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

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

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

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

Originally built in 1703, as the London home of the Duke of Buckingham, Buckingham House was acquired by the newly married King George III in 1761, as an escape from the nearby St James’s Palace, the