The queen of arts

This autumn, the V&A unveils a captivating exhibition dedicated to Marie Antoinette, the ill-fated French queen whose brief yet eventful life continues to bewitch audiences and fuel the creative imagination. Marie-Claire Chappet traces her enduring influence on culture and fashion

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

Music was the antidote to stuffy court life that Marie Antoinette craved. Henrietta Bredin explains how the doomed Dauphine reinvigorated the French opera scene

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

Every room in this mock-Tudor-style home in Singapore is a riot of pattern and colour, thanks to the expertise of designer Elizabeth Hay