It is a once-in-a-lifetime experience: the chance to see one of the greatest -- and most fragile -- works of European art before your very eyes. The illustrated manuscript known as the Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry contains images that have shaped our view of the late Middle Ages, but it's normally kept under lock and key at the Château de Chantilly, north of Paris. It's only been exhibited twice in the past century. Now newly restored, the glowing pages of Les Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry are on show to the public for just a few months. "Approche, approche," the Duke of Berry's usher tells the visitors to the great man's table for the feast that will mark the start of the New Year. It's also your invitation to examine closely the illustration for January, one of the 12 months from the calendar in this Book of Hours -- a collection of prayers and other religious texts -- that form the centrepiece of this exhibition in Chantilly. It's su...
If you've never been to Strawberry Hill House, Horace Walpole's Gothic mansion in south-west London, there may never be a better opportunity than now to get a taste of its past splendours. And if you have been, it's time to visit again to see the Lost Treasures of Strawberry Hill , an exhibition that brings back to the house many of the works of art that were part of one of the greatest collections of the 18th century. Walpole, the son of Britain's first Prime Minister, Sir Robert Walpole, revived the Gothic style when he built Strawberry Hill between 1748 and 1790. His collection, ranging from paintings and sculptures to historical curiosities, was dispersed in an auction in 1842. More than 150 objects have been reassembled for this show after a three-year hunt by the curators through private and public collections. The show revives memories of the 2013 exhibition that saw Houghton Hall in Norfolk rehung with 60 of Sir Robert Walpole's paintings, which...