23 May

Zoffany's The Tribuna of the Uffizi. Hilarious story behind this one. He'd bankrupted himself investing in Cook's voyage to Australia, on which he was supposed to be a passenger. He pulled out. Being friends with the English Royals, he got the Queen to give him some money to travel to Italy to capture its great art, for her (she'd never been). Thus this painting, which took him years. Full of scandalous allusions to the society of the day, and also complete nobodies willing to pay him to be in it. The King and Queen hated it, and he lost his Royal patronage. A technical masterpiece.