Theodora restores byzantine icons

The Graces, dancing in a circle, nude or veiled in diaphanous gowns, celebrated ideal beauty, but were also the touchstone in the battle for supremacy between painting and sculpture, as Michael Prodger reveals

Whether vestiges of paganism survived Europe’s Christianisation is a subject of enduring fascination. Scholarly debate navigates between the ‘maximalist’ position (much survived) and the ‘minimalist’

Marie Antoinette’s passion for furniture and genius for bagatelles, however evanescent their purpose, filled the French royal palaces with beauty and charm, as Matthew Dennison reveals

Richmond Palace, 22 March 1603. Elizabeth I – the self-proclaimed Virgin Queen who had ruled England for 44 years, seeing off the Armada, healing religious divisions and creating a court so magnificen

With a strength of character that belied her fragile looks, Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun pushed the boundaries of royal portraiture and, after the French Revolution, challenged the loss of female influence via every frill and fold in her work

Charlotte Mullins comments on Elizabeth I when a Princess