National Portrait Gallery

London's National Portrait Gallery is the kind of place that reminds you of every textbook you read in high school (those of us who went to high school, anyway). It seems that they have all the most famous portraits of all the most famous people in history. They also made me put away my camera fairly quickly (even though I was NOT using a flash), so I only caught a few pics.

 Bill "the Bard" Shakespeare, with cool-dude earring.

Kitty Fisher, a somewhat celebrated 18th century London courtesan. Note the rebus that alludes to her name.

Mordu and one of the pasty old men he studies.

On the 7th of April, 1778, William Pitt, the first earl of Chatham, delivered a lengthy harangue to parliament urging that they make peace with the rebellious American settlers at any price—short of independence. (Well, we know how that worked out.) Shortly after his speech, the Duke of Richmond called for a vote that Parliament grant the American revolutionaries independence. Chatham rose to rebut the Duke, but before he could do so, suffered a heart-attack and collapsed backward; he would die a month later. American painter, John Singleton Copley, captured the moment on an absolutely gigantic canvas. Who said Americans have no class?

Close-up of the earl in the throws of his heart-attack.