I went to the launch of Civilisations, a new nine-part series by the BBC, which was held in the lecture theatre of the National Gallery and so haunted by the ghost of Kenneth Clark, patrician and tweed suited and with his terrible teeth, standing in front of the Cathedral of Notre Dame and pronouncing in thirteen programmes about the qualities and characteristics of western European culture.   The odd thing was that all the sophistication of current tv technology – the global range, thoughtfulness and intelligence of the forthcoming programmes – was trumped by David Attenborough appearing on stage afterwards, greeted like a rock star, and describing how the original programmes were commissioned in 1965 in order to demonstrate the virtues of colour television to a sceptical British public, thereby creating an accidental masterpiece.

I strolled in to the Charles I exhibition and was struck by the inscription on the very first exhibit, which is a pen and ink drawing of Inigo Jones by Van Dyck. The inscription states that it is ‘Vandyke’s original Drawing, from which the Print by Van. Voerst was taken, in the Book of Vandyke’s Heads. Given me by the Duke of Devonshire’. Signed ‘Burlington’. It has always been known that the third Earl of Burlington was as keen on the work of Inigo Jones as he was on Palladio (there is a statue of Inigo Jones outside Chiswick House), but there is something touching about the Earl himself hand writing (I assume it’s his hand) such a carefully worded inscription to the drawing given him by, apparently, the third Duke, although subsequently inherited by the fourth Duke, who married Burlington’s daughter, Charlotte.

For some reason, I didn’t post the photographs I took last week of the Natural History Museum, Alfred Waterhouse’s great terracotta palace.   Its front doors were mysteriously shut, but this didn’t prevent it being stuffed full of dinosaur-loving schoolchildren:-

We went to the newly refurbished Hayward Gallery, which the South Bank Centre had wanted pulled down, to see the Andreas Gursky exhibition which was packed, full of his big images of multiple repetition, which make one see the world through the same lens of deadpan, digital multiplication.   I couldn’t see much difference in the Hayward, except that its bronze banisters had been buffed up and the terrace closed:-

Seeing the exhibition of Charles II at the Queen’s Gallery inevitably reminded me of Nick Coker, Peter Coker’s only son, who wrote his MA dissertation at the Courtauld Institute on Peter Lely, was going to work on iconoclasm under the Commonwealth and was the historical advisor to Peter Greenaway’s film The Draughtsman’s Contract, which celebrated the late seventeenth-century and its combination of art, sex and scandal, with a score by Michael Nyman based on the music of Purcell. It came out in 1982, just after the tv version of Brideshead Revisited and presumably belongs to the same moment of historical neo-romanticism.

I thought I should see the exhibition on Charles II at the Queen’s Gallery, which is the companion to ours on Charles I.   It starts with a portrait of Charles I by Edward Bower who is thought to have worked for Van Dyck and was commissioned by parliament:-

It’s a very different style of exhibition from ours, much more straightforwardly historical, rich in prints and conveying the slightly louche aspects of Charles and his court, as well as the tremendous interest in optics, science and engraving and the great opulence of Hugh May’s interiors at Windsor Castle.

This is Charles II in an engraving after Lely:-

And a drawing by Samuel Cooper, done from the life just after the Restoration:-

I had forgotten how wonderful the engravings are in Hooke’s Micrographia:-

The final room gives a clear description as to how Charles II re-acquired so much of his father’s collection by setting up a committee of the House of Lords with the task of recovering them, but meanwhile acquiring a large group of works from the picture dealer, William Frizell in Breda.

I arrived slightly early for a meeting in Clerkenwell yesterday, which gave me an opportunity to enjoy the area north of the church – a surprisingly well preserved set of narrow lanes, old brick tenement buildings and warehouses now turned into lofts and architects’ offices:-

I did a short stint serving behind the counter in the shop, which I have done only once before as a way of seeing what it’s like, so to speak, on the shop floor;  watching visitors browse amongst the product – picking up pencils, chocolates and beer, as well as the handsome Charles I catalogue, the biggest seller by far.   Far more tourists than I had expected, but that may be just because it’s such an international exhibition – great works of art bought for Charles I by his agents – and a privilege to see so many major works of art, which are not necessarily familiar to the average exhibition goer, including many from the royal collection.

Inside the Science Museum, I went up to the top floor to see the exhibition of Indian photography.   But first, I admired the grandiosity of the entrance hall:-

I was interested that they have retained the old – presumably 1920s – display cases in the Wellcome display Journeys through Medicine:-

I liked the fake Merman:-

And the early nineteenth-century phrenological heads:-

Best of all, I liked the Aviation gallery in what looks like an old aircraft hangar on the roof at the back:-

I had arranged to visit the Science Museum yesterday.

Although I worked for twelve years on the other side of the road, I realised how little I knew about the history of the Science Museum.   Originally, it was the Museum of Patents, attached in a little cottage to the Brompton Boilers, when the South Kensington Museum opened in 1857, and at a time when the South Kensington Museum was much more eclectic than it has since become, including collections of Animal Products, Food, and Building Materials.   Stephenson’s Rocket was put on display in 1862.   The collections gradually moved across the road to the site of the 1862 International Exhibition, producing the binary divide between art and science on either side of Exhibition Road.   The Science Museum was officially separated from what had become the Victoria and Albert Museum on 26 June 1909, owing to the support of Robert Morant, the former tutor to the Crown Prince of Siam, who had become an energetic and reformist Permanent Secretary in the Board of Education aged 40.   Work on the new building started in 1913, but was interrupted by the First World War and only opened in 1928:-

The traditions of the Science Museum have always been rather different from those of the V&A because Sir Henry Lyons, who was Director in the 1920s was much more interested in the needs of ‘the ordinary visitor’ rather than those of the specialist and was an early advocate of interactive displays, establishing a ‘Children’s Gallery’ in 1931.

What I was interested in is how the Science Museum handles voluntary donations. One has to queue in line as if to buy a ticket, and then is asked for a donation:-

It is genuinely voluntary, much more so than its equivalent at the Metropolitan Museum, which has recently been abolished. Is it a way of ensuring higher contributions from visitors ?