 I'm Dora Thornton. I'm a curator at the British Museum and a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries. I really wanted to show you an incredible object that's been in the Society of Antiquaries' collection since 1781. It's full of resonances for British history and identity, and it's something which deserves a really close look. So I hope you'll enjoy looking at this picture with me. So this is a really remarkable painting. It's painted on two panels, and you're intended to open the painting up like a book and read from left to right. So the front panel, inscribed all around the outside, explains how the painting came to be made and what it is. So it explains that it is commissioned by Henry Farley, who was a lay clerk, a legal clerk in London, and painted by John Gitkin, who's known to us as a painter of pageants and theatre flats in Shakespeare's London. And it's dated 1616, so that's remarkable enough to have this long inscription all the way around the frame. And the view is a highly edited and interesting view of London in 1616. So what you see is the King of England, James I, and his Queen, Anne of Denmark, and they're at the top left of the painting, entering St Paul's Churchyard, because it's really, the whole painting is part of a propaganda plea for the restoration of Old St Paul's Cathedral. And so you see the King and his Queen entering St Paul's Churchyard, and their procession has come over London Bridge, which is the only bridge over the Thames at this point, and their Royal Retinue has travelled from the notorious suburb of Bankside on the South Bank, which we still know as a lively entertainment centre, and those days it was the Red Light District. And he went there for the playhouses, the first commercial theatres of Shakespeare's generation, and for the brothels and the bear pits and the pubs and the prisons. But what's really, really interesting is just how edited this view of London is, because if you look at Bankside, which was famous for its theatres, all the theatres, all the playhouses have been turned into churches, which is, I think, part of Henry Farley who commissioned the picture. I think this is part of his plea to turn this notorious Red Light District into a place of piety, as part of his propaganda purpose for the restoration of St Paul's Cathedral. But it's particularly ironic because John Gitkin, the painter, is famous to us for his work in the theatre and the playhouse, so it must have been quite an amusing little turn for him as a painter to have to turn the playhouses into churches. But there are other really fascinating details. On the actual Thames, you see ships carrying stone for the rebuilding of the cathedral. That's all part of the propaganda purpose. And streaming from this fantastic sunburst in the sky are biblical inscriptions in English giving God's approval for the restoration of the cathedral. And in the foreground are really another really fascinating detail. You see ships flying a very early form of the Union flag. And that's fascinating because it's playing up to James I's imperial vision for Britain. When he came down as James VI of Scotland to be James I of England, he tried desperately for the first few years of his reign to meld his two peoples into one new nation, the British. Something which was met with very deep distrust on both sides of the border. But it got as far as something called the Unite coinage in which he tried to address his people as the British. And also these flags for maritime shipping. So that's a really wonderful detail for a British imperial future that you see in the painting. But perhaps the best thing of all for me is the detail on the upper right side, which is an imaginary cloud. And if you look in tremendous detail, you'll see lying on the top of the cloud. Henry Farley, the man who has this vision, who commissioned this painting. Lying with his black hat by his side on his elbow looking like a melancholy poet. Looking down on the scene. So he is the person who is having this vision of the restoration of the cathedral. So that's all on the outside. This is the outer panel, the cover of you like, of this book-like painting. That panel opens on a hinge. And inside you are presented with two views of St Paul's Cathedral. As it was in Henry Farley's time in 1616. Looking rather grim and decayed as a late medieval Gothic building. Really rather sinister with crows flying around the tower. And you'll see that it's missing its fire because that disappeared in a lightning strike in 1561. And then on the other side, the final panel, a gloriously restored almost at the Inigo-Jones tower. Surrounded by angels trumpeting messages of success and goodwill for this restored cathedral. And it's much brighter and lighter. It's got new lights in the windows. It's cleaned up in every respect. So that's what he was aiming for James I to do to restore this cathedral in light of the latest architectural designs and make it into the glorious public monument that it should be. But looking at this picture first, the one that you open, which is on the left-hand side, you open the first panel, it's a really fascinating vision of St Paul's Cathedral as it was in Shakespeare's London. This is 1616, so the year of Shakespeare's death, and it's a good year to be thinking about that on the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare's death. And what you see is public preaching in this outside pulpit at St Paul's Cathedral, which of course was incredibly important as a royal propaganda tool. And this is also where the Gunpowder Plotters were executed after the Gunpowder Plotters 1605, 1606. So it's a very important public centre. And you see James I and his Queen sitting in a kind of royal box. And I love this detail. By the royal box, there are little choristers all around them. The famous choristers of St Paul's Cathedral, the boys. And they are singing and the words that they're singing are streaming out. And the words are really fun. View, O King, how my wall creepers have made me work for chimney creepers, which I think is a lovely detail. And again, you see all sorts of things going on. There's a young man with a dog in the foreground. The women are sitting, I think, slightly separately from the men, listening to this public sermon. It's a very lively scene, but it's a very edited scene. And it's just a reminder of the importance of public preaching and a reminder that preaching like this drew large crowds as for a play in the theatres of London. So it's an incredible painting that does many different things. It illustrates a poem. It illustrates one man's vision of the restoration of a great public monument. It's one of the earliest British paintings of a historic monument. But of course it's much, much more than that. As a representation of St Paul's, it's particularly poignant to us because this is the cathedral that was destroyed in the great fire of London in 1666. And what we see now, of course, is Christopher Wren's incredible vision, which has become almost an icon of Britishness, particularly since the Second World War, perhaps. So it's a poem that has many different resonances and meanings for British history and identity. And it's been in the society since 1781. It's been lent to several exhibitions, not least making history, an exhibition which was seen in England and then travelled in the US. And I showed it in an exhibition I created at the British Museum on Shakespeare because this is very much a document for Shakespeare's world. A very interesting reflection on the theatricality of London in the early 17th century and that edited role of the playhouse I think is particularly fascinating.