Nobody needs to be told at the moment that we are living through history: the upturning of our lives by a virus that did not even exist a year ago is reminder enough. In the London art world the pandemic has undermined the celebrations for the twentieth anniversary last month of Tate Modern, which opened on 11th May 2000, at a time when the mood was one of millennium optimism rather than millennial anxiety.

The present exhibition has reunited the celebrated series of six mythological scenes painted by Venice’s most famous Renaissance master for Philip II of Spain between c.1551 and 1562. It is not known where Philip displayed them, or even whether they were originally hung together, but by 1585 it seems that one (Perseus and Andromeda; Wallace Collection, London) had already left the royal collection.