On Thursday, March 1, a little girl called Parker Curry came to the National Portrait Gallery with her mum. As the two year-old gazed with open-mouthed wonder at the portrait of former First Lady Michelle Obama installed at our main entrance, Ben Hines –a visitor from North Carolina – took her picture and posted it on Facebook. Normally Ben has a small group of followers, and a popular post gets around 80 ‘likes’, but within 24 hours his photo had gone viral, reaching over 15,000 viewers, and an online news outlet reached out to learn more. ‘It was so touching and uplifting for me to see this beautiful child looking at a beautiful portrait of a powerful woman’, Ben recounted. ‘I was so delighted to have been in the right place at the right time.’
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