“... in January 1560. The next 13 years of her life were spent at the Spanish court, first as lady-in-waiting to the queen; then, after her death in 1568, in the households of her young daughters, the infantas Isabella Clara Eugenia and Catalina Micaela, and of the new queen, Anna of Austria. But exactly what Sofonisba did in Spain remains a matter of ...”

“... that at Coke’s funeral ‘there was much pomp, and a long procession which included his wife, Lady Hatton, with whom he regularly fought, and at the end she said We shall not see his like again, thanks be to God.’It certainly took me in. I first heard the story about Lady Hatton’s parting shot many years ago, but ...”

“... by John Michael Wright’s c.1668 painting of James Cecil, fourth Earl of Salisbury and his sister Lady Catherine, now at Hatfield. Unhelpfully, there is no indication on the canvas as to the pear-bearing girl’s identity, and no date either. However, a modern brass plaque affixed to the frame confidently supplies the former, and suggests by implication a ...”

“... accounts given by sitters, to have started with a detailed drawing on the canvas in black chalk. Lady Elizabeth Leveson-Gower thought it ‘almost a sin’ to see it disappear below the paint. He was self-taught and it was drawing, not painting, that brought the child prodigy to the attention of his father’s patrons in the Black Bear, a coaching inn on the ...”

“... quietly grateful for all the help these ladies are not giving. In the last of these scenes, the lady – the office, the judge, the system – offers nothing, not even the pretence of having tried to do something. Sibil sits back and smiles, saying that she is amazed people can treat other human beings like this. Her smile continues, expressing an ...”

“... Pete Robinson was a 65-pound ‘human skeleton’. Olga Roderick … was a traditional bearded lady, and Koo Koo (‘the bird girl from Mars’) appeared to be the victim of progeria, a rare disease that causes rapid and premature ageing.As Browning assembled his actors, he discovered that they were as entitled as any other group of stars. It didn’t ...”

“... 1963 photograph by Malick Sidibé of a couple dancing but has Miró-like passages. In Confession (Lady Chancellor) a long, purple, red-headed nude with scarlet nails reaches for a drink tendered by a black hand emerging from a white cuff that enters the picture at the top left-hand corner. Her feet and toes stretch out like roots to meet Art Nouveau at its ...”

“... by all for a hero and wins out every time, couldn’t fail to be a smart move. Flashman’s Lady is a good ten thousand places ahead of the most popular edition of Tom Brown’s Schooldays in the Amazon league, despite being five times the price. Here is a fullish description of the ‘cowardly brute’ from Thomas Hughes: Flashman, be it said, was ...”

“... this one does, naturally peel back to give a view in which, despite the implied informality (the lady having her hair dressed, the gentleman playing cards, the baby in its governess’s arms), the protagonists are as neatly and hierarchically spaced out as people in a formal wedding group. One accepts the oddity of the situation the composition ...”

“... from predatory hands by turning into nymphs or water lilies or salmon. You, too, can play the Lady of Shalott. Pond etiquette circumscribes photography – this isn’t a place to be Instagrammed, except covertly – but its recent popularity reflects its cultural cachet, both as wellness chic (improve your immunity!) and as a pillar of urban middle-class ...”

“... by Paul and Millicent Dillon after Jane’s death) in a section headed ‘The Third Serious Lady’. The new volume offers brief notes explaining the publication history of the pieces, including one identifying ‘A Guatemalan Idyll’ as the original beginning of ‘Three Serious Ladies’. This conjures up a very different kind of book, much looser in ...”

“... I sneered, ‘Piper is the acceptable face of modern art,’ not realising that at that moment the lady herself was passing through the room behind me. Some of his abstracts I like, particularly a collage, Coast at Finisterre (1961), which is illustrated in the book, and some of his Welsh landscapes. I don’t care for his stained glass, though churches are ...”

“... Indépendants. Wild horses could not have kept them away. A bold pair, armed with a letter from Lady Sackville or Isabella Stewart Gardner, might have penetrated Rodin’s studio. His bronze statue of Balzac in a dressing-gown, shown at the Salon des Beaux Arts, would already have led the travellers to take sides, some finding it disgusting and ...”

“... would be nice if the Lord sent another flood and drowned the world,’ he wrote to Lady Ottoline. This is the sum of Carey’s quotation. But Lawrence’s letter continues: ‘Probably I should want to be Noah. I am not sure,’ which is funny and human and fallen – not that Carey would have been amused. Lawrence’s comedy emerges in his ...”

“... are due to improvements suggested by Mr Aspinall. It has been altogether a happy experience.’ ‘Lady Sarah Aspinall has shown exemplary patience with my intrusions, for which I am most grateful ...’ ‘In addition,’ Mr Masters writes, ‘there have been a great number of people who have been willing to share their reminiscences with me, and I trust they ...”