Past Lectures & visits Preceded by the AGM 23 October 2025 ANNALIE TALENT Becoming Jane Austen: The Birth of a Literary Superstar I write only for fame… Jane Austen 25 September 2025 RUPERT DICKENS Rembrandt’s hand: a question of attribution What makes a genuine Rembrandt? This question has dogged museums and art historians since the great Dutch master’s reputation soared to prominence at the end of the 19th century. The Rembrandt Research Project tried for nearly five decades to pare down the painter’s oeuvre, using the latest technology and a barrage of experts. But a backlash in the 1990s cause many disavowed Rembrandts to be put back on the list. This lecture charts the ebb and flow of Rembrandt attribution and tries to answer the question: who decides? Science or the subjective eye of the connoisseur. 28 August 2025 LUCY HUGHES-HALLET George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham – the Handsomest Man in Europe and Patron of the Arts A king's favourite who amassed a great art collection. George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, was the favourite of King James I - who addressed him as ‘my sweet child and wife’ - and subsequently chief minister to King Charles I. Buckingham was a beauty, and he surrounded himself with beautiful things. He enjoyed exquisite clothes, like the fabulous white silk suit encrusted with diamonds that he wore to visit the Queen of France. He was a superb dancer. When he cut capers during a court masque King James startled visiting ambassadors by shouting out ‘By God, George, I love you!’ 26 June 2025 SALLY HOBAN The Arts and Crafts Movement in the Midlands Many people are familiar with the national designers of the 19th century Arts and Crafts Movement such as William Morris and Charles Ashbee. But the Midlands made a huge contribution to the movement as well. Designers at The Bromsgrove Guild of Handicrafts for example produced the exquisite wrought iron gates for Buckingham Palace. This lecture sets the work of these Midlands designers in the context of the national Arts and Crafts Movement using examples of jewellery made by Arthur and Georgina Gaskin, stained glass by Florence Camm, ceramics from the Ruskin Pottery and more. 13 May 2025 Outing: Lamport Hall and Gardens Extra fee payable A Tudor founder, blind book collector, wayward 17th century grand tourist, eccentric Victorian, Hollywood actor, commanding wives and dedicated daughters – Lamport is full of characters. As home to the Isham family for over four centuries, the fortunes, interests and trials of each generation have left their mark. The Hall is set in approximately 10 acres of tranquil gardens, the result of over 450 years of love and dedication, enclosed by a spacious park. Although their size and location are the same as when they were first laid out, their design has been strongly influenced by the interests and tastes of successive owners. 22 May 2025 HILARY WILLIAMS The Frick and Wallace Collections and Their Link with Knole The Frick Collection, New York, is one of the finest-quality museums in the world. It belongs largely to the Gilded Age of American connoisseurship of the early years of the 20th century and is a testament to the taste of its founder, steel magnate, Henry Clay Frick. He died on the eve of WWI after being able to collect some of the best pieces available in Europe and America. His agents were really effective and the result is a first rate collection of fine French furniture, enamels, porcelain, paintings by Bellini, Van Eyck, Holbein, Titian, Rembrandt, Vermeer, Van Dyck, Rubens, El Greco, Velázquez, Fragonard, Ingres, Renoir, JMW Turner, Constable, Whistler and many others. These are all set within an outstanding mansion in Manhattan. The Wallace Collection, in Hertford House, London, is a Pandora’s box of francophile taste in the late 18th and 19th centuries. It was amassed by the Marquess of Hertford and his natural son, Sir Richard Wallace and his French wife, Lady Wallace, who, on her death in 1897, bequeathed the collection to the nation. It is stunning in its quality. Fine French furniture, Renaissance bronzes, Sevres porcelain, European paintings from Titian, Van Dyck and Rubens to Ruisdael, Gainsborough and Lawrence, adorn a sumptuous interior dripping with many pieces actually made for French Royal interiors, including Versailles. 24 April 2025 IAN COCKBURN Moorish Architecture – the Legacy of a Vanished kingdom The Alhambra of Granada, the Great Mosque of Cordoba and the Alcazar of Seville are the three most impressive monuments to the architectural creativity of the Moors in Spain, but there are many other examples worthy of mention too. The classical origins that influenced the Moorish style are less well-known, but fascinating to explore, as too is the unique interior decorative style developed by the Moors, which gives their architecture its beauty and exotic appeal – an appeal so strong that the Christians sometimes copied it, even as they slowly reconquered the territory from its Islamic rulers. This lecture provides a comprehensive introduction to the peninsula’s Moorish architecture. 27 March 2025 JUSTIN REAY Can Computers Cry? Art touches human emotions which machines cannot feel. Art of all kinds can touch us and make us respond, often beyond the expectation of the artist. Happiness, sadness, pity, compassion, a spiritual uplifting, curiosity, all human emotions which even the most sophisticated digital programming will never match. Justin demonstrates how art arises from human imagination to feed our emotions, and discusses the difference between mere imitation of the physical world – which even robots can be taught to do – and the creation of truly human art which enhances our lives. 27 February 2025 JAMES WRIGHT Historic Building Mythbusting In his book ‘Historic Building Mythbusting’ the archaeologist James Wright, a resident of Nottinghamshire, has used many case studies from the county to articulate some of the tales which are told about ancient architecture. These include stories of secret passages underneath Wollaton, ship timbers in Worksop, strange sculptures at Laxton parish church, stones used by archers to sharpen arrows in Wilford, and yarns about Ye Olde Trip to Jerusalem being the oldest inn in England… but are any of these stories true? 23 January 2025 TIMOTHY WALKER The Subtle Science and Exact Art of Colour in English Garden Design In 1882 Gertrude Jekyll wrote a short but seminal article in The Garden in which she urged the readers to “remember that in a garden we are painting a picture”. As an accomplished watercolour artist, Miss Jekyll was familiar with the principles of using colours, but she felt that in gardens these principles “had been greatly neglected”. This talk looks at how to apply these principles in designing a border, but it also looks at the ways in which a border is different from a painting. However, it goes further than this and looks at how contemporary work of the likes of Turner, Monet, Rothko, Jackson Pollack evolved in parallel with ideas about what a garden or border should show.