Twelve tiny Venetian panels — vivid with ultramarine skies, vermilion clothing, and lush landscapes — capture the peasant Labours of the Months with charming decorative simplicity, once adorning a Renaissance palazzo’s doors.
Teaching with the Kritios Boy
The Kritios Boy — a masterpiece of the Severe Style — revolutionized Greek sculpture with its subtle weight shift and solemn naturalism, possibly portraying a Panathenaic athlete or the hero Theseus himself.
Salvador Dali or Pavlos Samios
Samios’s Awaiting and Dalí’s Figure at the Window — two figures dreaming beyond their frames — beautifully echo George Eliot’s vision of souls yearning outward toward the largeness of the world.
Mosaics from the Ilissos Basilica in Athens
The Ilissos Basilica, a 5th-century Early Christian monument in Athens, once richly adorned, now lies largely forgotten; its exquisite mosaics survive in the Byzantine and Christian Museum.
The Tennis Court Oath by Jacques-Louis David
The The Tennis Court Oath captures a defining revolutionary moment in 1789, where Jacques-Louis David transforms contemporary political history into a staged yet urgent vision of collective resolve and constitutional promise.
A Meissen Figurine of La Chocolatière
The Meissen porcelain La Chocolatière reflects the same 18th-century fascination with chocolate luxury evoked in Barbara Crooker’s Ode to Chocolate, where taste, fashion, and Rococo elegance merge into cultural indulgence.
Lansdowne Portrait of George Washington
Grand and imposing, the Lansdowne Portrait presents George Washington as a dignified symbol of the new American democracy, inviting viewers to explore its meaning through symbolic, biographic, and artistic lenses.
The Labours of the Months: July
Introducing The Labours of the Months: July, inspired by Sir Charles George Douglas Roberts’s sunlit verse, celebrating seasonal rhythms, rural toil, and the harmony between nature, labour, and human life.
White Ships by John Singer Sargent
John Singer Sargent, master of Gilded Age portraiture, pursued artistic freedom through luminous watercolours, capturing Mediterranean light, movement, and the vitality of summer.
House of Julia Felix
House of Julia Felix reveals a savvy Roman entrepreneur who transformed her property into baths, shops, and rentals, while its refined frescoes capture everyday luxury and commerce.