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Dr Bendor Grosvenor FRHistS @bendorgrosvenor.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

Ten years ago today, the first episode of Britain's Lost Masterpieces* was on BBC4. Here's a thread of all the pictures we featured, with the new attributions and before & after photos. (*internationally, Amazon Prime etc, as 'The Art Detectives')

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Dr Bendor Grosvenor FRHistS @bendorgrosvenor.bsky.social · 11/07/2026

For The Art Newspaper, I wrote about writing about art.

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Dr Bendor Grosvenor FRHistS @bendorgrosvenor.bsky.social · 05/07/2026

I’m interested in how a career politician who owns a controlling stake in, and is a director of, a political party of which he is also President, can describe himself as ‘not actively involved in politics’. Can anyone help?

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Dr Bendor Grosvenor FRHistS @bendorgrosvenor.bsky.social · 25/06/2026

Today on the Royal Academy connoisseurship course, we took students to the British Museum’s wonderful Prints and Drawings room. One task was to show why one of these drawings is by Raphael, and the other a copy. Try yourself!

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Dr Bendor Grosvenor FRHistS @bendorgrosvenor.bsky.social · 21/06/2026

To London with a car full of pictures for my annual connoisseurship course at the Royal Academy. Ninth year I’ve taught it.

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Dr Bendor Grosvenor FRHistS @bendorgrosvenor.bsky.social · 29/05/2026

Two major omissions from Blair's essay: decline in UK manufacturing, and house price inflation. Both were happening when he was PM, and explain many of our problems today. He has no solution for it now, because he let it happen then.

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Dr Bendor Grosvenor FRHistS @bendorgrosvenor.bsky.social · 05/05/2026

Began work today on the paperback of The Invention of British Art.

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Dr Bendor Grosvenor FRHistS @bendorgrosvenor.bsky.social · 04/05/2026

What did you think of the recent 'AI identifies Anne Boleyn' story? The claim (in a new Nature article, link in 🧵) is that the drawing on the left is wrongly labelled as Anne, and the drawing on the right is more likely her, based on AI and facial recognition. 1/

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Dr Bendor Grosvenor FRHistS @bendorgrosvenor.bsky.social · 28/04/2026

Amazing price for this fragment of an Artemisia Gentileschi at Dorotheum - €837,500. If you’ve got the missing bit, ‘come on down…’

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Dr Bendor Grosvenor FRHistS @bendorgrosvenor.bsky.social · 27/04/2026

A fine example of the North Eastern Railway tile maps of c.1910. Then, you could steam to Berwick-upon-Tweed from London in about 7 hours. Today (thanks to recent LNER timetable changes) it’s about 3hr50 mins, taking us back to journey times last seen in the late 1970s.

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Dr Bendor Grosvenor FRHistS @bendorgrosvenor.bsky.social · 08/04/2026

If Trump’s now fine with Iran charging for access to the Straits of Hormuz, perhaps we could get in on the action with the Strait of Dover. A little toll booth on the Goodwin Sands.

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Dr Bendor Grosvenor FRHistS @bendorgrosvenor.bsky.social · 20/03/2026

This week we discuss the ‘De Ganay’ version of the Salvator Mundi - Leonardo, or just workshop? podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/w...

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Dr Bendor Grosvenor FRHistS @bendorgrosvenor.bsky.social · 13/03/2026

Andrew Graham-Dixon and yours truly talking art at Words by the Water in the Lake District. (Andrew’s book on Vermeer by the way is superb and well worth an order).

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Dr Bendor Grosvenor FRHistS @bendorgrosvenor.bsky.social · 11/03/2026

If you ever need a word to shake money out of tech VCs, try 'pyschographic'.

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Dr Bendor Grosvenor FRHistS @bendorgrosvenor.bsky.social · 11/03/2026

The ‘de Brecy Tondo’, once hailed by AI as an undoubted Raphael, has been quietly (and correctly) sold at auction as a later copy for £13k.

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Dr Bendor Grosvenor FRHistS @bendorgrosvenor.bsky.social · 10/03/2026

Next Thursday, 19th March, I'm talking at the King's Lynn festival, on The Invention of British Art. See you there! www.kingslynnfestival.org.uk/whats-on/tal...

kingslynnfestival.org.uk

Talk: Bendor Grosvenor on

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Dr Bendor Grosvenor FRHistS @bendorgrosvenor.bsky.social · 27/02/2026

My main conclusion from Gorton and Denton so far is that the punditocracy has little idea of what’s going on. They are as invested in, and connected to, the old system as the old parties.

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Dr Bendor Grosvenor FRHistS @bendorgrosvenor.bsky.social · 27/02/2026

Suspect the chance that something odiously fatal to the PM is found in the Mandelson documents have increased this morning. (And sacking the Cabinet Secretary responsible for handing the papers over might not have been too clever either).

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Dr Bendor Grosvenor FRHistS @bendorgrosvenor.bsky.social · 19/02/2026

Our national embarrassments come thick and fast these days, but today I think Blair’s performance at Trump’s ‘Board of Peace’ was even more cringe than the arrest of Mr M-W.

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Reposted by Dr Bendor Grosvenor FRHistS

cmillerartlife.bsky.social @cmillerartlife.bsky.social · 15/02/2026

Wish I'd heard this before visiting Tate Turner Constable exh. Brilliant discussion of Constable which makes you look at his work with fresh eyes

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Dr Bendor Grosvenor FRHistS @bendorgrosvenor.bsky.social · 15/02/2026

If you wanted to argue Britain is becoming an un-developing country, flying from Zurich Airport (runs like a Rolex, part state-owned) into Edinburgh Airport (grim, filthy, owned by BlackRock) would be a good place to start.

