The Belvedere

Sorry, I couldn't resist!
We've been up on the city again -this time to get the car serviced and do some final shopping, The sun shone, in between some fierce hail, and the garage provided someone to drive us into town who had a grand Cork accent, like. 
We went to the Crawford Gallery to see the Zurich Portrait Prize exhibition - very good, but I was momentarily distracted by the splendid beefy nudes in the downstairs gallery and loved the pose of this young woman. It's half term and the place was rammed. Now here's an interesting thing: last summer six of the statues, actually 200 year old plaster casts, were divested of their fig leaves by professional fig leaf removers to see what lay beneath - there was a suspicion the fig leaves had been added later by the less enlightened. Full story here! This was one of the casts, the Belvedere, and what lay beneath  wasn't what they were expecting!  Don't look if you're of a nervous disposition!  The original is in the Vatican Museum and dates from at least the 1430s. It could be Heracles or Ajax. Amazing where a blip can take you.