Velazquez
How ever did the inbred Habsburgs control their vast empire?
For centuries, a line of mentally retarded monarchs managed extraordinary feats of engineering across the world against all odds
Bright and beautiful
When he was a student, the celebrated American modernist master Robert Rauschenberg once told me that his ‘greatest teacher’ —…
Of man’s first disobedience
Obviously, we’re living through an era of censorious puritanism. Granted, the contemporary creeds are different from those of the 16th…
Rooms with a view
Not long after the pubs, big galleries have all started to reopen, like flowers unfolding, one by one. The timing…
The delights of Spanish wine – and art
First, an apology. In my last column, I appeared to be saying that good champagne does not age. This must…
Spend, spend, spend at the court of Philip IV of Spain
‘Nine hours,’ boasted my friend the curator about his trip to the Prado. Nine! Two hours is my upper limit…
Lost, found and lost again
This is an extraordinary story. In 1845 John Snare, an unremarkable Reading bookseller, goes to an auction in a defunct…
Stately Spanish galleons with gold moidores
As every schoolboy knows, ‘the empire on which the sun never set’ was British, and ‘blue-blooded’ was a phrase applied…
Strokes of genius
The art on show over the coming year demonstrates that we still live in an age of mighty painters, says Martin Gayford
Sale of the century
Nothing could have prepared the art world for the astounding moment in 1970 when, at a Christie’s sale on 27…
Rare treat
In Venice, around 1552, Titian began work on a series of six paintings for King Philip II of Spain, each…
