Death Called to the Bar by David Dickinson

was. He had planned
a route round some of the more dramatic pictures, the ones that should interest a newcomer. The armour he had resolved to ignore, and the furniture he would leave to the end. Edward was bored to
tears by armoires and escritoires and secretaires and writing tables and garderobes and commodes and wardrobes. He led them rapidly across the hall and into the Housekeeper’s Room.
    ‘This one,’ he whispered, ‘very bloody, but very dramatic. Painter French Romantic, name of Delacroix. Called The Execution of Doge Marin Falier .’
    The painting showed the interior courtyard or loggia of a great Venetian palace. White marble stairs led up to a higher level. Lining the stairs and crowded round a figure at the top were
noblemen, some dressed in rich costumes. A beautifully dressed Moor with an orange headband stared into the courtyard below, as if he were expecting trouble. At the top a Venetian senator held
aloft a bloody sword. At the bottom of the steps, a few feet from the supercilious Moor, the headless body of the former Doge Marin Falier lay flat on the ground.
    ‘What’s going on, Edward? Why did this poor man have his head chopped off?’
    ‘Falier Doge of Venice. Meant to be constitutional ruler like our King Edward. Power very limited. Falier wanted to smash the constitution and make himself tyrant. Nobles found out. Nobles
cut his head off. Byron wrote poem about it. Byron fond of blood and gore. Painter probably knew poem. Painter also fond of blood and gore, probably fonder even than Byron.’
    Sarah looked closely at Edward who was perspiring lightly from all this conversation. She hoped it wasn’t going to make him ill.
    ‘Going somewhere bit more peaceful now. Still Venice.’ Edward led the way into the small drawing room where a pair of unusually large Canalettos looked across the Basin of St Mark
from opposite directions. One showed the view from the mouth of the Giudecca Canal with the Customs House on the left out to Palladio’s Church of San Giorgio Maggiore. The companion piece
looked out from the steps of San Giorgio back to the mouth of the Giudecca Canal. The water was pale green, the sky a light blue with fluffy clouds. Small groups of Venetians discussed their
business on the quays. Gondolas carried cloaked men and bales of cargo across the bay. A couple of sailing boats lurked at the edges of the picture. The great Venetian symbols, the Doge’s
Palace and the huge baroque dome of Santa Maria della Salute, reminded the viewer of the topography of the city. In both paintings there was an air of great calm as if Venice were at peace with
itself and the world, as if these scenes had existed for hundreds of years past and would go on for hundreds of years into the future.
    Again that hand briefly on Edward’s arm. ‘It’s so beautiful,’ said Sarah. ‘I would so much like to go to Venice, wouldn’t you, Edward?’
    Edward nodded. ‘English on Grand Tour bought Canalettos,’ he said, ‘like photographs on your holiday. Only in colour. Time for some froth and fluff now.’
    So far, Edward hoped, Sarah had not realized how deliberate their itinerary was. Edward was taking them to the places where he had done his homework. If Sarah had wanted to stop in front of the
Greuzes or the Watteaus, Edward would have been lost for words. As it was he was heading straight for Fragonard.
    ‘ The Swing ,’ he said quietly. ‘Frenchman. Eighteenth-century. Name of Fragonard.’
    In a dreamy forest of varying shades of green an attractive girl rode on a swing, dressed in layers of pink silk. Behind her, in the shade, an elderly gentleman in a dark green suit controlled
the strings of the swing. Convention dictated that he was her husband. And on the far side of the girl, who was hiding him from sight of her husband, stood a handsome young lover in a pale green
suit with a flower in his buttonhole, his hand stretched out towards the girl. One of her feet was much higher than