Beauty is fleeting. If I’d been looking five minutes earlier, or later, I’d have missed this strange little golden shadow falling across my great-great-great-aunt’s picture. (There are two stained-glass suncatchers hanging in the window, one representing a bee and the other an oblong rainbow: together they make an angel.) That said, she’s been looking beautiful in this portrait for a hundred and sixty years. Either way, I suppose it’s a case of looking, and appreciating when you see it.
Kathleen Jowitt 