On the Road: Huntington Museums

Visited the Huntington Library, museums, and botanical gardens today. What a fabulous place. I could have spent three days there. The art collections are focused on portraits by the likes of Romney, Lawrence, Reynolds, and Gainsbourough, which can be rather too fussy for my taste, but the examples here are pretty much the cream of the crop. I really enjoyed the Joshua Reynolds portrait of Mrs. Siddons, a nice portrait of Mrs. Hamilton (knowing her story from That Hamilton Woman), and a few others, notably this Allan Ramsay painting of a young woman with a parrot. She is not a pretty woman, but she has a fascinating face. I didn't realize that "The Blue Boy" is here. I really liked this bust of Cromwell, too, with the head of Medusa.

They allow photography in the galleries. It's remarkable how well you can record things with a modern digital camera.

The botanical gardens were a bit disappointing just because I was hoping to see some unusual birds, but didn't (saw a black phoebe, a rufus hummingbird, and a mockingbird, but mostly sparrows). Having said that, the cacti and succulent collection is pretty amazing. I'm not being at all fair. This will require another extended visit on another trip. It would be easy to spend a day just in the gardens.