Time to fess up: not a word of it was true. I hope you enjoyed my April Fool. Here are the correct details for those wonderful paintings.
sheep
His second vast canvas almost brings him to financial and artistic failure, but he recovers.
Full membership of the Royal Academy, a gigantic landscape of the sublime, and several important commissions: the peak of his career.
One of the major figures in British painting in the first half of the 1800s, but usually ignored today. His oil sketches are exceptional.
A precocious painter who became more famous in Britain than in her native France, she liked painting powerful animals like oxen and lions.
It wasn’t until later in his career that he discovered his formula for success: putting farm animals into his landscapes.
An explanation and apology for yesterday’s April foolery: and the paintings correctly attributed.
Is next (Chinese New) year the Year of the Sheep or Goat?