Now that I have decided to abandon Vanbrugh for Christmas, I am catching up on a large pile of neglected reading, including a volume kindly sent by its author, Francis Russell, entitled Twenty-Four Partial Portraits, the title more likely to be a homage to Henry James than to William Rothenstein.

I’ve discovered that it’s a book that is not easy to obtain because Amazon has apparently already sold out, but I have located copies at Heywood Hill (https://www.heywoodhill.com/shop/twenty-four-partial-portraits) and I was pleased to discover that John Sandoe have extensive holdings of Russell’s excellent travel books.

I can see that it may have been hard to persuade a conventional publisher to take on Russell’s meticulous pen portraits of his deceased friends, but they are fascinating records of a world we have lost – the post-war art world as it used to be.

Russell was introduced to it startlingly young. When he was a pupil at Westminster, he was already friendly with James Byam Shaw at Colnaghi’s and was already developing his encyclopedic knowledge of private picture collections. I’ve still got a few chapters to read, but have just enjoyed his account of the preparations made for the great Country House exhibition in Washington and the circumstances surrounding the acquisition of Calke Abbey for the National Trust.

It’s good Christmas reading….