People

ABove Ninagawa Noritane, photographed on 15 July 1879. He was notably reluctant. As his American friend Edward Morse recalled: ‘I actually abducted him… to the photographer’.

Ninagawa Noritane

In the 1930s, an admirer remembered Japanese antiquarian Ninagawa Noritane fondly as ‘simple-hearted and unpretentious. He was frugal and sometimes walked around wearing a lampshade hat woven with rush.’ He added, perhaps unnecessarily, ‘It should be said that he was…

Egyptian afterlives: an interview with Salima Ikram

As shown by the excitement surrounding the discovery of Tutankhamun 100 years ago, mummies and Egyptian tombs have an impressive ability to capture our imagination. Richard Marranca speaks to Egyptologist Salima Ikram to find out more about these funerary finds, from early medicinal mummies to recent revelations at Saqqara.

The wartime art of Laura Knight

Laura Knight was blessed with some of the essential qualities of any great artist: a broadness of outlook and a fascination with the riches of ordinary life. A new exhibition of her work at the MK Gallery in Milton Keynes…

Above Nicolas Claude Fabri de Peiresc, in a 1637 engraving by Claude Mellan.

Nicolas-Claude Fabri de Peiresc (1580-1637)

It is hard to disagree with the astronomers. They clearly felt that naming a single lunar crater after Nicolas-Claude Fabri de Peiresc in 1935 was insufficient and, in 1993, honoured him again, this time with an asteroid. But astronomy is…

James ‘Athenian’ Stuart

The first volume of The Antiquities of Athens and Other Monuments of Greece (1762) had an impressive 500 subscribers, but its influence was most strongly felt only in the early 19th century, when Greek Revival became the dominant style of British architecture.

Nero type 3. Palatine DSC05795 scaled

Was Nero really a goodie?

His talents may have been limited and he may have been fundamentally lazy: but was he bad? Could we not say that he made the best use of his limited talents – and the empire flourished?

Above Jacques Francis, illustration by Joe Lillington. below The Mary Rose, as she would have looked in 1545, in a painting by Geoff Hunt.

Jacques Francis

He was not, Jacques Francis insisted as prosecution witnesses tried repeatedly to have his testimony thrown out, a slave. They called him ‘blackamoor’ and ‘infidel-born’, but he called himself famulus rather than servus – a member of the household, a…

Amelia Edwards

This major figure in Egyptian archaeology was also a novelist, journalist, artist, erstwhile musician, and dauntless travel writer.

Clem and Cat

War Athletes: Clem Lewis

At the turn of the 20th century, the first ‘Golden Era’ of Welsh rugby ushered in the national team’s rise to dominance and infused ‘rugger’ into the country’s lifeblood. Lewis, for his part, embraced the game body and soul.

The fabulous Mariano Fortuny

Fortuny’s designs were hugely successful among the fashionable elite of the early 20th century, and admired by intellectuals and femmes du monde alike.

War Reporters: William Howard Russell

Widely regarded as the first modern war correspondent, Russell was a globetrotter with a wide purview, reporting on the Indian Rebellion of 1857, the American Civil War, the coronation of Tsar Nicholas I, the Franco- Prussian War, and the Zulu War among many other key events of the tumultuous 19th century.

War Reporters: Jean Froissart

Froissant claimed to have born witness, during his travels, to many of the battles that took place during the Hundred Years War, committing all he had seen and heard to writing in the form of elaborate illustrated manuscripts. Seema Syeda examines battlefield scoops through the ages.

War Reporters: Julius Caesar

He was a charismatic leader, a seasoned military veteran, and a formidable politician. It is little wonder that he is rarely thought of as being an ancient example of the modern-day war reporter. Seema Syeda examines battlefield scoops throughout the ages.

Picasso – half man, half bull

Picasso never visited Greece, let alone Crete. He didn’t need to do so. He re-created it on paper. The drawings and prints in our show reveal how Picasso evoked the ancient world and peopled it with gorgeous girls who resembled his mistresses.

Vo Nguyen Giap3

Vo Nguyen Giap

General Giap was one of the 20th century’s foremost military commanders. He made his name commanding the military wing of the Viet Minh during the Second World War, before becoming commander-in-chief of the People’s Army of Vietnam.