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Year 9 enjoyed their second trip of the Harris Experience programme, travelling into central London to visit the Christie’s Education Centre. This was in preparation for their challenge of auctioning off a piece of HBAED artwork at the renowned Christie’s Auction House later in the year.

At the event they received a university style lecture/seminar on valuation of artefacts and art. This included discovering clues as to the history and value of objects in order to generate more information about these items (see picture below). The HBAED pupils demonstrated their investigative skills by having a lot of input and challenging the group with higher order thinking. This was very impressive and positively received by the staff at the Christie’s Education Centre.

The second half of the lecture was based on a famous painting called The Ambassadors by Hans Holbein the Younger. He illustrated a lot of information hidden within the portrait, and the boys had to investigative and discover the meaning behind the items and illusions. The group found out about the source of the painting and the political reasoning behind each of the clues. The Harris Experience managed to discover most of them within the session, however take a look for yourself and see how much you can find. Can you discover who, when, where and why this was painted?

The next trip will be to visit Christie’s Auction House South Kennington to figure out how to art and objects within the building are valued. These sessions will enable them to appeal to the buyers at the charity auction at the end of the year.

Mr Metcalfe