We'll start this month at the King's Gallery in London, where more than 300 artworks and other objects from the Royal Collection will be on display from April 11 for The Edwardians: Age of Elegance . Illustrating the tastes of the period between the death of Victoria and World War I, the show features the work of John Singer Sargent , Edward Burne-Jones , William Morris and Carl Fabergé, among others. On to November 23. More Morris at, unsurprisingly, the William Morris Gallery in Walthamstow. Morris Mania , which runs from April 5 to September 21, aims to show how his designs have continued to capture the imagination down the decades, popping up in films and on television, in every part of the home, on trainers, wellies, and even in nuclear submarines.... From much the same era, Guildhall Art Gallery in the City offers Evelyn De Morgan: The Modern Painter in Victorian London from April 4 to January 4. De Morgan's late Pre-Raphaelite work with its beautifull...
We start off in London this month with two new exhibitions at the British Museum. The first, opening on May 4, takes us back to the ancient history of the region round the eastern Mediterranean and an examination of Luxury and Power: Persia to Greece . It aims to uncover how the Persian Empire spread ideas of elegance and craftsmanship across neighbouring lands around 500 BC. Featuring items from the museum's own collection as well as international loans, the show runs until August 13. We head further east for the second exhibition, exploring China's Hidden Century . On from May 18 to October 8, this show looks at life in 19th-century China through art, fashion and everyday objects, seeking to show how decades of violence and turmoil that ended with the deposing of the emperor in 1912 were also a period of significant creativity. The National Gallery is staging the first ever exhibition in the UK to be devoted to Saint Francis of Assisi . Looking at how the saint's com...