The Great Exhibition of 1851, the first World's Fair, is generally thought of as a giant trade fair, a showcase for empires and industry. However, it was also conceived to address a deep-rooted problem with British taste, which favoured European art and design over British. Julius Bryant's richly illustrated new book, which draws on the vast visual resources of the V&A's collections, establishes the centrality of works of fine art amongst the objects on show at the Great Exhibition. It also highlights the ways in which contemporary artists were commissioned to depict and record the Exhibition’s building and displays for reproduction in commemorative publications.

Through reproductions of period images from definitive official publications, commercial guides, souvenirs, music scores, poems and satirical periodicals, the book brings to life the 19th-century visitor’s experience of the first World’s Fair. 

This innovative and technically demanding practice, unlike traditional canvas painting, gave the illusion of greater resistance to the ravages of time and elements. It positioned itself as a legitimate and compelling language in the age-old rivalry between painting and sculpture.

The exhibition in Bergamo invites visitors to discover this lesser-known chapter in art history, revealing the expressive potential of a medium that, since ancient times, has symbolized moral strength and faith, evoked alchemical allure, embodied metaphors and symbolism, and aspired to eternity.

From Rome to Florence, from Genoa to the Veneto, this technique—once beloved and then gradually abandoned within little more than a century—engaged prominent artists featured in the exhibition, including Paolo Veronese, Jacopo Bassano, Palma il Giovane, Antonio Tempesta, and Salvator Rosa.

Miniature Worlds: Little Landscapes from Thomas Bewick to Beatrix Potter explores the intricate beauty of small-scale landscapes across three centuries of British art. The exhibition has a particular focus on vignette format illustrations and the changing relationship between text, illustration, and publishing. 

Highlights of the exhibition include seven highly detailed watercolours by JMW Turner, whose 250th birthday is being celebrated this year, a dramatic and diminutive drawing by John Martin, and nine intricate watercolours by Beatrix Potter. The exhibition includes over 130 objects, 90 of which are loans from other UK collections. 

This exhibition celebrates the extraordinary loan from the Galleria Borghese in Rome of the painting Boy with a Basket of Fruit, an important early work by Michelangelo Merisi, known as Caravaggio (1571–1610). Trained in his native Lombardy, Caravaggio brought to Rome a tradition of naturalism that stretched back to Leonardo da Vinci’s work in Milan. He combined this tradition, however, with a revolutionary approach to painting that shattered the illusion of art and instead celebrated the artifice of the studio. [...]

The installation will also include a selection of works that document the powerful impact Caravaggio had on Roman art. It concludes with Gianlorenzo Bernini’s portrait drawing of Scipione Borghese, the early owner of the Boy with a Basket of Fruit painting and the collector largely responsible for the Galleria Borghese.

He fought in the Napoleonic wars and is one of only nine Black soldiers known to have received the Waterloo Medal, the first British medal awarded to soldiers regardless of their rank.

Yet the story of Pte Thomas James has been overlooked for centuries.

Now the National Army Museum in London has identified James as the likely subject of an “extraordinarily rare” painting from 1821, which it has attributed to the artist Thomas Phillips, whose more typical sitters were Georgian luminaries such as the Duke of Wellington and Lord Byron.

The portrait will be unveiled to the public on Tuesday at the museum’s “Army at Home” gallery in Chelsea, where it will be placed on permanent display to highlight the service of James and other Black soldiers during the Napoleonic wars.

Through a selection of some 50 works, this exhibition highlights the exceptional collection of drawings and prints by École de Fontainebleau held by Beaux-Arts de Paris. It provides an opportunity to (re)discover the art of maniera that developed at the Château de Fontainebleau and then spread to France under the impetus of Rosso Fiorentino and Francesco Primatice, two Italian artists in the service of Francis I and then Henry II.

The works on display evoke the genesis of the château's painted and sculpted decorations, from the Galerie François I to the Galerie d'Ulysse, and are complemented by etchings produced at Fontainebleau in the 1540's. This innovative corpus, the result of an unprecedented project in France, raises numerous questions, notably concerning the distribution of models, material organization, formal research and the technical trials and tribulations of the artists.

Do you have an idea for a special issue of British Art Studies? 

British Art Studies invites proposals for themed special issues to be published in 2027 and 2028. We’re looking for projects that address major topics in the study of British art – ones that rethink familiar narratives, explore under-researched subjects, or test the boundaries of what ‘British’ art might mean. 

Each special issue is developed collaboratively with the British Art Studies editorial team, and contributing editors receive a fee of £1,000 on publication. 

The people of Limburg are known as ‘true Burgundians’. We think of ourselves as loving fine dining, socialising, and large, lengthy celebrations. But how Burgundian is that really? Who were the Burgundians, who ruled over what we now call Limburg in the 15th century?

The unique exhibition Burgundians in Limburg allows you to take a step into the past. Let the distinctive music, beautiful objects and intriguing stories immerse you in the late Middle Ages. The exhibition focuses on three generations of Burgundians: the illustrious leaders Philip the Good, Charles the Bold and Mary the Rich.

Michel Sittow was born in Reval c. 1469, today the Estonian capital city of Tallinn. Possibly trained in the workshop of Hans Memling in Bruges, he subsequently moved to work in the Iberian Peninsula, where he first held the position of court painter. This monograph undertakes research on this phase of his career. In the Kingdom of Castille, Michel Sittow was appointed painter to Queen Isabella and became a member of her household with an impressive annual salary. Thanks to the analysis of archival documents and formal and iconographical studies on Sittow’s paintings, it is possible to explain the court painter’s life circumstances and describe the benefits he enjoyed and the difficulties he faced. The Castilian period was crucial for Michel Sittow’s career since over the course of his professional life, he also resided at the courts of Philip the Fair, Margaret of Austria, Christian II of Denmark and Charles V, all relatives of his first royal patron. While serving European monarchs, he transferred Memling’s techniques and visual language beyond the Low Countries and developed his artistic practice and style. The analysis of the various contexts Michel Sittow worked in sheds light on his oeuvre and his possible privileged status as a courtier, which provided opportunities to establish a flourishing and ambitious career in northern and southern Europe.

The Fondation Custodia and the Rijksmuseum invite two outstanding early career art historians to join us for a two-year, fixed-term apprenticeship. You will spend one year at the Fondation Custodia in Paris and one year at the Print Room of the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. This unique opportunity offers in-depth experience with two internationally renowned collections and prepares you for a curatorial career in the field of prints and drawings.

The position

Initiated in 2016, this joint apprenticeship gives you the chance to work in two institutions of very different nature and size, but with a shared strength: internationally acclaimed collections of Dutch and Flemish art. In close collaboration with the institutions’ staff, you will be able to engage in many facets of curatorial work. As integrated members of the curatorial team, you will be involved in its programme and contribute to it. It’s a position for 24 months, full time.

On the occasion of the 200th anniversary of his death, the Casa di Goethe is the first museum in Italy to dedicate an exhibition to the draughtsman Christoph Heinrich Kniep (1755-1825).

Kniep is best known today as Goethe’s companion and draughtsman on his journey to Sicily. The artist, who became friends with Johann Heinrich Wilhelm Tischbein, Friedrich Bury, Johann Heinrich Schütz and Jakob Philipp Hackert during his almost three-year stay in Rome, spent the rest of his life in Naples after his return from Sicily. Here he developed a rich artistic oeuvre. Working for travellers on the ‘Grand Tour’ and the local aristocracy, Kniep created both realistic views of the Neapolitan countryside and large-scale ideal landscapes with mythological staffage, which were very popular among the public.