The first in my ‘Reading Pictures’ feature of the podcast — where we examine a single painting and pursue the clues it gives us. There is a lot going on in this picture, and a whole culture that it represents. Books quoted in this episode include:

Shell Houses and Grottoes by Hazelle Jackson (Shire Library, 2001); Taste, The Story of Britain Through Its Cooking by Kate Colquhoun (Bloomsbury, 2007); The Jane Austen Cookbook by Maggie Black & Deirdre Le Faye (British Museum Press, 2002); How To Read A Suit: A Guide To Changing Mean’s Fashion From the 17th to the 20th Century by Lydia Edwards (Bloomsbury, 2020) and How To Read A Dress, also by Edwards, revised edition 2021. I also referred to Signs & Symbols in Christian Art by George Ferguson (Oxford University Press, 1961).

Two corrections: 1) I mention the ‘Inns of London’: I should have said the ‘Inns of Court’, i.e. the offices of the key lawyers of the realm in London. 2) I speak of ‘lace’ in Sir Henry’s dress, but what he wears is plain silk: I misspoke.