This little video – ‘500 Years of Female Portraits in Western Art’ – from the National Portrait Gallery, will take less than three minutes of your day, but it totally transfixing.

Stunning portrait after portrait (very few of which I actually recognise, cultural vacuum that I am), morphing from one to another, and disconcertingly every single one of them staring you in the face.

What’s particularly interesting is how you can see painting evolving – the modernist art at the end of the film in stark contrast to the passive medieval portraits.

So here you go, take a gander here and enjoy.