Sunday 29th March 2026

10.30 at Tate Britain for Turner and Constable, followed by lunch at Soho House. 6pm Sir David Cannadine’s Lecture on Paul Mellon at the Royal Academy under the aegis of the World Monuments Fund, British branch.

What a gruelling programme. Although, amazingly, I found myself back in the drawing room at 1.30, such is Ed Jasper’s scheduling. So there was quite an interval, in which to attend to Estate Business, re-outfit and re-align for the evening function.

Turner and Constable – well, it’s new to me, the idea of an exhib being compare and contrast as if a school task, with inevitably an invidious element. I’ll get straight to the point. Constable won. Since the question was asked, beside Constable, Turner came off rather noisy and wild, a little exhausting. I believe he was an impossible guest and tremendously anti-social. He added a huge sun to one pic minutes before Queen Victoria arrived to view. His painting was still wet in the Presence. Just imagine if she’d got paint on her frock.

The small paintings of Constable are some of the loveliest things known. Mostly they are in private hands so you must rush to the Tate Britain to see them. It was darling K Clark who first dared to suggest the huge vehicular works of Constable such as ‘The Haywain’ were rather overworked and the prelim sketches much livelier. So true. Poor Constable, when alive, was much put upon and endlessly being told to be more like Turner, advice he didn’t entirely resist. Many of his big works are in the exhibit, along with the smaller initial versions. In his way Constable was just as bold and experimental as Turner but much more preoccupied with the ordinary and the everyday. The best little paintings are moments of stunning revelation. There is the immediate recognition: this is what it must have looked like. But at the same time, the knowledge that nobody has ever seen it like this before.

In the evening Sir David Cannadine lectured on Paul Mellon at the Royal Academy. For a free event there was an incredible air of elite philanthropy. Paul Mellon was a billionaire who gave and gave. His wife was called Bunny. She gave too. Sir Cannadine managed not to mention that he was mainly a horse person. The great thing was he wasn’t ruined by unlimited fortune. He gave and did not count the cost or demand further interference. Nor was the purpose to erect a mausoleum to himself in his own lifetime. He funded unglamorous low-key things that nobody else was interested in – such as the updating the Pevsner guides to the Buildings of England, which the publisher Allen Lane pulled out of.

During questions I longed to ask: ‘How much did he actually have?’ Sir Simon Jenkins was present. Royston King thought he was looking wrecked. We looked him up and found him to be 82, whereupon Royston King thought him less wrecked. During questions, Sir Simon Jenkins said there will be a huge crisis within the next ten years for the parish churches. What is to be done? How can they be kept going?

We had to go to Charleston to see the Gay Granny’s Roger Fry. Royston King was asked to join the party. His enthusiasm was high on the Wednesday but by the Friday he was not seeing the point of extensive travel to see a painting to which he had no direct link.

The Gay Granny’s parents bought the Roger Fry off a man who went bankrupt, along with a lot of Empire furniture, which we still have. The Gay Granny left the Roger Fry to Cousin Pinny who always loved it. In turn it was passed to her children. They thought it needed restoring and took it to precious Philip Mold. Who at once roared and offered £££££££. Luckily they had the sense to go round to Bonhams who said they could do better. It was sold last summer with huge fanfare. Lead item in Bonham’s catalogue. Essay provided by grand art historian. The Gay Mother couldn’t believe it. It had hung in her grandparents’ London hall. It was thought nice for a modern painting. V. much taken for granted.

At Bonham’s it sold for £100,000. To, it turns out, darling Philip Mold anyway. Charleston had asked that whomever bought it would lend it for their Roger Fry exhib. So there it was.

It’s an important Roger Fry, one of only five he did for an exhib in 1917 when he couldn’t travel to Europe and do his usual kind of painting of Provence and the like.

It’s got lines and planes and thrust and dynamism. It was thrilling to see it again, probably for the last time, and pay deep abeyance. The Maharajah and Robert Nevil were also pleased with it, compared to the other still life paintings. Roger Fry did rather thick black lines. The revelation was his portraits which are superb. There was one of Margery Fry, his sister. The strange thing is the Gay Granny knew Margery Fry through Good Works. She often rode in a taxi with her during the War.

We lunched in the lunch barn at Charleston. The Maharajah begged to be let off coleslaw from his set plate. But they said it wasn’t the kind of place where you could expect bespoke fancification, such as not having colesaw.

Have you ever met anybody who likes coleslaw?

We motored on to Lewes – or rather batteried, as the new Official Car is electric. Motoring is no more as no motor. The Charity shops were seething. We could have bought everything but didn’t. There was another exhibi to be seen called The Two Roberts. This was at the town branch of Charleston. Dreadful old semi-delerict former municipal building. Exactly the same cakes on offer as at Charleston proper. Art-type lady on the till with no idea of how to work the till. The Two Roberts were some inter-War painting Gays who came to a bad end – or at least one of them did. Entering the town in the Official Car we saw the author of a book about them walking on the pavement. His book is called The Two Roberts. Needless to say, the Maharajah and Robert Nevil know him. A classic acquaintance of the Maharajah and Robert Nevil.

The Two Roberts: their work is not beautiful but great. Thick black lines.