British and French artists of the 19th Century competed with one another, collaborated and spurred one another on – indeed, there was much to-ing and fro-ing. “The artistic and literary relationship between France and Britain – which also included a French fascination and infatuation with Walter Scott, and with Shakespearian themes – was much more a matter of give and take than, say, the British artistic love affair with New York between the mid-1950s and the late 1980s, in which British art played a largely subservient role.”