Sotheby’s

Lois and I were in the vibrant Sant’Ambrogio food market near our apartment in Florence on Saturday on a marvellously warm and sunny morning, enjoying the shops and stalls, buying flowers, taking a coffee — and savouring a moment of serendipity, (which my dictionary defines as ‘good luck in making unexpected and fortunate discoveries.’) For, while Lois was browsing in flea market, I was reading The Times online about a Botticelli painting which has been ‘hidden’ from public view for more than a century. And it’s connected to the Sant’Ambrogio church, just around the corner from where I was standing.

It was bought in 1904 by Harriet Sarah Jones Loyd Lindsay, Lady Wantage. She paid £5,000 for it, and there has been some dispute ever since about whether it is a genuine Botticelli or merely ‘from the school of Botticelli.’ Recent research, however, has confirmed that The Virgin Mary with the Christ Child Enthroned is an early painting by the master’s own hand and it will go on sale at Sotheby’s with a valuation of up to £3 million. I am not normally a great fan of Madonna and Child paintings, but the next time we pass the church we will pop in for a quick look at the altarpiece.

We haven’t got any Botticelli’s In our bedrooms, we do have original artworks in all our rooms and we love you to come and enjoy them.

(Incidentally, above must be the longest opening sentence I have written for many a year (54!), and Harriet Sarah Jones Loyd Lindsay, Lady Wantage, the longest name.)