Two thirteenth-century English panel paintings recently acquired by the British Museum, and fully published here for the first time, shed new light on the complicated history of Henry III's Painted Chamber in Westminster Palace, and on its significance for the development of painting in England in the late thirteenth century. Though mentioned as part of a set of four in the possession of a Mr Lee in 1839, twenty years after the discovery of major wall paintings in the Painted Chamber,' they reappeared publicly only in 1994, when they were consigned for sale to a Bristol auction house by a private vendor who had acquired them locally in 1993.2 How and why they had come to be in Bristol is unknown, and nothing has yet been discovered about their history since 1839 (the two other panels mentioned in that year remain untraced). However, their origin and the circumstances of their preservation are elucidated by inscriptions on the frames, and by labels pasted on the backs of both panels.

Although it has sporadically been noted that Holman Hunt, Millais and other members of the pre-Raphaelite brotherhood must have known Jan van Eyck's Arnolfini portrait (Fig.25) - and indeed specific borrowings from it, particularly the mirror, have been cited - the impact on the early Victorian art world of the first 'primitive' to enter the National Gallery, and its more general effect on the development of pre-Raphaelitism have, somewhat surprisingly, never been assessed.'

Gainsborough's career divides quite naturally into three phases, each associated with a different place of residence - East Anglia (including a spell in London), Bath and London. The consensus has been that his move to Bath took place late in 1759, and indications in some of the nineteenth-century literature that he was there earlier have been broadly discounted. However, it can now be proved that Gainsborough was in Bath in the autumn of 1758 and evidence suggests he may have remained there for the whole of the Bath season, which lasted from October to the following May.*

A conservation survey, currently in progress, of the outstanding collection of British paintings at the Huntington Library and Art Collections, San Marino, has led to some remarkable discoveries about well-known icons, including Thomas Gainsborough's Blue boy and Sir Joshua Reynolds's Sarah Siddons as the Tragic Muse. The technical analysis, which is funded by the Getty Grant Program, is providing critical information for a related scholarly project, a full-scale catalogue of the British painting collection at the Huntington. For each work the examination will supply essential data about its structural characteristics, such as the support and ground, paint layer and surface coating. Fascinating new insights into the collection have already been generated by the survey, which includes microscopic, infra-red and ultra-violet examination and, in a limited number of cases, X-radiography. Although the results of the survey will be fully published in the catalogue, it may be of interest to give an anticipatory idea of some of the more spectacular discoveries here.

In a recent article in this Magazine, Giovanna Perini has suggested that the pose of the sitter in Reynolds's portrait of Lieutenant- Colonel Tarleton (Fig.50) was derived from that of an apostle in Tintoretto's Washing of the apostles' feet, a version of which Reynolds is known to have owned.' The similarities of the poses cannot, of course, be denied, but the image of Tarleton standing somewhere on a battlefield, his attention attracted by something, is rather different from that of the apostle removing his sandals in a measured way, and contemplating his foot.

To students of the later Stuart period Sir Stephen Fox is well-known as a respected figure who, coming from a fairly humble background, achieved immense wealth and exercised a notable influence on public affairs from the Restoration to the reign of Queen Anne. He entered royal service on the eve of the Civil War and from 1653 until the Restoration was in charge of the exiled King's resources. Pepys described him at the Restoration as a very fine gentleman; he became Second Clerk Comptroller of the Green Cloth, Paymaster of the King's Guards, a Member of Parliament, Paymaster-General of the Forces and a Lord of the Treasury. His nephew said he was the richest commoner in the three kingdoms. Blessed with good fortune and conspicuous ability, he is said by his recent biographer to have been as eminent in the City and in Lombard Street as he was at court. He was one of those capable administrators and career civil servants for which the period is conspicuous, to be classed with such men as Blath- wayt, Southwell, Ellis, Lowndes and Pepys himself. In the history of the arts in Stuart Britain he is best known for his role in the founding of Chelsea Hospital.'

There are few rooms in Rome, or indeed in Europe, which still retain the famous works of art from which they took their names. One such is the Stanza di Apollo e Dafne, which houses Bernini's celebrated statue and is still- despite its loss- es - one of the most successful interiors in the villa Borghese (Figs.62 and 63). Its history provides a fascinating microcosm of changes in taste from the seventeenth to the nineteenth century, prompting an investigation of the evolution of this celebrated interior along the same lines as my recent study of the Stanza del Gladiatore in the same building - itself named after a sculpture which was, though it is now almost forgotten, long considered a supreme masterpiece of ancient art.'