Portrait of Sarah Bernhardt (detail; 1876), Georges Clairin.

How Sarah Bernhardt stole the heart of Paris

Nobody embodied the glitz and glamour of the fin-de-siècle quite like ‘La Divine’, as a lavish show at the Petit Palais proves

20 Apr 2023
Romain Duris in ‘Eiffel’.

Tall tale: Gustave Eiffel and his tower get the big-screen treatment

Romain Duris cuts a dash in a lavish French film about the engineer, but it’s the tower that’s the true star

29 Jul 2022
The Queen's Theatre at Versailles, built 1779–79 by Richard Mique for Marie Antoinette.

Drama queen: a peek inside Marie Antoinette’s private theatre

When Marie Antoinette had a theatre built at Versailles, her play-acting took to a stage of its own – and now this splendid interior has been meticulously restored

4 Mar 2021
Set design for the backcloth in the final scene of The Firebird (1954), Natalia Goncharova. Victoria and Albert Museum, London.

‘Russian to a T’ – Natalia Goncharova at Tate Modern, reviewed

Avant-garde as she was, the artist was also deeply influenced by Russian folk traditions and history

17 Jul 2019