I had one mission in London: Go to the Royal Academy of Art and see my great great (lots of greats) uncle's paintings. Sir Joshua Reynolds, check him out. He founded the Academy back in 1768 and painted portraits of the royal family and other rich people. There's a giant statue of him inside the Academy courtyard and he even looks like my mom's side of the family! I was getting really excited to go in and see his paintings but when I asked a museum guide where I could see them, he told me they were doing renovations and had put everything in storage. There was nothing to see. I wasn't too disappointed because I knew I'd be in Paris the following week and the Louvre would definitely have some of his work.
I've been to Paris once before on a school trip, and it was cold and rainy. That was about seven years ago, and I actually tried to see Reynold's paintings at the Louvre that time but got lost and ran out of time. This time, it wasn't raining in Paris but it was freezing! Too cold to enjoy walking around, and the flight timing made it hard to make any big plans. I took the hour train ride from the hotel into the city, braved walking a few frozen miles to the Louvre, and walked another thousand miles inside the museum to the British painting collection. That "collection" was a joke of less than twenty paintings, and not one was by my dear old uncle. I was so disappointed. Even seeing the Mona Lisa again didn't matter. I looked at her smug face for two seconds and decided to give up on art for the trip.
I wasn't surprised to see London on my roster for the next month. I've been there at least once a month since I started flying. Once again, I decided I'd try to see these paintings. This time, I'd go to the National Gallery because I specifically looked at their website and Reynolds paintings, and they were supposed to be there. With my luck, I wasn't getting my hopes up. Either the museum would be closed that day, or there would be a metro strike, or the museum would have been destroyed by a meteor just hours before I got there. I made it to Trafalgar Square a few minutes before the museum opened and got in line with the other early birds. Surprisingly (to me at least), there was no last minute decision to keep the gallery closed that day, the doors opened on time, and I was on my way inside.
I skipped past who knows how many masterpieces to find my uncle's paintings. I made it to the 1700s salon and started skimming over the paintings in search of something familiar. Then I saw it. Surrounded by a gaudy gold frame taller than me and right in the center of the gallery was a portrait of Colonel Tarleton painted by none other than Joshua Reynolds.
I found four other paintings of his in the galleries and even learned some random facts about him by reading the painting's captions, like that he had a pet parrot (see painting below). You would have thought I painted them all if you could feel how proud I felt looking at them and knowing that someone in my family made them.
It only took seven years since my first failed mission but I can finally cross seeing his paintings in person off my bucket list!
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