Notes & Queries response - Is there a way I can tell if a relationship is right for me?
image generated by Craiyon Engagement Banquet at Aijtimaeat Kathira Market , painted in situ, in cold oils, by George Groves, in 1824, recently sold at Christie's for £5million and change, plus commission at both ends. The following day I met the painting's former owner, Mark Beaudoin. (It was not a chance meeting – we live in the same neighbourhood and consistently bump into each other). He parted with the artwork out of financial necessity in 2008 for the measly sum of £750,000. The painting depicts the engagement dinner of Miss Violet Auld - a distant grandmother of Beaudoin's, many generations removed, on his mother's side of the family. Also reluctantly present is her husband to be, Douglas Edden. His apparent regret at taking matters as far as they had gone is overlooked by the artist, who specialised in painting mass gatherings as if they were landscapes. The banquet, as the title of the painting states, was held on at Aijtimaeat Kathira (Many Meetings), once a t...