Recollecting two days later.
1) Tea was so good at the Richmond Tea Rooms that I returned for breakfast. I was the third customer of the morning; already two blond gentlemen speaking in a Scandinavian or Slavic language I could not identify were talking over their coffee at a table, but other than they, it was just me and the waitress.
1a) Really, a scrumptious little breakfast, latte and Eggs Royale, while scrolling the news.
1b) You find what’s right, and you stick with it, and in Manchester, that was definitely this whimsical little place.
2) The Manchester Art Gallery was directly across the street from my hotel; probably that’s why I chose the hotel. And this was the right morning to toddle through it. What wonders, what delights! The Pre-Raphaelite painters denied us in Birmingham (because of the museum renovations) were here displayed confidently in the permanent collection. But also Etty, Tissot, Watts, Augustus John. My happy moment of surprise came when I recognized Hylas and the Nymphs in one of the galleries (see above).
The Sirens and Ulysses (detail), by William Etty.
2a) Etty, a painter of whom I learned only in the last couple years, can generally be counted on for pulchritude, but even I was surprised by his The Sirens and Ulysses. This was practically Tom of Finland . . .
A teapot by Simon Bayliss (2021), part of an exhibition about tea.
2b) The museum consists of an older building joined to a newer one with an atrium of glass and steel containing a large staircase surrounding the elevators. In the new building a couple of the galleries had been set up as storerooms, with sculpture and other works on view as though they were being uncrated, part of the museum’s examination of issues of provenance (I hope I am describing this correctly). Hard to believe it was almost 40 years ago (!) that MFA Boston did a sort-of similar exhibition of stuff from the storerooms: items from the museum’s original collections, original works of art exhibited alongside copies and forgeries both, art too fragile to be on view very often (a sculpture of fluorescent tubes, an 1860s ballgown), art and furniture once fashionable, now risible. I wish they’d do it again.
Katherine of Aragon and the Cardinals. Are they negotiating a playlist for their next gig?
3) Unusually worn out, I spent the afternoon mostly asleep. With Manchester so chilly and rainy, my room was the warmest and coziest place to be.
4) In the evening my local friend, C_____, met me for a drink, and we walked to a nearby restaurant for an early dinner. It was he who had recommended the Richmond Tea Room to me, and he gave me more info on Life In Manchester and other recommendations over an excellent dinner. (My goodness, the arancini in that restaurant, om nom nom.)
5) And that’s it. Not a very active day — breakfast, museum, NAP, dinner with a friend — but most excellent.
