The best equestrian artists strike a rich chord, touching us on a deeper level than mere aesthetic appeal. Catherine Austen finds out which paintings speak to art-loving riders

Johannes Vermeer brightened his native Delft with luminous pictures of women caught in intimate moments, but the serenity of his work, of which he produced remarkably little, is at odds with a life mired in debt, as Carla Passino discovers

Between a Constable resonating with Nature and a Castiglione blaring with turbulence, a picture by Algernon Newton captured the quietude of absolute stillness

The Dream by Henri Rousseau

Andrew Graham-Dixon tells Carla Passino why he thinks we have read Vermeer wrong all along– and who the Girl with a Pearl Earring really is

The gargantuan, bewildering Louvre