So Vincent van Gogh wrote to his brother Theo in October 1876, charting the latest instalment of the Holbein cult. He was renting a room in Isleworth, west London, still hoping for a religious career

With emerald hills here and sinuous rivers there, a Yorkshire farmer’s years spent surveying the land on horseback resulted in a lavish and surprisingly accurate atlas of Elizabeth I’s Britain, says Ben Lerwill

Close your eyes and picture Anne Boleyn. Chances are you can conjure up a pretty clear and detailed image in your imagination – because few figures in English history seem as visually familiar as Henr

A new exhibition lifts the veil on Queen Elizabeth II’s lifelong campaign to project power and to protect the Royal Family through sartorial cyphers. Ahead of its opening, Justine Picardie decodes the military messaging of her wartime garb, and reveals the influence of the enigmatic spymaster who crafted some of her most meaningful attire

Such was George III’s passion for astronomy that he had an observatory built to observe the transit of Venus. Although his interest remains unrivalled, scientific curiosity gripped the Royal Family for centuries, as Matthew Dennison reveals

England in the 18th century had no love for its landscape, preferring instead Italianate views, until George Stubbs came and decided to paint his horses true to the setting in which they lived, as Bendor Grosvenor reveals