We know very little about Molly. She was baptised in November 1764 in the Priory Church close to the Judges’ Lodgings and was buried just a month later. It’s likely she was intended to live as a servant, free or enslaved, with a local merchant family. In the same year …
The interpretation doesn’t have much detail on these pots, but the copy seeks to entice us into the display: “Colours can dazzle us, inspire us and calm us. Cherry blossom pink, chestnut brown, sky blue: the way we describe a colour can help us imagine it …
Special Operations Executive agents operating in South-East Asia during the Second World War used overshoes like these to cover their tracks. Strapped under the wearer’s shoes …
Christmas is, for many, a time of contradictions, and I feel them very much here, in the choice of dark black and bright pink. With rosy cheeks from the cold and a clutch of festive goods being hurried along in the snow …
Former enemies, united by love – these outfits were worn by German Sigrid Krueger and British Army officer on their wedding day in 1990. Anthony was serving in West Germany as part of the occupying forces when the couple met in an Anglo-German choir …
One of those words we haven’t heard for generations then, all of a sudden, it’s back in common usage – a catafalque is a frame for holding a coffin during a funeral or lying-in-state. This one was made in 1865 to support the …
White (1918–79) used the symbol of the shell repeatedly in his work. To me it looks like an ear, beckoning us not only to look, but to listen. It’s currently on display in the Black American Portraits, an exhibition LACMA hopes will …
In the early 1800s, Arthur Wellesley, then Viscount Wellington, asked his shoemaker to make boots in this style because they were easier to wear with trousers. After his victory over Napoleon at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815 …
Stephen Poyntz Denning (1795–1864) started life as a beggar and was apprenticed for seven years colouring prints. By 1821 he had become Keeper of Dulwich Picture Gallery, a job he for over 40 years. What a fulfilled life …
Welsh daffodils to mark a happy St David’s Day. Or is it? There’s something of the melancholy about these daffodils. Rather than being painted in their perky prime, this arrangement is on the wane …
You might remember the scene in Derry Girls where students are asked to write things that protestants and catholics have in common, and also their differences. The resulting satire of sectarianism …
An enterprising Dutch sea captain took a young Indian rhinoceros to the Netherlands in 1741 and then toured her extensively across Europe. ‘Miss Clara’, as she was known, was the first example to have been seen …
