19th century

Revealed: the colourful and scandalous life of Toulouse-Lautrec's 'Black Countess'

The Art Newspaper has uncovered new details about the subject of the artist's 1881 painting

Bookspreview

From bonnets to ball gowns: inside Jane Austen's well-ordered closet

The author’s voluminous letters to her sister Cassandra reveal her fashion tastes and thrifty skills

Booksreview

Antonio Canova’s spirited clay sketches go under the microscope in new catalogue

This well-conceived exhibition catalogue illuminates the sculptor’s terracotta models—masterpieces in their own right

Booksreview

Scurrilous, rude and joyful: the secret stories of tampered pennies told in new publication

Essays explore the myriad ways that coins have been inscribed with messages of protest, love and more

Radicalism and romance of the Rossetti family explored in London survey

Tate Britain’s exhibition will highlight the Pre-Raphaelite group’s preoccupations with gender and class

Degas and Manet’s ‘mix of friendship and rivalry’ chronicled in major new show

Despite disagreements and a spot of canvas slashing, it was one of the most significant relationships in art history—as a new exhibition at the Musée d’Orsay in Paris demonstrates

A 200-year-old family collection of largely unseen Théodore Géricault paintings heads to auction

The sale at Sotheby’s Paris will include seven works by the artist with Portrait of Zoé Elmore carrying the highest estimate of €1.2m

Booksreview

England’s late-Georgian churches—long dismissed as 'mere preaching boxes'—are reappraised in new book

Built for a booming population, their architecture has been unfairly maligned, argues this survey

Booksreview

Animal, vegetable, mineral: Swedish ironmaster dynasty's collection captures the natural world

Objects and documentation collected by the Timm family offer a unique insight into a past world

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Tales of tragedy and heroism: book of photographs bring England’s shipwrecks to vivid life

Volume comprises superb black-and-white images of 68 shipwrecks off the notoriously treacherous south-west coast, beginning in 1871

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New book reveals how women artists in the 'Age of Revolutions' confound stereotypes

This statistics-driven investigation shows that many of the hundreds of women exhibiting in London and Paris between 1760 and 1830 eschewed the still-life

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New memoir relays a traumatic family history through an intense obsession with a Géricault masterpiece

Book tells a tangled personal narrative through the Louvre's 1819 painting Raft of Medusa

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Book offers overdue estimation of Decimus Burton, an architect of Classical class

The acclaimed 19th-century architect's structures were once described insipidly as having “gentlemanly reticence”

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From the pyramids to Venice: splendid survey of British painters traces the rise of the professional artist-tourist

Beautifully produced book of works by those who travelled abroad in around 1900 offers readers more than the standard views

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Much more to know than Van Gogh: finally a book in English that surveys 19th-century Dutch art

Volume unveils many overlooked artists and highlights the international reach of painters from the Netherlands

'Think first of the walls!' With its tantalising William Morris creations, Emery Walker's House in London reopens

Home boasts the largest collection of the designer's hand-printed wallpapers as well as a wealth of Arts and Crafts treasures

Booksreview

New Orientalists: a thoughtful book on the rise and decline of Western artists in the Middle East

There is plenty to enjoy in this account of a group of travelling painters who were not only accomplished but also determined, brave and hardy

Degas’ love of the Paris opera house is brought to the fore in this catalogue

The artist used a variety of devices to explore the interior of the Opéra Garnier throughout his career

Brighton Pavilion gets its glitter back as fanciful treasures return on long-term loan from the Queen

More of the startling objects collected by George IV will return from Buckingham Palace in early 2020

A missing chapter in the history of the decorative arts: the Restoration and July Monarchy

Louvre-organised show at the Grand Palais of neglected period of production

Children’s portraits without shadows: new book on painting childhood

No Chucky or Lord of the Flies in portraits by British and British-based artists

Boilly, prolific portraitist and genre painter

Almost unknown in Britain, his work was secretly amassed by Harry Hyams, the billionaire property developer

A collection of Romantic 19th-century German illustrations

Book looks at narrative cycles by Edward von Steinle and Leopold Bode

Warship figureheads restored ahead of opening for new Plymouth arts complex

Royal Navy statues are being made shipshape and ready for installation at The Box, opening in 2020

Booksreview

A monumental study of the heyday of Historicist painting

This comprehensive volume looks at a genre popular in 19th-century Europe but long scorned in the art world

A bigger splash: France's expanded La Piscine museum reopens after makeover

Former Art Deco swimming pool in Roubaix dives into Modern French sculpture

Courbet's model for the Origin of the World discovered

It is now “99% certain” that dancer Constance Quéniaux is depicted in the infamous nude

Looted ‘cannibal’ bowl served up in Royal Academy of Art’s Oceania show

Artefact is one of around 200 on show in largest exhibition on the region in almost 40 years