The National Portrait Gallery

If anyone out there didn't get a chance to spend more time at the National Portrait Gallery or didn't get to it. . . .GO! We spent just a little bit of time here as a group looking for the portrait of Shakespeare on our "scavenger hunt" for Shakespeare's image, and I'm so glad we went here.

After having a pint and some food at the pub, I decided I wanted to go back to the NPG to look around some more. PHEW! What an amazing place!

When I went back I started with the Tudor room. In this room you will find the famous portrait of Anne Boleyn (with that famous "B" necklace), pictures of other wives of Henry VIII and, of course, Henry VIII himself. It was interesting to look at his son's portrait, Edward. It was close to the portrait of Henry, and it talked about how Edward is positioned much like his father's portrait because they wanted to make him "look like a king," even though he was a very young boy.

In the room were also three different pictures of Elizabeth I at different stages in her life. One at her coronation, one when she's a bit older, and one very large one when she's much older.

Also, in the NPG you'll find the only portrait of Jane Austen made in her time. It's very small though. . . .still interesting.

On the first level you'll find what I returned for. . . .the famous portrait of Charlotte, Emily, and Anne Bronte painted by their brother, Patrick Branwell Bronte. If you've seen a picture of the Bronte sisters, you've most likely seen this one. What's so intersting about it is that obviously Branwell painted himelf into the portrait. For some reason though, he earsed himself from it. However, you can still see the faint outline of his image between Charlotte and Emily. Branwell Bronte has all kind of problems in his life, and he basically drank himself to death. So this portrait and I spent a lot of quality time together. I just sat there and took it in.

I also went back for another Charlotte Bronte portrait, but it was taken down and replaced with different painting done but the same artist. Boo. :-(

So there's so much more to see at the NPG if you didn't make it there! I highly reccommened it!! :-)