The last edwardian sportsman

The piece I’d never part with

JEAN-FRANÇOIS MILLET ONCE SAID, “I am a peasant amongst peasants.” It summarised the French painter’s empathy with rural communities working on the land. They became the subjects of his remarkable dra

So close was Jean-François Millet to the humble peasants he painted that he wore clogs and coarse clothing. He was steeped in nostalgia, yet inspired avant-garde artists from van Gogh to Salvador Dalí, finds Mary Miers

In the latest of his series about great foxhunters he knew personally, Alastair Jackson tells us about Captain Brian Fanshawe, master and huntsman of several premier league packs, including the Galway Blazers and the Cottesmore

The Yellow Boy by Joshua Reynolds saw multiple peregrinations, passing even through (Romanian) royal hands for a time, before returning to London in 1981. It now headlines a selling exhibition of magnificent 18th to 20th-century works

Zola’s vivid characters blew his theories off course