The Conversation Piece
The Queen’s Gallery, Buckingham Palace, until 14 February
A visit to the Queen’s Gallery is always a civilised, enjoyable experience. Apart, that is, from the airport-style security to which the visitor is subjected — a saddening sign of the retrograde times we live in. The treasures of the Royal Collection are worth any number of visits (I always want to see Gainsborough’s ‘Diana and Actaeon’ or Annibale Carracci’s ‘Head of a Man in Profile’, but there are plenty of other fine things), while the temporary exhibitions mounted in the side galleries are very often of the highest quality. One such is the current display devoted to The Conversation Piece, and subtitled Scenes of Fashionable Life.
As a genre, the Conversation Piece derives from the earlier sacra conversazione, a representation of the Virgin and Child attended by saints or angels, popular in the Renaissance.
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