jewellery
Magnificent: V&A’s Marie Antoinette Style reviewed
This exhibition will be busy. You’ll shuffle behind fellow pilgrims. But it’ll be worthwhile. It’s a tour de force that…
Fascinating royal clutter: The Edwardians, at The King’s Gallery, reviewed
The Royal Collection Trust has had a rummage in the attic and produced a fascinating show. Displayed in the palatial…
Cartier used to be a Timpson’s for the rich
In the fall of, I suppose, 1962, my friend Jimmy Davison and I, window shopping on Fifth Avenue, bumped into…
The Vikings never really went away
The Norsemen were settlers as well as raiders, and by the 860s had built up a ‘great heathen army’ to conquer and colonise much of Britain and the Continent
A necklace for the Empress Josephine: The Glassmaker, by Tracy Chevalier, reviewed
With the family business in Murano under threat, the daughter of a Venetian glassmaker learns to craft perfect coloured beads, soon much sought after by high society
Iris Apfel’s talent to amaze
Instantly recognisable with her cascades of necklaces and startling colours (‘pastels make me nervous’), the interior decorator would achieve real fame with a Met exhibition in 2005
‘We are stuck like chicken feathers to tar’: Elizabeth Taylor’s description of the fabled romance
The Burton-Taylor relationship was either one of the greatest love stories of all time or a suicide pact carried out in relentless slow motion
One hundred years of humiliation
By the 1800s, the mechanical clock had become a status symbol for wealthy Chinese. The first arrived with Jesuit missionaries…
Eternity in an hour
Growing up on a farm outside Lima, I was aware that indigenous Peruvians did not understand time in the same…
Putting on the glitz
From quartz to quince: Daisy Dunn on the art and science of Fabergé
Suffering a sea change
The rich, strange, finely balanced ecosystems of the oceans — on which our lives depend — are profoundly threatened, says Rose George
A hidden gem
One of the many charms of this book is its sheer unexpectedness, which makes it hard to review, for to…
