Miraculous Draught of Fishes?
What had piqued my interest was the new presentation of the Raphael Cartoons on the V&A’s website, where an interactive tool allows you to zoom in on high-resolution photographs of the monumental tapestry designs commissioned from Raphael in 1515. According to the site, the fisherman Simon (soon to be renamed St Peter) has caught the following types of fish: barbels, John Dory (also known, appropriately, as St Peter fish), sardines, sea bream, sea eels, shark and skate. Raphael or his assistants knew something about fish, then, but did they know what St Peter might have caught? Perhaps not: the Sea of Galilee is actually freshwater (it’s also known as Lake Tiberias or Kinneret), but the fish caught by Christ’s apostles here, barbels aside, are saltwater creatures.
Nell Jones
As a child, I had an obsession with walled gardens, largely in part, down to Frances Hodgson Burnett’s
The Secret Garden (ashamed to say not so much the book, but the great ‘90s film adaptation with Dame Maggie Smith). Those ivy-cloaked walls, darting robins and nymphy lily ponds, lichen-covered statues and weathered green houses, all still continue to fuel my romantic imaginings. Of course, the Chelsea Physic Garden is no secret, but it remains a restorative little oasis on Swan Walk, with its own microclimate and wonderfully storied history. The Garden dates back to 1673 when the Worshipful Society of Apothecaries chose this Chelsea village site for its proximity to the Thames to make the most of its warm air currents. As the oldest botanical garden in London, hidden behind high walls, festooned with pomegranate trees, it remains blissfully inured to change.
Seven black-and-white photographs taken in the early 1870s have emerged for sale with an auctioneers
Taken by local photographer James Hedderly, they include iconic spots of west London including Chelsea
The sale will take place at Sworders of Stansted Mountfitchet in Essex on Tuesday, December 15
Shots include Old Battersea Bridge, Chelsea Old Church, Cheyne Walk and a monument to Sir Hans Sloane