Features

Gold Icon How the return of Asante gold is going down in Ghana

Artefacts looted by British soldiers from the Asante kingdom in the 19th century can now be seen in Ghana, but are loans from UK museums nearly enough?

23 Jan 2025

How to express yourself in Tudor England

The identity of two terracotta busts attributed to Guido Mazzoni may be up for debate, but there’s no denying the emotional possibilities of the material in which they’re made

21 Jan 2025

Gold Icon The memory palace of Mario Praz

The scholar’s meticulously preserved apartment in Rome testifies to his passion for all things 19th century, and to how he treated collecting as a form of memoir

18 Jan 2025

The woman who brought shop-window mannequins to life

London’s Fashion and Textile Museum celebrates the era when Adel Rootstein’s factory produced innovative, glamorous models – and laments the blandness of the industry today

16 Jan 2025

Department store makeovers, migration museums and Scandi sustainability – the year ahead in architecture

While Scandinavia streams ahead with ecologically sound projects and Edinburgh promises restored retail therapy, the outlook for London seems murkier

9 Jan 2025

Gold Icon The ancient art of winemaking in Tunisia

The country has a long and rich history of viticulture, as we can tell from ancient Roman mosaics and its present-day vineyards

9 Jan 2025

The year ahead in novels and biographies with an artistic slant

Keep an eye out for reissues of novels by Elaine Kraf and Inger Christensen, a literary thriller in which Giorgio Vasari turns detective and Francesca Wade’s biography of Gertrude Stein

8 Jan 2025

Gold Icon Back to the future? The return of the art of divination

From the ancient world to modern times, humans have looked to the esoteric arts to answer questions about life, the universe and everything

4 Jan 2025

The painterly brilliance of Luchino Visconti

‘The Leopard’ is the Italian film-maker’s masterpiece, and it owes much of its visual splendour to 19th-century paintings

3 Jan 2025

Gold Icon The rewarding mystery of Lynette Yiadom-Boakye

A large painting of three boys in the water does not readily disclose its secrets – but perhaps that is precisely the point

2 Jan 2025

Gold Icon High tech before big tech – ‘Electric Dreams’ at Tate Modern, reviewed

At Tate Modern, these artistic experiments by early embracers of new technology already look charmingly retro

2 Jan 2025

Gold Icon The menacing visions of Jusepe de Ribera

Though clearly influenced by Caravaggio, the Spanish painter rendered saints and sinners in a ferocious style all of his own

2 Jan 2025

Gold Icon The devilish museum that makes its own wine

The Museum of Old and New Art in Tasmania is not just a gallery, but also a winery offering visitors a dose of bacchanalian revelry

2 Jan 2025

Gold Icon Inside Edith Wharton’s house, a mirthful ode to classical taste

The home the writer designed for herself in the hills of Massachusetts is a window on to the shifting tastes of Gilded Age America

2 Jan 2025

Gold Icon Sheila Hicks and the art of infinite possibility

A retrospective by the textile artist is wonderfully open to interpretation, with works so inviting you might want to throw yourself at them

2 Jan 2025

After centuries of neglect, Plautilla Nelli’s reputation is soaring again

The resurgence of interest in female Renaissance painters has reached the Florentine nun and her workshop – and it’s time to pay more attention to artists in other Tuscan convents

The year ahead in anniversaries

A string of exhibitions marks 250 years since Turner’s birth and a hundred years of art deco, while Amsterdam turns 750 – and Apollo is celebrating its centenary (watch this space)

30 Dec 2024

Arty films to look out for in 2025

From Adrien Brody’s architect in ‘The Brutalist’ to Tilda Swinton curating a post-apocalyptic gallery, art lovers have plenty to look forward to on screen

27 Dec 2024

The major museum openings of 2025

The United States will be the centre of attention, but from London to Warsaw to Abu Dhabi, it’s a bumper year for museum-goers all over the world

26 Dec 2024

Acquisitions of the month: November 2024

A panel by Fra Angelico and a video work acquired using cryptocurrency are among the most significant artworks to enter public collections recently

20 Dec 2024

Contemporary art gets a permanent home in Malta

A 17th-century fort is now full of 21st-century art, and although the project has been a troubled one, the results are worth the wait

19 Dec 2024

Gold Icon Inside the mysteries of Van Cleef and Arpels

The jeweller generally reveals precious little about its process, but Apollo gains access to the site in Paris where the magic happens

19 Dec 2024

Gold Icon How to be buried in style in ancient China

What can a bronze Han dynasty horse tell us about status anxiety and the afterlife? Ching-Ling Wang of the Rijksmuseum talks of grave matters

18 Dec 2024

Gold Icon Rachel Ruysch says it with flowers

The Dutch artist’s floral paintings might look merely decorative but, as curator Bernd Ebert explains, they encapsulate a world of economic and scientific change in the early modern Netherlands

14 Dec 2024