Ruth Leon recommends… Floris van Dijck – National Gallery

The Natonal Gallery’s Painting of the Month is this rare 1622 still life by Floris van Dijck, one of its newest acquisitions. After centuries in private collections, ‘A Banquet Still Life’ was bought by the Gallery in 2025 thanks to a legacy from Martha Doris Bailey, a Yorkshire teacher who believed art should benefit everyone.

Two of the Gallery’s enthusiastic and endearingly awkward young staffers, Meredith Loper, Legacy Manager, and Carlo Corsato, Project Curator, delve into Van Dijck’s ravishing banquet and its journey onto the Gallery’s walls, and explore the people and the food hidden behind this delicious feast which has been bought for the nation through Martha Bailey’s generousity.

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