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Dr Bendor Grosvenor FRHistS @bendorgrosvenor.bsky.social · 13/02/2026

Goodness I feel sorry for all those figure skaters taking a tumble tonight. What pressure they must have been under. (And wasn’t the marking for Ilia a bit harsh? 15th??)

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Dr Bendor Grosvenor FRHistS @bendorgrosvenor.bsky.social · 13/02/2026

This week on the podcast; what made John Constable great? I discuss with Susan Owens, author of the excellent new book, ‘Constable’s Seasons’. *(Waldy and Bendy’s Adventures in Art, on all the usual platforms.)

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Dr Bendor Grosvenor FRHistS @bendorgrosvenor.bsky.social · 06/02/2026

The accepted wisdom seems to be that it was McSweeney who got Mandelson in. I wonder if it was, ultimately, Blair. Who, perhaps not unrelatedly, seems these days to spend much of his time shilling for US tech firms.

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Dr Bendor Grosvenor FRHistS @bendorgrosvenor.bsky.social · 05/02/2026

$27.2m for Michelangelo’s foot at Christie’s. That’s $1.15m per square inch.

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Dr Bendor Grosvenor FRHistS @bendorgrosvenor.bsky.social · 05/02/2026

Today on the podcast, I take a deep dive into Turner's extraordinary painting, 'The Burning of the Houses of Lords and Commons, October 16 1834'. And I ask, is it the beginning of modern art? Link in next post. 1/2

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Dr Bendor Grosvenor FRHistS @bendorgrosvenor.bsky.social · 03/02/2026

Anybody else finding Google Books has stopped working? I can't get a thing!

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Dr Bendor Grosvenor FRHistS @bendorgrosvenor.bsky.social · 02/02/2026

Would any of this Mandelson stuff matter a jot for the PM, if he'd had his own ideas about what to do in power? He tried to be Blair 2.0, and here we are.

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Dr Bendor Grosvenor FRHistS @bendorgrosvenor.bsky.social · 31/01/2026

Just a few seats left for this at Keswick on 12th March. I'll be talking about British landscape painting, the Lakes and Wordsworth. www.theatrebythelake.com/event/bendor...

theatrebythelake.com

Bendor Grosvenor: The Arts Society Cumbria 50th Anniversary Lecture - Theatre by the Lake

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Dr Bendor Grosvenor FRHistS @bendorgrosvenor.bsky.social · 29/01/2026

This week's podcast is on the Wilton Diptych; what it's all about and who may have painted it. podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/w...

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Dr Bendor Grosvenor FRHistS @bendorgrosvenor.bsky.social · 29/01/2026

We tried The Mastermind but didn’t last long. It’s going straight into my top five worst films about art. Anyone make it to the end? (Though I’ll always be a massive Josh O’Connor fan).

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Dr Bendor Grosvenor FRHistS @bendorgrosvenor.bsky.social · 25/01/2026

Have a good Burns Night everyone. The first in which we can see him through the eyes of one of Scotland's greatest painters, Henry Raeburn.

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Dr Bendor Grosvenor FRHistS @bendorgrosvenor.bsky.social · 22/01/2026

Here’s the beginning of our film about Raeburn’s rediscovered portrait of Robert Burns. Watch the whole film at blackiehouse.org

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Dr Bendor Grosvenor FRHistS @bendorgrosvenor.bsky.social · 22/01/2026

This week on the podcast* I discuss the magic of art restoration with Simon Gillespie, including some of his triumphs from the BBC series Britain's Lost Masterpieces. *(Waldy and Bendy's Adventures in Art, available on all the usual platforms).

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Dr Bendor Grosvenor FRHistS @bendorgrosvenor.bsky.social · 22/01/2026

There's a wonderful short film made by Ishbel Grosvenor all about the portrait and its discovery here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=StBu...

youtube.com

The Lost Portrait of Robert Burns by Sir Henry Raeburn

YouTube video by Blackie House Library and Museum

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Dr Bendor Grosvenor FRHistS @bendorgrosvenor.bsky.social · 22/01/2026

Some breaking art historical news for you - a lost portrait of Robert Burns by Sir Henry Raeburn was unveiled today at the National Gallery of Scotland in Edinburgh. It’s been missing for more than 200 years. 1/3

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Dr Bendor Grosvenor FRHistS @bendorgrosvenor.bsky.social · 15/01/2026

An extra special episode of Waldy & Bendy’s Adventures in Art this week, as we take a deep dive on Holbein’s Ambassadors. Available now on all the usual platforms. (Who needs Holbein when you’ve got ChatGPT?)

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Dr Bendor Grosvenor FRHistS @bendorgrosvenor.bsky.social · 13/01/2026

Our producer, Thea, is putting the finishing touches to our deep dive on Holbein's Ambassadors. We solve its mysteries - finally! Out Thursday.

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Dr Bendor Grosvenor FRHistS @bendorgrosvenor.bsky.social · 12/01/2026

What an amazing survival (from the Sint Janskerk in Gouda).

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Dr Bendor Grosvenor FRHistS @bendorgrosvenor.bsky.social · 12/01/2026

There seems to be an inverse correlation between the amount of time someone holds one of the great offices of state and their brazen lack of shame afterwards.

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Reposted by Dr Bendor Grosvenor FRHistS

Alasdair Mackenzie @alasdairmackenzie.bsky.social · 12/01/2026

“Could be cleared within a decade” seems not much of a boast in return for trashing people’s right to jury trial

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