Ravishing Images, the lecturer's favourite talk. That says it all.
"Mrs Treslove has been sitting and we have got on pretty well- but she left me at two.... (The Tresloves) are going out of town for a week so this will stop my picture". John Constable to his wife Maria in Putney Heath, May 1826.
Until 2019, when it was brought to Sarah Cove ACR for cleaning and restoration, the whereabouts of Constable's sumptuous portrait of his neighbour in Charlotte Street, Mrs Emily Treslove, was unknown. It had come down through five generations of her family to the present owners along with a volume of her Diaries and a jewel from the flashy parure of garnet and pearl jewellery given to her by her husband Thomas Treslove QC on 7th March 1825.
This is a story illustrating how the technical study of Constable's paintings, alongside his letters and the sitter's diaries, widens our understanding of his portrait practice and the frivolity of the nouveau riche in the early 19th century.
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THE ARTS SOCIETY ACCREDITED LECTURER

Ms Sarah Cove
Sarah Cove is an accredited paintings conservator-restorer, technical art historian and lecturer with more than 35 years’ experience working on paintings for the heritage and private sectors. She is based in London and Falmouth and is a specialist in British portraits, 19th-20th century British landscapes and oil sketches on paper and board. In 1986 she founded the Constable Research Project and she is now the leading authority on Constable’s materials and techniques. She has appeared in several TV programmes for the BBC notably Constable in Love with Andrew Graham-Dixon and twice on Fake or Fortune? where she was instrumental in the discovery of 3 ‘lost’ Constables. Other research interests include Tudor and Jacobean Portraiture, the 19th century Newlyn and St Ives schools and early-to-mid 20th century British painting generally. She has been a lecturer for The Arts Society since 2003 and is an experienced international speaker having lectured independently at major public and gallery venues across the UK, USA, Australia and New Zealand. Her presentations are lively and enthusiastic as she speaks without notes with an inimitable passion that comes from presenting her own work and research with wonderful images.
OTHER EVENTS
This lecture celebrates the 400th Anniversary of Charles I's accession to the throne in 1625.
How can you best understand one of the most prolific, complex and influential painters of the 20th century?