Tim Horwood wrote:

>Walter Meyer wrote:
>>
>>Depends.  As I recall, the National Gallery in Washington, DC (USA) has
>>several Rafaels, but no Rafael Madonna.  Is the painting in question a
>>Madonna, which our gallery might want to acquire?
>
>Yes can see it at http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/

It's a beautiful painting.

>But the painting has already been sold subject to an export licence and
>the money being raised to keep it in the UK.

Do we know to whom?

>I counted 4 Madonna's in the
>National Gallery at the moment hence my questioning of why we needed another.

I just finished reading *The DaVinci Codes* in which the two Leonardo
*Madonnas of the Rocks* are described.  According to the book the painting
was commissioned by an order of nuns who objected to the first version,
which now hangs in the Louvre, because the expressions and gestures
suggested a disturbing and unacceptable symbolic message.  Leonardo
painted a more sanitized version which was accepted.  That's the one now
hanging in London.

>>Does London's National Gallery have regular classical music concerts like
>>Washington's?  We have them weekly and they're gratis.
>
>I don't think so.  ...  According to a biography of Kenneth Clark who
>was director of the Gallery back during the Second World War there were
>concerts in the Gallery empty of its pictures.  ...

Didn't (Dame) Myra Hess give regular daytime recitals there during WWII?
Or was that a different gallery?

wm