Anne Boleyn dropped suggestive hints and Elizabeth I projected undying monarchy through her portraits: Tudor women knew how to use art to send a message, Philippa Gregory tells Carla Passino

Edward VII swept away the cobwebs of mid-Victorian style, Queen Mary had passion for all things small and the Queen Mother bought rather avant-garde art. In a forthcoming talk, Tim Knox, director of the Royal Collection, charts a century of regal taste

The Story of Tudor Art: A History of Tudor ...

How the Qin forged a great power from the fragments of the Warring States

The ‘Pelican’ portrait , attributed to Nicholas Hilliard

Whether it is adding contemporary paintings to a gallery of Old Masters or branching out into territories as diverse as Modernist chairs, Iranian tiles or Churchill memorabilia, the passion for collecting seems to run in some families, as Eleanor Doughty discovers