On Tuesday 3rd November in the Ballroom, Guildhall Arts Centre, join us for our next Special Interest Day on one of the most influential groups of painters: The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. Start time 10am for 10.30am - 3pm approximate finish.

In love with the romance of the High Middle Ages, a group of seven young men banded together in 1848 to overthrow the stuffy teachings promulgated at the Royal Academy in favour of a new art. Retreating from the ugly realities of the industrial age, the Pre-Raphaelites were in love with an idealised vision of the medieval world; of knights and jousts, damsels in castles, courtly love and pilgrimage, their paintings found patrons in mid-Victorian England, and ironically, among captains of industry and commerce. Many of us many remember the popular appeal of the movement in our youth. As a teenager in the 1970s you may have watched The Love School, a BBC drama series which revved up the account of the thrill-seeking young men and the “stunners” who modelled for them. Or you may have seen Desperate Romantics in the naughties (2009), with Aidan Turner as Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Their appeal continues to the present day with Taylor Swift’s The Fate of Ophelia, which owes much more to the Pre-Raphaelites than Shakespeare..

Lucrezia Walker Is a regular lecturer at the National Gallery. She is adjunct professor of art history for the University of North Carolina's Study Abroad semesters in London. She was Lay Canon for the Visual Arts at St Paul's Cathedral 2010-2014.

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This lecture explores the way in which the East India Company developed its methods of trade and facilitated the increasingly sophisticated and profound exchange of ideas between East and West. It focuses on textile design as the vehicle for this analysis, but also includes other works, such as wallpaper, porcelain and furniture, as well as the vast commercial trade in spice and tea. Examining first the 17th century textile trade with India, the lecture shows how the East India Company established a methodology for sending out patterns to be copied by the local weavers and dyers, paving the way for the production of chintz – now considered to be a classic expression of English style. The lecture then turns to the 18th century and the trade with China. Using the same methodology of sending out Western patterns to be copied for export goods, the Company rapidly expanded operations in the Far East. The currency and balance of trade with China is examined, and methods of production are illustrated with a number of Chinese export pieces, predominantly Chinese painted silks but also including furniture and porcelain. The distinction is then drawn between Chinese export and Chinoiserie, a fantasy style produced by Western artists and designers based on the exoticism of China – known to Westerners as ‘Cathay’ – and combining with the prevailing Baroque and Rococo styles in Western design.