The queen of arts

With a strength of character that belied her fragile looks, Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun pushed the boundaries of royal portraiture and, after the French Revolution, challenged the loss of female influence via every frill and fold in her work

Arundel Castle, West Sussex

When COUNTRY LIFE’s Henry Avray Tipping spotted a 17th-century four poster languishing in a Herefordshire attic in 1911, he set off a chain of events that saw the bed leave its ancestral home and land at The Met in New York

The City of Lights glitters with countless famous destinations, but with just two days to spend in Paris, I decided to explore some of the smaller, specialised museums – an adventure that whisked me b

WELL-WORN, FADED AND IMPERFECT. GO BACK IN TIME TO FURNISH YOUR HOME WITH PIECES THAT TELL A STORY, SAYS TALLULAH RUSHAYA

Anthony Lawrence, a New Forest artist, painted everything from Dante’s Inferno to portraits of Ian McKellen and Yehudi Menuhin. This October, Palais des Vaches presents the first major retrospective o