COMMON HALL forms a very important part of the Company’s calendar. It is, effectively, the Annual General Meeting, when all Arts Scholars have an opportunity to meet each other, hear about the Company’s activities and longer-term plans, and put questions to the Chairmen of each of the Company’s committees: Charity, Communications, Education, Events, Finance, Membership and Regalia about their work for the Company through the year. (Please read the admin notes at the bottom of the page before registering)

Arts Scholar Alan Freeland, known to members for his Silk Road themed tours of the V&A, will talk to us about one of the lesser-known British designers of the nineteenth-century, Owen Jones (1809-1874). An architect, illustrator and author of the seminal 'The Grammar of Ornament', he lived in the shadow of his more famous contemporary Ruskin. Alan will explore with us Jones's very different views on architecture and design, and his championing of the use of a strong colour pallet in architectural decoration.

A Company Dinner (not the Annual Banquet) was held to celebrate the freedom to meet-up again.

A Talk by Arts Scholar Dr Sam Moorhead of the British Museum in which he will spotlight Roman cities in the Near East and North Africa which have been largely destroyed (for example Hatra in Iraq and Palmyra in Syria), sites which have been heavily looted (Apamaea and Dura Europos in Syria), and places which are now too dangerous to visit (Leptis Magna and Cyrene in Libya).

(Image: Temple of Bel at Palmyra in 2011, now destroyed © Sam Moorhead)

An online presentation by Arts Scholar Bernadine Bröcker Wieder, which will cover the evolution of technology for the art market. Bernadine will illustrate how “Web 3.0” changes the art world's dynamics at the core, especially in light of recent times with the COVID-19 business interruption.

Arts Scholars will be given a guided evening tour by member Ian Kelly round the Western Cemetery of the historic Highgate Cemetery. Subject to social distancing restrictions, there will be an optional meal in a local restaurant.

Arts Scholar Liveryman, Nigel Israel, will be giving a potted history of diamonds from rough to jewellery, with crystallography, optical and physical properties, cutting and their use in jewellery by different classes through the centuries.

You are cordially invited to enjoy some much-needed fun and frivolity at a virtual treasure hunt hosted by Court Assistant Sonya Zuckerman and Middle Warden Graham Barker. You will have an opportunity to unearth long-forgotten items and get a deeper insight into people you thought you knew well!

A lecture by Arts Scholar Anne Rogers Haley about Walker Kirkland Hancock (1901-1998), Sculptor and Monument Man, and the WW2 Monuments Men. The Monuments Men are famous for their discovery, in May 1945, in a salt mine at Altausee, high in the Austrian Alps, of the looted eight panels of The Adoration of the Lamb by Jan van Eyck, considered one of the masterpieces of 15th-century European art.

Dr. Susan Bracken, a Liveryman of the Arts Scholars, will tell us about the plans of Augustus the Strong (1670-1733) of Saxony to set up a 'menagerie' of porcelain animal sculptures in the Japanese Palace in Dresden. The talk explores this ambitious project & considers some of the reasons why, although never realised as intended, it remains such an intriguing example of patronage and collecting in the 18th century.