Features

‘There’s no denying the power of this museum to move’

The Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum is as powerful as you would expect, but the Hiroshima Museum of Art may catch you unawares

1 Sep 2023

The most spectacular floor in Italy

With its combination of visual splendour and complex allegory, the marble pavement of Siena Cathedral is one of the most enticing of all Renaissance masterpieces

1 Sep 2023

How a leopard stool from Cameroon got its spots

This beaded seat represents the might of a monarch – and his global reach, says Kristen Windmuller-Luna of the Cleveland Museum of Art

1 Sep 2023

Acquisitions of the Month: August 2023

The Green Vault in Dresden has received a baroque chess set for its 300th birthday, plus the rest of the most important items to enter public collections

31 Aug 2023

Who do museums want to appeal to?

When institutions try to offer something to everyone do they risk spreading themselves too thin?

30 Aug 2023

Can painting ever bear the weight of grief?

Gwen John and the contemporary artist Matthew Krishanu found comfort in a shared composition

30 Aug 2023

The drinks are on Theaster Gates at LUMA Arles

A convivial collaboration between the American artist and a saké brewery is refreshing stuff

29 Aug 2023

The Musée des Arts Décoratifs gets more modern

Under its new director Christine Macel, the historic museum full of masterpieces of French design is entering a brand new era

29 Aug 2023

The invention of Frenchness

The national museum of immigration has a new mission – but it’s still housed in a building haunted by France’s colonial ghosts

The Norman conquest of the European imagination

It’s hard to say who, exactly, the Normans were – but even harder to make them out as a model migrants and proto-Europeans as a string of recent exhibitions has tried to do

29 Aug 2023

Do children need museums of their own?

The reinvention of the Museum of Childhood as Young V&A has been a great success. Should more institutions follow its example and become younger at heart?

29 Aug 2023

Dessert trolleys are on the move again, with delightful results

An old-fashioned way of bringing in cakes and custards is beginning to feel rather modern again

29 Aug 2023

The eye-popping posters that promoted Egyptian films

The Egyptian film industry came to dominate the Arab world – and poster makers did much to secure its hold on the popular imagination

25 Aug 2023
retro ice-cream

The return of the retro ice-cream van

The vintage trucks in London’s parks provide soft serve with an outsize dollop of nostalgia – and do it in style

25 Aug 2023
The view of Munstead Wood house across the west lawn.

Gertrude Jekyll and the making of Munstead Wood

The first garden created by the designer for a house by Edwin Lutyens has been bought by the National Trust – preserving a vital piece of history

25 Aug 2023

The Scottish artist who could paint up a storm

From the September 2023 issue of Apollo. Preview and subscribe here. I first encountered William McTaggart’s The Storm (1890) when…

21 Aug 2023

Restoring the largest tapestries in England has been a massive success

It has taken the National Trust 24 years to restore the Gideon Tapestries at Hardwick Hall to their former glory

11 Aug 2023

How Barbie’s Dreamhouse turned into a design nightmare

Before the gal who has everything got into pink, her ideal home was a shrine to midcentury modern living

4 Aug 2023

Acquisitions of the Month: July 2023

The only surviving portrait from Henry Raeburn’s trip to Italy and an 18th-century book about cricket are among the most remarkable works to enter public collections

2 Aug 2023

How X. Marcel Boulestin catered to the masses

The restaurateur and writer won over both the smart set and the middle classes – and was a hero to Elizabeth David

28 Jul 2023

Drinking in style with the ancient Greeks and Persians

The ancient Greeks were quick to adopt the decadent drinking culture of their Persian enemies

13 Jul 2023

Folly mixture – the Wedding Cake at Waddesdon

A close attention to architectural history is the icing on the cake for a new pavilion cooked up by Joana Vasconcelos for Waddesdon Manor

13 Jul 2023

A sculpture given to Captain Cook returns to Tahiti

The figures brought over in 1771 are the first documented works of Oceanic art – and now on display where they were made

3 Jul 2023
Interiors of Casa Balla in Rome

Inside a very forward-looking home in Rome

At Casa Balla, Futurism was definitely a family affair for Giacomo Balla and his daughters Lucia and Elice

3 Jul 2023