Few readers of the Post will be unsurprised if we say that this is our favourite painting in the exhibition! It’s by  Charles Mahoney (1903-1968) and it’s called ‘Miss Edith inspects the Sweetpeas’. It’s c. 1934 and makes one think of Miss Ranskill Comes Home or Miss Buncle’s Book or The Call (except her smock was blue), oh several of our books involving formidable women who, naturally, have gardeners, who love sweet peas, who scrape their hair into a kind of black  beanie, who are characterful and, one senses, kind. Also isn’t she carrying a small black and white dog?