Once, during one of my journeys to Egypt, I found myself gazing intently at one of the immense columns of Karnak in Luxor. Not a single inch of its surface was left unadorned. My thoughts to Trajan’s Column in Rome, so richly decorated with sculpted…
Read MoreThe jewels of the maharajas radiate an opulence of almost mythical intensity. Imagine strings of magnificent gemstones, fashioned with exquisite artistry, each piece a shimmering testament to the grandeur and authority…
Read MoreA procession of lords and knights led to a fantastic city, and behind them was a beautifully painted landscape of hills, lakes, castles and all the animal kingdom. It was The Procession of the Magi…
Read MoreThis was Isabella Stewart Gardner, whose home-museum I was now entering in Boston. It was not just her eccentricity, but also a healthy dose of madness, which turned her into the choreographer… of her own fantasies. She had founded one…
Read MoreIt is true that, walking through the forty museums of Florence, we often forget that what we are seeing once belonged to the private collection of the Medici family and we don’t even ask ourselves…
Read MoreEven paintings travel, and their journeys can be as fascinating as the works themselves — especially when they arrive at their destinations unscathed, having survived wars, disasters, theft, jealousy, and the indifference of those…
Read MoreMarrakech, a city of gardens, unfolds like a dream: pink walls bathed in the warmth of sunlight, orange trees alive with birdsong, small lakes glistening like jewels, and kiosks dotting the landscape. In the distance …
Read MoreOn a beautiful spring afternoon, Mina Kordalis invited her friend, Barbara Athanassiadis, to her atelier to present — through images and words—her book “My Venice”, creating an inspired dialogue…
Read MoreA look at them from the path consumes you with their beauty. They are so densely and consistently constructed that the yard of one…
Read MoreIt all began with a lecture I attended some years ago—a modest introduction that unexpectedly set me on a winding path through the history of Chinese porcelain. I found myself wandering a labyrinth…
Read MoreHave you ever wondered how, at the beginning of the 19th century, so many wonderful works of art reached the United States and became part of the wealthiest collections…
Read MoreIt was once considered the most beautiful capital in Europe. According to Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Naples was a kind of paradise, where everyone lived in a state of dream-like intoxication. Some twenty years later, Stendhal…
Read MoreJust thirty kilometres from Rome lies Tivoli, poised high in the cool hills and commanding a sweeping panorama of the countryside. Here, a cascading waterfall — one that has mesmerised…
Read MoreGazing upon St. Mark’s Basilica, the words that define it rise unbidden: the Fable of the East. Indeed, when I close my eyes, another thought follows naturally — the East begins in Venice…
Read MoreNatalia did not lower the small opera glasses from her eyes for a moment. The ballerina now balanced on one leg. Her partner brushed her fingertips lightly and guided her through a full…
Read MoreRome in the 17th century would attract, apart from the expected pilgrims of Saint Peter’s, artists, priests, and the princes of Europe, an entire society of people living on the fringe elements…
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