The piece I’d never part with

Located in the beautiful, ancient town of Rye in East Sussex, the Mermaid Inn abounds with colourful stories of smugglers, ghosts, royalty and secret tunnels. The inn was probably built during the rei

The Yellow Boy by Joshua Reynolds saw multiple peregrinations, passing even through (Romanian) royal hands for a time, before returning to London in 1981. It now headlines a selling exhibition of magnificent 18th to 20th-century works

“I still chase women, but only downhill.” One of my favourite Bob Hope jokes (told when he was 70). The hilarious Road to... films, in which he starred with Bing Crosby and Dorothy Lamour, were requir

JEAN-FRANÇOIS MILLET ONCE SAID, “I am a peasant amongst peasants.” It summarised the French painter’s empathy with rural communities working on the land. They became the subjects of his remarkable dra

So close was Jean-François Millet to the humble peasants he painted that he wore clogs and coarse clothing. He was steeped in nostalgia, yet inspired avant-garde artists from van Gogh to Salvador Dalí, finds Mary Miers