The Imagined Lives of the Mystery Portraits

The National Portrait Gallery has recently been able to restore fourteen Tudor portraits which the gallery obtained in 1858. At the time, no information was found on these sitting in the paintings and therefore this resulted in them being removed from display.

However, the gallery has finally decided to bring these portraits back to life by inviting a number of prestigious authors to create imaginary lives for these figures. Authors such as Sir Terry Pratchett, Joanna Trollope and Minette Walters have written short stories, each depicting the lives in an alternative genre, all with equal brilliance.

Pratchett, for example, has written a humorous tale about an explorer who presented Elizabeth I with a skunk. Walters, however, uses the epistolary technique when portraying the despairing life of the wife of the male in the portrait, one which may give the viewer a negative approach to the figure.

It is fair to say that this is an extraordinary way to transform an unknown painting into something of fascination, and gives the portraits a new lease of life having a compelling context behind them.  Both text and image will be displayed in the National Portrait Gallery from December 3^rd 2011 until August 1^st 2012: a must for students interested in art, literature and the idea that, combined, they can create something magnificent.