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The painter who poked fun at 18th-century Paris
The painter who poked fun at 18th-century ParisWorking in the new medium of pastels, Maurice-Quentin de La Tour portrayed the cultural and political elite of his day in a style that matched the hedonism of the age
Wining and dining in the prints of Pablo Picasso
Picasso was the possessor of a hearty appetite and depictions of alcohol and excess are also central to his work
Can American art museums escape the culture wars?
Recent rehangs at the Met and the Brooklyn Museum suggest that part of the answer lies in respecting the viewer’s own capacity for interpretation
Queen of suspense – the art of Patricia Highsmith
Thirty years after the novelist’s death, Apollo revisits the Ripley creator’s close ties to the visual arts
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
Acquisitions of the month: January 2025
Highlights include a trove of photographs by Robert Frank and the first Bernini statue in a Dutch public collection
Prince Karim Aga Khan IV (1936–2025)
The Aga Khan IV, who has died at the age of 88, formed an important collection of Islamic art and dedicated some of his fabulous wealth to cultural heritage projects around the world
The meteorite that fired up Dürer’s imagination
Helen Gordon charts the fall and cultural rise of the Ensisheim meteorite of 1492
On the irresistible ripples of Viennetta
A textural triumph and a sensual delight, this distinctly ’80s ice cream is as pleasing to look at as it is to consume
The Louvre restores Cimabue to his rightful place
Two restored masterpieces – one vast in scale, the other intimate – are being shown together for the first time to give us fresh insights into ‘the first light of Renaissance painting’
When Rubens was king of the castle
The Flemish castle bought by Rubens in 1635 was intended as a country retreat, and it inspired the artist’s greatest landscapes
The Chinese artist who brought ink painting to a new audience
A meditative painting by Qi Baishi demonstrates his modern approach to an ancient art form, explains Jeremy Zhang of the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco
Pompeii’s extraordinary recent discoveries lay a firm foundation for the future
The Great Pompeii project has more than lived up to the name, but it’s now time for a period of conservation and consolidation
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
The repeat performances of William Morris
The designer’s wallpaper patterns are so familiar that they’re in danger of being taken for granted – but there’s still plenty to discover if we look more closely
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
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?
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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