I have enjoyed many trips to London, and love bathing in its wonderful history, culture, museums and galleries.

The Royal Academy of Arts, Summer Exhibition, is one of my favourite destinations, with an absolute panorama of over 1,000 works of art to stimulate my artistic appetite.

Other London favourite “must see” galleries on my visits are the Courtauld Gallery at Somerset House, Tate Modern, and the Saatchi Gallery in Chelsea.

This year I was delighted to find a collection of Dutch Still Life artists from the 1600s, at the National Gallery. As a child I had always loved gazing at a book I had been given called “Art Treasures of the World.” I was fascinated by the compositions and botanical detail in the individual flowers painted. Jacob Vosmaer, Jan Brueghel, Willem van Aelst to name a few but a particular favourite artist had been Ambrosius Bosschaert the Elder and his “Still Life of Flowers in a Wan-Li Vase”.

Later visiting the gallery bookshop to my absolute joy, there was a Tee shirt with this painting printed on it …….of course I had to have it!