CONTEMPORARY ART

A global art explosion

Contemporary art is becoming a universal idiom, as countries from China to Romania hurry to participate in the market.

ARCHITECTURE

Slightly subhuman?

Restoration Londoners

Sheila Russell reveals an astonishing discovery: an unknown painting on a vast scale depicting a crowd of Londoners watching the ceremonial arrival of the Prince de Ligne in 1660. The details of buildings and costume make clear that this is a uniquely accurate depiction of the Restoration city.

‘O Saviour, save me, your servant’

In 2007 we will commemorate a human tragedy on a massive transcontinental scale.

An unknown masterpiece of Byzantine enamel and gold

This immaculately preserved 12th-century gold and enamel pendant in the form of a triptych has never been published. Made for a leading dignitary in the Byzantine world, a eunuch named Constantine proedros, it is both magnificent in quality and remarkably original in design, as David Buckton and Paul Hetherington explain.

Pugin’s home restored

The Grange in Ramsgate, Kent, designed by A.W.N. Pugin for himself in 1843, was the most influential house of its age. Rosemary Hill assesses its controversial restoration by the Landmark Trust. Photographs by Martin Charles.

Where art & politics mix

The Wolfsonian in Miami Beach is based on the remarkable collection of art between 1880 and 1945 formed by its founder, Mitchell Wolfson Jr. Peyton Skipwith surveys the range and depth of its outstanding holdings of British art, which encompass paintings, sculpture and all the decorative arts, with a special focus on propaganda.