Art

Ross Watson describes how, as sovereign of Sweden until 1654 and later as an exile in Rome, Queen Christina was a lavish and discriminating patron of the arts.

John Gage profiles Loutherbourg, the Alsatian landscape-artist who lived in London from 1771 onwards and became a creator of striking theatrical designs and seemingly miraculous exhibitions.

Tudor Edwards introduces the Second-Empire architect who was at once a fanatical restorer in the Gothic style and a daring speculator in new architectural thought.

Established, by Louis IX at the burying-place of the French monarchy, in 1793 Saint-Denis was solemnly desecrated by order of the revolutionary Convention, determined to remove all “horrid memories” of the former royal line. By Peter Quennell.

G.R. Potter describe show, during the 15th and 16th centuries the scholarship of the humanists and theologians was fused at Basel into something characteristically Swiss.

Martin Biddle visits Nonsuch, a magnificent combination of French Renaissance decoration, with English late Gothic design, built by Henry VIII in a spirit of rivalry with Francis I of France.

L.R. Betcherman describes how, early in the seventeenth century, an English royal favourite, the Duke of Buckingham, despatched his Dutch agent to Italy to form a sumptuous art-collection.

John Gage gauges the impact of Italian influences trickling through to Britain until the 17th century.

Boyd Alexander profiles a man whose whole life and fortune were spent in creating and living out a youthful dream. But William Beckford was not only a romantic visionary: he was also an inspired collector and an artistic pioneer.

Had these early artists a purely practical aim? Or were they inspired by a true creative impulse? “This conflict” writes Jacquetta Hawkes, “exists only in the mind of the disputants.”