‘An artist whose portraits have never gone out of fashion in 400 years’. Dr Mark Stocker, Curator Historical International Art, looks at a fascinating selection of portraits in Te Papa’s print collection by Sir Anthony van Dyck.Read more

A while back I posted Marion Queenie Kirker’s image of a ‘nodding cat’. Recently the rest of her negatives were scanned and uploaded to the museum’s database. One of the things I enjoy about working in the museum is helping to make images like this available to be seen. There areRead more

Queen Victoria in her wedding attire by Franz Xaver Winterhalter. This painting was commissioned n 1947 as a wedding anniversary gift to Prince Albert.

The young Queen avidly recorded details of her wedding to her ‘precious Angel’  in her journal, including descriptions of her wedding attire and her whirling emotions. On the evening of her wedding she confided: ‘My dearest dearest dear Albert… his excessive love and affection gave me feelings of heavenly love and happiness,  I neverRead more