The world is becoming a busy noisy place and it is good to find a pastime that creates a different space, another dimension. Our paintings mean a lot to us because they remind us of lovely places we have visited and enable us to remember them in detail. It takes time to study the colours and contours of a scene. It may be that the drawing is an inadequate representation of the three dimensional scene spread out before us, how can it be anything else, but the process of trying to represent it on the two dimensions of the blank page is intellectually rewarding. The emerging picture is not just about the scene before you but also about your response to it at the time.

This is a fascinating exploration of the mystery that surrounds of Ruben's most well-known and intriguing drawings. Peter Paul Rubens was one of the most talented and successful artists working in 17th-century Europe. During his illustrious career as a court painter and diplomat, Rubens expressed a fascination with exotic costumes and headdresses. With his masterful handling of black chalk and touches of red, Rubens executed a compelling drawing that features a figure wearing Asian costume - a depiction that has recently been identified as Man in Korean Costume. Despite the drawings renown - both during Ruben's own lifetime and in contemporary art scholarship - the reasons why it was made and whether it actually depicts a specific Asian person remain a mystery. The intriguing story that develops involves a shipwreck, an unusual hat, the earliest trade between Europe and Asia, the trafficking of Asian slave, and Jesuit missionaries.