Art Nouveau masters such as Louis Comfort Tiffany and Émile Gallé turned the most fragile of materials into iridescent masterpieces that shimmered like seashells or glittered like Byzantine mosaics, as Matthew Dennison discovers

Silverware, with its glistering surface and ornate designs, dresses the table like no other material and has an unmatched capacity for turning a meal into an occasion, as Matthew Dennison discovers

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

The gargantuan, bewildering Louvre

The search for the mythical relic unites the two strongest currents of European spirituality: Christianity and the legends of Arthur and his knights

You gather the guest list – and let the rooms define the disco