Musical moments

A fortnight ago to the Wigmore Hall to hear Schubert's musical moments (D780) and a selection of same from Rachmaninov (Op.16), with Inon Barnaton on the ivories, a gentleman to be found at reference 1.

A cold, bright morning. No.2 woolly and gloves, No.1 jacket and hat. Where No.1 is warmest. One of the new trains that Southwestern Trains is deploying on the Epsom to Waterloo line. 

Crowded tube between Victoria and Oxford Circus, this being around 11:30 on a Monday morning. And among the crowd we had a young man sporting a smart jacket from the new-to-me Naked Wolfe upstairs and very battered jeans downstairs. Bing's first effort was shoes, but digging deeper I find that they do do other stuff - and call themselves a luxury brand. So presumably expensive. Perhaps this combo is all the thing in the right part of London. Perhaps they do them at T. K. Maxx. See reference 2.

Out usual pit stop at All Bar One, but being after noon, I was able to take wine instead of my usual tea. I had forgotten that they dish it up in little carafes.

The previously noticed kitchen robot from Moley Robotics was in action, although it was not actually handling food.

A fine concert, although I would say that I got on better with the Schubert, whom I am used to, even if not these particular pieces, than the Rachmaninov.

The first two restaurants we tried down Marylebone Road - one of which was Delamina of reference 3 - were full, so we pushed onto the chipper known as the Golden Hind, which seemed to have been refurbished since we were last there. Perfectly serviceable fish and chips, if a little bland. A drop of wine from South Africa and a fine crescent moon to the south on exit.

The next stop was the Phillip's auction rooms in Berkeley Square to admire their 'Editions', up for sale in the couple of days following. Passing on the way the Duke Street sub-station on the roof of which we once made our first visit to a Benugo outlet. The main entrance to the Ukrainian church behind the camera was firmly shut, according to the reference 4 properly the home of the Ukrainian Catholic Eparchy of the Holy Family of London. While reference 5 explains that the Eparchy is a sort of semi-detached part of the Roman Church and that the building was actually put up for the Congregationalists. Not to be confused with the Orthodox Church of Ukraine which reports to the Eastern Orthodox Church. No doubt there is some complicated history behind all this.

Then to a viewing of the outside of the window first noticed at reference 6 - a post where I think I confused Chester Cathedral with Carlisle Cathedral, the latter being a much older foundation and for which see reference 7. Rather knocked about in the Civil War and restored in the 19th century. With the east window being described by Wikipedia as 'one of the finest examples of flowing Decorated tracery'.

On into Phillips, where one of the first paintings to catch my eye was a version of 'Olympia', a rather smaller version of which I have in front of me as I type this and which I first saw in the Jeu de Paume in Paris, back in the 1970's. I had thought that this gallery had decamped to a disused railway station on the river, but it seems from reference 8 that it is still a gallery, photography rather than painting, and that they have just closed an exhibition of the work of our own Julia Margaret Cameron, well known on the Isle of Wight.

This version by Jeff Koons - the chap who makes cartoon animals out of what look like brightly coloured balloons - with an estimate of £10,000-£15,000. I think my version is better value, even if it is rather smaller.

The object which attracted our attention, perhaps in the Guardian, in the first place. By one Keith Haring, estimate £150,000-£200,000. I should add that most of the stuff was estimated at under £10,000, and a lot of that a lot less. So there was affordable art to be had.

Lots of stuff by lots of people one had heard of, I thought mostly prints, but looking at the prices in the catalogue - which is not very raisonné - I am not so sure. The biggest number of entries might have been from Andy Warhol. 

But our own people do get a look in. For example Cadaver Hirst, Dame Trace and Bridget Riley. From Hirst we had a few of his skulls, but he now seems to have regressed to nature studies: perhaps he has made enough dosh out of pharmaceuticals and cadavers and now feels free to do what he really wanted to do all along.

There were prints by both Miro (which I liked) and Chagall (which I was not so keen on), and I decided that Miro was the chap who did some work in the French Church in Soho, while BH opted for Chagall. Checking at reference 9, I find that we were both wrong, and that the chap in question was Cocteau. BH wins on points as she got the first letter right. Furthermore, I had thought that the place had once been a cinema, which was not right either. Rather it started out as Burford's Panorama and was bought and repurposed by the French church in the middle of the nineteenth century, quite a long time before the arrival of the cinema. Memory not what it used to be. But see reference 11, from well over a decade ago.

I learn today that these panoramas were quite big attractions in the first part of the nineteenth century at least. See, for example, reference 10.

A print depicting a brothel (aka maison close) by Picasso. 25/50. £1,000-£1,500. I rather liked it. Identified and located by Google Lens today without fuss at the Picasso Museum in Barcelona, but they were not into freebies there. So had I known about the real thing a bit sooner, I might have been tempted. 

Phillips offer the one above - framing apart, much poorer quality than my telephone managed - and also the information that it actually went for £2,286. Does that include VAT, premiums, fees and so forth? In any event, a bit too strong for me. Hopefully, had I actually showed up, as a beginner, I would have stuck to my limit.

I have also learned that Picasso did a lot of these limited edition prints. I wonder if they brought in a significant proportion of his income? A nice little earner in his old age?

A nearby left-over. Odd the way the roof covers what appears to be two once separate buildings. Notice also the way that they did not bother with facial decoration at the side, despite having gone to town at the front.

We had thought to take tea and cake at this point, but nothing suitable turned up between Berkeley Square and Green Park tube station, so tube station had it.

References

Reference 1: https://www.inonbarnatan.com/.

Reference 2: https://uk.nakedwolfe.com/.

Reference 3: https://www.delaminakitchen.co.uk/delamina-marylebone/. Clearly worth a look at some point.

Reference 4: https://www.ucc-gb.com/cathedral.

Reference 5: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukrainian_Catholic_Cathedral_of_the_Holy_Family_in_Exile.

Reference 6: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2024/01/the-last-day.html.

Reference 7: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlisle_Cathedral.

Reference 8: https://jeudepaume.org/.

Reference 9: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Notre_Dame_de_France.

Reference 10: https://journals.openedition.org/artelogie/796?lang=en.

Reference 11: https://pumpkinstrokemarrow.blogspot.com/2009/07/plinth-life-2.html. A previous visit to the Cocteau.

Reference 12a: https://pumpkinstrokemarrow.blogspot.com/2010/10/hpc-2010-later.html. A previous visit to the sub-station. But no mention of Benugo.

Reference 12b: https://pumpkinstrokemarrow.blogspot.com/2010/10/hpc-2010.html.

Reference 12c: https://pumpkinstrokemarrow.blogspot.com/2010/10/hpc1906.html. A view source job. Must have edited the title after posting; a title which gets built into the file name at the time of posting.