Leighton house

Home to a marquess and an RAF air crew – and believed to be the birthplace of a Queen – this red-brick Jacobean mansion contains stories spanning centuries

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

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

There are many reasons that an artist’s ambitions can be thwarted, including the decision to become a teacher. Later this month, an exhibition will shine a light on talent obscured by a career in the classroom

Marie Antoinette’s passion for furniture and genius for bagatelles, however evanescent their purpose, filled the French royal palaces with beauty and charm, as Matthew Dennison reveals

Taking on and reviving a special Victorian home she had long admired gave Jess Shah space to honour the antique and vintage pieces passed down through her family