Earlier in the week we visited Edinburgh so that we could go to the Masterpieces from Buckingham Palace Exhibition. The art on show had all been acquired by British monarchs and the information cards by each painting say which monarch had bought it.

You can have a virtual tour of the exhibition here.

Judith with the Head of Holofernes, painted by Cristofano Allori (1577-1621,) was bought by Charles I. I had to look up Holofernes and apparently he was Nebuchadnezzar’s general. When I saw that it was Charles I who bough this one I said to Jack that it was just as well he didn’t know what his own fate was going to be! Later that night I was watching a TV programme about Hampton Court and it was mentioned that it was partly Charles I’s habit of buying artworks that got him into trouble as the amount of money he was spending on them had made him very unpopular. I’m not surprised as a lot of the paintings in this exhibition were his.

The virtual tour is a bit difficult to navigate at first, but it’s worth persevering with it.