Saving the best for last: the author is ...

Last April, a surprising photograph (see near right) appeared on the Wikipedia page devoted to Jeanne Duval, the long-term mistress of Charles Baudelaire and the “Black Venus” who inspired some of the

Exaggerating her beetling monobrow and wispy dark moustache in self-portraits, the artist Frida Kahlo was a female force to be reckoned with, unafraid to pour her heart onto the canvas. Only last autu

Simone De Beauvoir The Image of HerTranslated by Lauren Elkin208pp, Penguin Vintage Classics, £14.99 The first reviews of Simone De Beauvoir’s novel Les Belles images (1966) were dismissive. Some crit

Alice Loxton EleanorA 200-mile walk in search of England’slost queen352pp. Pan Macmillan. £22. Many are commemorated in stone, but few so grandly as Eleanor of Castile (d. 1290). Following her unexpec

A new catalogue in four volumes explores the extraordinary riches of the sculpture in the Royal Collection. Its author, Sir Jonathan Marsden , selects 10 favourite works that reflect the diversity of this astonishing collection