Features

The discovery that the astrologer’s ‘scrying glass’ is made of obsidian from Mexico points to the complex global webs surrounding many Tudor objects

The spirit of innovation and manufacture lives on in the Midlands city – as a redeveloped museum on the site of the old silk mill makes clear

From street actions to art exhibitions, the organisation empowers homeless people to tell their own stories

Oxford Botanic Garden has played a vital role in the evolution of plant science since it was founded 400 years ago

Painted in around 1625, the Penitent Mary Magdalene inspired a host of copies before disappearing. Now, it has resurfaced in a private collection

Will the glittering new arts complex bring about a ‘Bilbao effect’ in the southern French city?

Lucy and Catherine Madox Brown studied with their father and had close connections to the Pre-Raphaelites – but their achievements have been overlooked until now

Frustrated that memories of more hopeful times are fading, the artist Intissar Belaid is determined to preserve what she can

The spectacular cave monastery of Sabereebi in Georgia is full of frescoes as stunning as their rocky setting

Museum directors in France and Italy seem to agree that requiring proof of vaccination is preferable to being shut – although not everyone is on board

The legendary picture editor Bruce Bernard was famously modest about his own photography, but his portraits of Lucian Freud are peerless

After his failure in politics, Henri Cernuschi succeeded in finance – and left an outstanding collection of Asian art to his adoptive city of Paris

The artist plans to turn a dilapidated palace into a lively new cultural venue – and the city needs others to follow his example

Joseph Gandy’s dramatic paintings turned John Soane’s neoclassical designs into full-blown Romantic fantasies

Mass-produced majolica has often been sneered at – but its exuberance is what makes it so appealing

The Crown Jewels are what the castle is most famous for, but over the centuries it has housed everything from prisoners to military hardware

David Chipperfield’s cool, if costly, renovation plays to the gallery’s minimalist strengths

Colombia’s indigenous communities are toppling statues of the Spanish conquerors to highlight past and present injustices

The portraits of James Barnor, Seydou Keïta and Malick Sidibé conjure up an image of cool modernity – but also draw on a long photographic tradition

A pair of amateur fossil hunters have uncovered a section of Jurassic sea floor in a sleepy corner of England

These comforting songs are freighted with cultural and personal memories – and artists are working to preserve them

It may be an unassuming little shelter, but the beach hut tells of a British infatuation with property and propriety

Raymond Erith adapted classical architecture for a modern age