I’m not sure I was supposed to be there, but I found myself looking for Henry Cobbe and his party at the Royal Academy.

As I wondered from room to room – I was amazed not just by the conviviality of the paintings

but by the pity

by the violence

by the lust

by the eroticism

by the debauchery

by the dignity

and by how Reubens had influenced so many of my favourite painters

from Renoir

to Freud

to Bacon