ADAM’S TIPS FOR PLAYING WITH PICTURES

Moving around, adding or taking away pictures, every six months or a year, really makes you look again at both a picture and the space around it. They’re so versatile.

Putting a vintage-looking piece next to something contemporary lends a more curated, collected feel to a space.

Rather than agonise over choosing just one picture for a space, play with a set of three. Once pressure is gone on that single picture, you can make a braver choice because you have two others to support it.

Think about framing – a fabulous frame, with proper mounting, won’t detract from the picture but instead enhance it.

I strongly advocate the look of an elaborate wallpaper overlaid with pictures. It’s not for everybody – my wife likes things to be calm, but I’d rather be more extravagant.

An album of collected Victorian aquatint sketches

One of the many antiquarian prints in the archive – Skeleton engraving by Bernhard Siegfried Albinus, 1749