Collecting thimbles at your fingertips

The Bayeux Tapestry is an amazing artefact – and it’s exceptional not least because of its very existence today. Precious few pieces of embroidery from the medieval period survive, let alone ones that

In a John Behan bronze, collector Jacqueline O’Donovan, a child of the Irish diaspora, can sense the desperation of a starving people forced to flee their land

Slippers have made their way out of the bedroom and into the street, finds Simon Mills–although not without precedent or formalities

“One might as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb,” goes the old proverb. The meaning is simple: if you are going to be punished for a small crime, you may as well commit the bigger one. In the early

Colour co-ordinated Buccellati has spoiled us with two ...

Nature’s spiky deterrents–thorns, spines and prickles–may be quick to catch us out, but they can also prove to be a useful ally, discovers Laura Parker