Visiting the jigsaw

Last week to visit a long lost jigsaw, that is to say Garafalo's 'Allegory of Love' in the National Gallery (for whom I have to thank for the illustration), originally jigged back in November 2012 (see reference 1). with the record suggesting that it was done at least twice since then and probably visited more often than that.

Started off with a Bullingdon from the ramp at Waterloo, across the bridge and parked up in St. Martin's Street, the stand in Cockspur Street, as often, being full.

Found my way to the Garafalo, which is wearing well, despite the rather old-speak composition and subject matter. First item of interest was the way the painting drew one to three sets of eyes, those of the cherub and those of the two ladies. Next was the fact that the ugliness and implausibility of the cherub no longer seemed to matter. He fitted into the painting OK. Next I worried about the sharp edges to the figures, associating to the interest that PhotoShop takes in such matters. Had these been overdone by the cleaning process - the painting having been thoroughly cleaned since they took the picture for my jigsaw? A matter, I suppose, of taste and judgement: five hundred years after the event we cannot be sure what the painting would have looked like new - although I suppose we might know where it was hung when it was new and there is good bright light in Italy at least for some of the time. Interesting landscape when one tires of the figures. Interesting cloths, reminding me once again of the fascination of many painters, more or less for the whole of the period covered by the National Gallery, with depicting the folding of cloth. Will the next generation of painters tire of performance, trash & concept and go back to that sort of thing? See reference 2.

For light relief I turned to a landscape from about a  hundred years later, painted in the Netherlands, possibly after an engraving of a Breughal original. Described on the web site as 'Landscape: A River among Mountains, about 1600, Imitator of Pieter Bruegel the Elder'. Nothing new about plagiarism.

Picked up the very Bullingdon that I had used earlier from St. Martin's Street and pedalled off to Green Park, where I noticed that the masonry finish & trim to the tube station was the same stone, possibly travertine, as that noticed at the new café at Chiswick Park the other day. Perhaps the stuff was popular - or cheap - ten years ago. See reference 3.

Onto the cheese shop at Jermyn Street, Paxton & Whitfield at No.93, a place which could once be relied on for its Emmenthal, always carrying a couple of wheels of the stuff, one cut and one waiting. But no more. On this occasion they tried to fob me off from something English which they claimed was pretty much the same - but from the look of the stuff I thought they were trying it on, and so declined. It might well have been a perfectly good cheese, but it was a tactical mistake to try and pass it off as an English version of Emmenthal. And some story about how you could only get decent wheels in the winter. Can't get the staff any more, even in Jermyn Street.

Took a compensatory white wine, a respectable Sauvignon Blanc, from the Red Lion in Duke of York Street, where I came across an elderly tourist from New York who claimed to have been visiting the place since 1953. He knew all about the north of the state, which we visited in 2014, all about, for example, Watertown, Tupper Lake and Mount Ampersand. It seems his people had had a summer house on the nearby Lake Saranac. See, for example, reference 4.

And so the lunchtime concert at St. James, on this occasion a recital for piano (a Fazioli for once in a while) and cello. Interesting, despite not being my sort of music. And unusual in that the cellist was a man of colour, not something I have seen before - both performers and audience at classical concerts seeming to be more or less 100% White Caucasian or East Asian, that is to say Chinese, Japanese or Korean.

Headed north for lunch, but before we made lunch we made the Steinway showroom in Marylebone Lane. Two very pleasant young people there, who were bored enough to be happy to show us around, despite it being clear that we were not ever going to buy a piano - let alone one of theirs, which ran from £20,000 to £80,000, this last number being the sort of thing that top flight concert pianists would want. Leading one to wonder how many such pianists would have either the money or the space to own such a thing. It was, however, a wonderful piece of work, as regards appearance, action and tone. The young man explained that all the pedal noise we had heard from Fliter (see reference 5) could be avoided by careful release of the pedal - but perhaps that is to much to ask of a pianist in the full flood of the moment. He also said that Fliter had availed herself of the practise facilities they offered pianists who used their instruments, before that very concert. So on this day. a different lady was practising her Chopin nocturnes. All in all an instructive & entertaining visit. Maybe we will take advantage one day of the free lunch time concerts that they offer.

Finally made it to lunch, at a place which we had often passed in the past, but never ventured in, partly because it look a bit young and noisy. At the corner of Henrietta Place and Welbeck Street, underneath the car park and just around the corner from the strip club. It was indeed a bit young and noisy, although toned down a bit mid-afternoon. A place which had once been an Italian restaurant and which had been lightly made over as a youth hamburger joint, rather in the way of the late lamented 'Intrepid Fox' of Wardour Street (see reference 6). Very decent hamburger and chips, very cheap for the area, in part because they didn't bother with plates or cutlery. Plentiful supplies of kitchen roll instead - with what had been the glass fronted wine cupboard being given over to reserve supplies of same.

Wound up the proceedings with a No.2 bus to Vauxhall.

PS: having terrible trouble resetting my TFL password, part of some new security process. So unable to verify Bullingdon details at this time.

Reference 1: http://psmv2.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/jigsaw-2-series-2.html.

Reference 2: http://www.psmv2.blogspot.co.uk/2015/09/abstract-expressionism.html.

Reference 3: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2016/04/tricky-heritage.html.

Reference 4: http://psmv2.blogspot.co.uk/2014/10/outdoor-options.html.

Reference 5: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2016/04/fliter.html.

Reference 6: http://pumpkinstrokemarrow.blogspot.co.uk/search?q=intrepid+fox.

Group search key: ala.