19th Century

The 19th century Chinese craze for all things European

10 June 2023 9:00 am

By the 1800s, the mechanical clock had become a status symbol for wealthy Chinese. The first arrived with Jesuit missionaries…

Skilful and riveting: Poltergeist at the Southwark Playhouse reviewed

28 November 2020 9:00 am

Sasha is angry. He’s a gay artist on his way to his niece’s birthday party and he keeps popping codeine…

Bigamists, lunatics and adventurers: the raucous world of 19th century British music

21 March 2020 9:00 am

The world of 19th-century British music was raucous, but are there any masterpieces waiting to be rediscovered? wonders Richard Bratby

‘The Death of Sardanapalus’, 1846, by Eugène Delacroix

Eugene Delacroix foresaw the future of society not just art

23 January 2016 9:00 am

Delacroix’s frigid self-control concealed an emotional volcano. Martin Gayford explores the paradoxes that define the apostle of modernism

Hye-Youn Lee as Violetta in ‘La traviata’

Opera North’s Coronation of Poppea: a premium-rate sex-line of an opera

18 October 2014 9:00 am

Virtue, hide thyself! The Coronation of Poppea opens with a warning and closes with a love duet for a concubine…