Rembrandt, Vermeer and Hals in the Dutch Golden Age: Masterpieces from The Leiden Collection

Rembrandt, Vermeer and Hals in the Dutch Golden Age: Masterpieces from The Leiden Collection presents a window into the evocative moment of artistic creativity that took place in the seventeenth-century Dutch Republic. Following the development of Dutch art through a selection of 78 history paintings, genre scenes, portraits, and drawings, the exhibition provides a comprehensive understanding of the history of Dutch art during its Golden Age through The Leiden Collection.

The ways in which artists responded to one another, and to tradition, are central to the themes and scope of the exhibition. These relationships are explored most centrally through the remarkable breadth and depth of artistic innovation in Leiden, as demonstrated by Rembrandt van Rijn and Jan Lievens, and the Leiden fine painters, Gerrit Dou and Frans van Mieris. The exhibition further explores the work of important Dutch and Flemish artists in other artistic centers, including Frans Hals, Hendrick ter Brugghen, Jan Steen, Carel Fabritius, Peter Paul Rubens, and Johannes Vermeer.

Berlin is an adventure.  Nowhere in Europe quite marries tragedy and rebirth to such extremes. Beauty nestles alongside urban ugliness.  There is so much to see and experience. My top of the top museum experience has to be the Neues Museum with the Egyptian collections headed – no pun intended – by the über glamorous Nefretiti. She simply takes your breath away.  David Chipperfield’s minimal interventionist architecture is majestic.  Brilliant use of materials in a museum which accepts it’s own near destruction. Chipperfield uses that to strength and effect. The collections shine and sparkle in magnificently pared back displays

It’s that time of the year of warm colours and cold air.  What’s needed are brisk country walks and slow pub lunches plus the odd roaring fire.  Just back from Sussex around Firle and Barlcombe – beautiful churches and end of the season gardens,  The weather on my wife’s birthday is always sunny and we were not let down. Weekends away inspire different pallets and textures and helps me both as interior inspiration and in my role as design director at Tibor fabrics

One of my very few vices is that I like to stop off for a cappuccino on my way into the office in the morning – actually my addiction is far gone enough to need this most mornings weekday or not. There are a few key venues  in London where my morning coffee is mild enough, warm rather than hot, and served in a cup rather than a mug (I do make an exception at venues in Hyde Park as the view is so good plus the extra exercise.

As an accompaniment I never take more than a croissant at Ottolenghi. – ok served with their extraordinary jam and well, maybe a very occasional muffin – but never the items shown below which go against my imposed dietary rules yet just the sight of them cheers my day