My photograph above shows the copy known as The "Drake" version, and currently forms part of the collection of the Royal Museums Greenwich. It was purchased from Sir Francis Drake’s descendants for the nation for £10.3 million in July 2016 after an appeal by the Art Fund.

Behind Gloriana are two seascapes: the left showing the English fireships menacing the Spanish fleet, while the right hand scene shows the Spanish fleet dashed upon the rocky coast of Ireland by the "Protestant Wind."

I absolutely love the Art Deco style of architecture, painting and fashion, so today I would like to post a few images of painting by the wonderful Tamara de Łempicka. I hope you like them.

Here are a few paintings for you from painter David Bomberg, one of the Whitechapel Boys. These four paintings, Vision of Ezekiel, Ju-Jitsu, In the Hold, and The Mud Bath, are from the period 1912-14. If you are interested in his work, why not check out the Borough Road Gallery, which has a collection of paintings and images by Bomberg and his pupils, and which is situated in the same building where Bomberg's classes took place.

The sun is shining in London, and we've been without rain for what feels like forever, and today has been a wonderful day. So, to celebrate, I'm posting Van Gogh's Olive Trees with Yellow Sky and Sun from November 1889.

Another beautiful painting for you all: the atmospheric Lady of Shalott by English Pre-Raphaelite painter John William Waterhouse. The picture illustrates the following lines from part IV of Tennyson's 'The Lady of Shalott':

And down the river's dim expanse
Like some bold seer in a trance,
Seeing all his own mischance -
With glassy countenance
Did she look to Camelot.
And at the closing of the day
She loosed the chain, and down she lay;
The broad stream bore her far away,
The Lady of Shalott.

I remember seeing this image when I was young on a school trip to the National Gallery in London. It is called The Tailor, and is by the Italian painter Giovanni Battista Moroni.

I rediscoverd it yesterday when a friend showed me a book about Italian painters.

On a recent walk in North London, I stumbled upon Bruce Castle Museum. It was a wonderful place, with exhibitions, a Vintage fair, and lovely grounds. One of the exhibitions was about a painter, Beatrice Offor, who had exhibited at the Royal Academy.

Beatrice had an eventful life. She studyed at the Slade School of Art, and while there, she shared a studio with Mina Bergson, one of the founders of the Esoteric Order of the Golden Dawn, an association which influenced some of her paintings (see The Crystal Gazer at Bruce Castle). Offor lived in Chelsea with her first husband, William Farran Littler, and exhibited from her King's Road Studio address.

Her two children by Littler died very young, and Littler himself died in1898 in the Banstead Asylum. Offor went on to marry James P. Bevan, from Bruce grove, Tottenham. She had further exhibits at the Royal Academy, including the painting Circe. In 1919, Offor suffered a nervous breakdown, and on the 6th August the following year, she threw herself to her death from her bedroom window: she thought she was loosing her talent!

Beatrice Offer was burried in Lewisham.

The exhibition, Beatirce Offor: A Tottenham Artist, will be on at Bruce Castle from 17 July – 29 September 2013 in the Compton Gallery. Check out this link for further details.

Love this great painting currently in the Guildhall, London. It is called After the Murder, and was painted by John Collier. It is a representation of Klytemnestra just after she kills her husband, Agamemnon. Beneath that, is the legendary Polish contralto Ewa Podles singing Klytemnestra's soliloquy from Richard Strauss' Elektra. Enjoy!

Just trawling the internet and inadvertently came across this painting. It is a self portrait by the French painter Léon Cogniet.

Coginet was born in Paris in 1794, and died there in 1880. He decorated several ceilings in the Louvre and the Halle de Godiaque in the Hôtel de Ville, Paris, and a chapel in the church of Madeleine.

Below is a painting of Léon Cogniet's studio, painted by his sister Marie-Amelie Cogniet, who's work can also be seen at Versailles.