Sophia Dorothea was the wife of King George I of England who ascended the throne in 1714 with two mistresses!  The cruel man had left his wife behind in Germany, imprisoned for the last 32 years of her life. So, I went in ‘search of’ her in England and Germany to see how history has remembered her. Sophia Dorothea in England My search for Sophia Dorothea began in England where I failed to find any evidence of her existence. However, I did find a rather stern faced terracotta bust of her husband, King George I in the National Portrait Gallery, London. Sophia Dorothea in Bath I had my first encounter […]

“We’re not doing the whole ten corridors are we?” AC was living in terror of yet another tour of the National Gallery in London. This fear was based on what we now call a ‘Rubens Moment’. It refers to that point of visual saturation that occurs when one’s eyes have been forced to look at too many famous paintings in one day. Standing in a room full of Ruben’s paintings, unable to even enjoy ‘Samson and Delilah’, we knew it was time to head for the exit. Perhaps Rubens will forgive us for walking out on ‘Samson and Delilah’. We did squeeze a lot into the day.