:

1. In a corner, next to the portrait of Lady Jane Grey, queen of England for a week, a girl’s reply to a museum notice board that asked visitors to list down what they would do if they were The Queen for a day: “Joe Jonas would be my king; I would wear only the crown jewels and walk around the palace”. Go Joe!
2. That Queen Henrietta Maria thought that the future King Charles II at the tender age of 4 months was “so fat and so tall that he is taken to be a 1 year old”.
3. Some of the girls who strew flowers as Princess Alexandra landed at Gravesend were maybe prettier than the princess herself.

History being airbrushed at 'The Indian Portrait, 1560-1860' exhibition...

• Ghulam Ali’s portrait of Bahadur Shah II, a cultivated poet and calligrapher who was “sent into exile into Rangoon”... Hah! Put in a cage like a monkey, stripped of all human privileges and made to live & die in filth – tragically recounted in Dalrymple’s brilliant book, “The Last Mughal”
• One man’s betrayal can be another man’s 'brought over' – Francis Hayman’s painting of Rob Clive receiving the homage of Mir Jaffir after the Battle of Plassey describes how Mir Jafffir ‘brought over’ his troops to Clive and was appointed Nawab of Bengal for his support. A lowly traitor in Indian history becomes a “well rewarded supporter” at the National Portrait Gallery. Amen.
• Quiet sense of wonder at how Mughal art, architecture and literature did their Persian roots proud.
  

Moving on, you will encounter...

• The red red bust of the artist, Mark Quinn (“Self”) cast and frozen in several pints of the artist’s own blood, maintained by a refrigerating unit, reminding us “of the fragility of existence”.

• That Mary, Queen of Scots was the first woman to play golf and the word “caddy” evolved from the French military “cadets” who carried her clubs in France.

• The smooth, lovely, long legs... of the King of England!

• The gently entwined hands of the eloped poet-couple, Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Browning, captured in bronze for eternity by Harriet Hosmer

• The impeccably stylish Lady Colin Campbell, painted in black(dress) & ivory(skin) by Boldini; a stunning woman of “lightning wit” who married His Lordship, not knowing he was suffering from syphilis. It must be noted that she sometimes "wore a live snake around her throat in hot weather because it keeps one's neck so cool".

• The Raging Red Eyes from the “Head of A Man” by L.S.Lowry who poured out his impotent rage as he watched his mother’s life ebb away... few know that he moon-lighted as a rent-collector. The many lives of angry artists.

• The Babyface of Dylan Thomas by Augustus Edwin John... who would have dreamt this boy, he of the lush lips, curly red hair and leopard spotted coat/cape, would rage, rage against the dying of the light.

• The plaster bust of Dorothy Russell sculpted by the psychoanalyst, psychiatrist and artist, Ismond Rosen... a deserving honor, no doubt for the first woman to hold the 'Chair of Morbid Anatomy' at the London Hospital Medical College, apparently an eminent position, which a few of us might find semantically interesting.

• The ascetic profile of DH Lawrence, infused with all the suffering brought about by the obscenity trial of 'Lady Chatterly’s Lover'. If you peek around with sufficient enthu, you might even spot the ironic Philip Larkin and his ‘Annus Mirabilis’, celebrating the discovery of sexual intercourse in 1963 when the book was finally allowed to be published (the first edition of which was dedicated to the jurors who returned the verdict of ‘Not Guilty’ in the obscenity case)

• Paul McCartney, blissfully bleeding colour all over as “Mike's Brother” by Sam Walsh

• Dame Judi Dench, looking like The Angel of Soothing Death, her mop of hair well-coordinated with her dress and matching the immaculate white of the canvas.

• And if you’re persistent enough and try to escape to the basement as the closing bell rings, you will discover “The Singh Twins” series, a delightful modern interpretation of miniature Indian Art by Amrit & Rabindra, twin BBCD sisters. This colourful collection is complete with texting phones and DDLJ in the background... and even Muhammed Ali, reminding us (and all Americans) about his personal stand against the Vietnam War - “after all, no Vietnamese ever called me a nigger”. Truly, The Greatest Hath Spoken.
• Until I saw their 1984, I did not know that at least 484 civilians were slaughtered in Operation Blue Star; always remembered it from high school history as a terrorist vs. army story. Another case of History being kind to those who write it, no doubt.
  

And in the final minutes as one slips down to the toilet, Venetia Dearden interrupts us with her work on the Glastonbury Festival... the strikingly innocent face of a young girl splendidly contrasting her pierced nipples and navel, around which her equally metaled boyfriend’s arms wrap around.

A cold, rainy afternoon, well spent, topped off with Kir Royale and some sautéed garlic mushrooms. Ooh-la-lah.