The Easel

28th July 2026

Flora Indica unearths botanical drawings. They were lost to colonialism for two centuries

Almin Khatoon | The Print | 9th March 2026

As the East India Company expanded in 19th century India, it funded local artists to document unknown plants. Huge quantities of this botanical art went back to Britain in the search for plants with commercial potential. This art was often intricate and displayed a “compositional sensibility rooted in [Indian] traditions”. In a long “bureaucratic afterlife” back in Britain the work fell into obscurity. Botanical classification became a “system of forgetting“. A review of a related book is here.

21st July 2026

This Novel Traces Painter Richard Dadd’s Descent into Madness and Murder

Jemima Skala | AnOther | 13th July 2026

Dadd was a promising artist and “the toast of the town” after the Royal Academy in 1841. Soon after, a tour of the Mediterranean transformed his work but triggered psychosis and, on returning to London, he murdered his father. Confined to psychiatric hospitals from then on,  he produced according to one writer great art that has an “ethereal, profoundly sad beauty”. Dadd’s story is a tragedy that befell a talented person. His story also queries how day to day life and an artistic vision are linked, or not. Images are here.

Buckingham Palace’s Royal Picture Gallery Revives the Salon-Style Hang, Doubling the Number of Masterpieces on View

Christian Thorsberg | Smithsonian Magazine | 16th July 2026

King Charles’ art collection (the one held in trust for the nation) is stonking – Leonardo’s drawings, Vermeer, multiple Rembrandts. A re-hang happens only once every few decades, so the current one is a big deal. It’s not in the style of a white walled gallery but rather “salon” style with the collection’s “best bits” displayed in rows up the walls. Charles likes it this way, apparently. One critic, though, asks why the public are changed an entry fee, unlike “the [free] masterpieces down the road at the National Gallery”.

Older links