This face is from a 15th century brass memorial set in the aisle of the church at Sandon. She is elegantly beautiful and that elegance is achieved with so few lines – you can count the number of strokes. She brings to mind ancient eastern Mediterranean imagery. I would say that she reminds me of a Picasso face but it should, of course, be the other way round.

I return to my favourite Hertfordshire farm girl, a medieval Madonna surrounded by the birds of her fields and hedgerows and immortalised at the church at Clothall. She must have brought the religion preached to the villagers closer to them than a more sophisticated rendition ever could.

This image is troubling. The doll’s head is pretty. Yes, it promotes a stereotype but it is not aggressively sexualised. Prior to its decay, the torso – presumably from a generic piece of garden centre ornamentation – was intended to be mildly erotic but nothing to outrage your grandmother or over excite your grandfather. Yet the combination, seen at the recycling centre at Letchworth, is disturbing.