One of the stars of the National Gallery’s collection, Thomas Gainsborough’s Mr and Mrs William Hallet (aka The Morning Walk), was hacked by a man with a screwdriver over the weekend (Report, 20 March). The Guardian chooses to report this sorry tale by reminding us that the painting was used as a setting for a covert meeting between Daniel Craig’s James Bond and Ben Whishaw’s Q in the film Skyfall. Pictures of both actors were included, below Gainsborough’s masterpiece. Are Guardian readers really that culturally shallow as to need the celebrity link to grasp the story? Were we all sipping our morning tea thinking, “oh yes of course, there’s that nice painting we spotted when Q shows 007 his latest exploding gizmo”?
Cindy Polemis
London
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