A nose for stink

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

Does a newly found Nicholas Hilliard miniature portray Shakespeare’s patron the Earl of Southampton?

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

When gossip and rumour led to the trial of two Prussian pastors

The ‘Mona Lisa of manuscripts’, finally on view

From the smoke-blackened ‘engine room of the Empire’ came a group of radical artists that stripped art of heroism and sentiment and took the world by storm. Mary Miers traces the history of The Glasgow Boys