LS Lowry is arguably England’s greatest artist. He painted a subject area that no one had ever painted before, the aftermath of the Industrial Revolution, and became popular with the general public to

“Johannes Vermeer is the most laconic of the Dutch old masters,” Andrew Graham-Dixon once remarked, adding that this “may explain why he has been the cause of so much volubility in others”. A quarter

From George Stubbs’s golden vision of the labourer’s place in society to Ford Madox Brown’s heroically monumental celebration of manual labour, artists gave individual interpretations of work, as Michael Hall reveals

The sale of a Fabergé imperial egg and a 15th-century triptych made headlines last year, but one of the most powerful pieces was a painting by Richard Parkes Bonington showing what he could have become, had he not died so young

Best books… Roy Foster The emeritus professor of ...

Just a stone’s throw from the bustling streets of Bath, Lydia Fay’s elegant home looks out over an idyllic pastoral landscape, with sheep grazing in the field opposite and panoramic views of the Somer