My Favourite Painting: Annoushka Ducas
Jewellery designer Annoushka Ducas chooses a René Magritte painting which hangs in the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
My Favourite painting series, from Country Life
Jewellery designer Annoushka Ducas chooses a René Magritte painting which hangs in the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
Tim Hands chooses a wonderfully warm portrait of one of the most loved thinkers of the Victorian era.
'There is a sublime and sensual beauty about all aspects of this painting.'
Artist and collector Viktor Wynd chooses a haunting picture by Austin Osman Spare.
'This exquisitely decorated painting with a young, ginger-haired man screwing up his face, expressing disgust, and also fear, suggested by the whites of his eyes – such a vivid detail.'
'The setting sun pulses, the motion in the waves and figures is slowly rhythmic and the mountains float on the horizon.'
'An extraordinary statement on the intoxicating power of art,' says Hartwig Fischer as he chooses 'Untitled' by Cy Twombly as his favourite painting.
Tim Parker, chairman of the National Trust, chooses a right royal rarity: Goya's painting of the Spanish king and his family depicted as normal people, rather than leaders and figureheads.
The broadcaster John Humphrys on his choice of a classic Turner picture.
A painting which was inspired by the best-selling novel Ben Hur — and which went on to inspire the famous 1959 film — is the choice of James O'Donnell after his chance encounter one afternoon.
'Our West Highland terrier stood in for the cat; Anna put on a big hat, but, to my regret, I never got round to buying a spotty dressing gown.'
Courtney Love chooses the Chi Rho page from The Book of Kells.
'There should be one point of simple, enticing clarity – a pickled walnut, perhaps, which is what I most strongly associate with this image – that compels you to dive in. Come! Commune with the pickled walnut!'
'It’s an image of great tenderness; Gainsborough painting for himself and his adored wife, not for a rich patron.'
'In the foreground of the new version (currently at the Saatchi Gallery), our late father’s hat can be glimpsed above a deck chair–as it turned out, he was watching his last game of cricket.'
'One cannot sense whether he is far out on the ocean or closer to shore, or what he may be watching or feeling in that moment as he stares towards the beach.’