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Greek mythology enabled Gunn, an English poet who was closeted until midlife, to meditate on the joys and heartbreaks of queer intimacy, such as in “Philemon and Baucis”: “Truly each other’s, they have embraced so long / Their barks have met and wedded in one flow / Blanketing both.”

Her name was Baucis, she told the strangers, and her husband was called Philemon.

But when both Philemon and Baucis had had to give up the chase panting and exhausted, the gods felt that the time had come for them to take action.

While this cooked Baucis set the table with her trembling old hands.

Among the paintings on display are The Pilgrims at Emmaus, 1648, from the Louvre; Philemon and Baucis, 1658, from the National Gallery of Art, in Washington; Christ and St Mary Magdalen at the Tomb, 1638, lent by the Royal Collection; and A Woman Bathing in a Stream, 1654, from the National Gallery.