Ernest Egbert Blyth, Last Mayor & First Lord Mayor of Norwich 1911

Here we have William Orpen's oil painting of Ernest Egbert Blyth, the Last Mayor and First Lord Mayor of Norwich. It's the kind of painting where you can really get lost in the brushstrokes. Orpen doesn't hide anything, he lets you see how the painting was made. Look at the way he’s rendered that fur trim on Blyth's mayoral robes - it’s practically jumping off the canvas! You can almost feel the texture, the way the light catches those little hairs. It's like Orpen wanted to bring that plushness right into our space. Then there's the crispness of that lace collar, all those delicate layers rendered with incredible precision. The overall effect is one of both grandeur and intimacy, the kind of back and forth that you see in Sargent. It's that tension, the pull between detail and the bigger picture, that makes the painting so engaging. What does this tell us about power? What does it mean to be a public figure? It's all in the painting, waiting for us to ask the questions.