Jonathan Jones (16 June) makes the surprising claim that for Jan van Eyck to show Adam and Eve naked in 1432 was “unprecedented”. What about the Genesis sculptures on the facade of Orvieto cathedral, dated 1325-30, the early 1400s painting of the Fall by Jean Limbourg, and the famous Masaccio Expulsion from the Garden of Eden in the Brancacci chapel 1426-27? You might argue that Jan van Eyck would not have seen any of these but that’s not the same as saying they didn’t exist.
Mary Hoffman
Carterton, Oxfordshire
• Re the sad news of Puan’s demise (Oldest Sumatran orangutan dies at Perth zoo aged 62, 20 June), I was struck by the last part of your report. It seems she was put down because “age-related complications” were affecting her “quality of life“. Why should such useful facilities not be available to her human cousins?
Richard Carden
Harleston, Norfolk
• Another Morris Traveller fault (Letters, 16 June) were the rear doors which fell open to questing child fingers. It was virtually a rite of passage for us to fall out the back when we were small children (the smallest child being stuck in the luggage area to shoot down following cars). Oh well, baby boomers were plentiful! Luckily, it always occurred at low speed and other cars were rare.
Mark Samuel
Ramsgate, Kent
• On a poster board outside a church in Liverpool in the 1960s (Letters, 15 June) was the question “What would you do if God came to Liverpool?” and underneath was scrawled “Move St John to inside left”.
Mark Phillips
Ambleside, Cumbria
• Man City May have Jesus up front (Letters, 20 June), but Burnley have Pope saving us.
Jackie Campbell
Skipton, North Yorkshire
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