The notion of the miniature, oddly enough, has nothing to do with size, and the word derives not from minimum but from the Latin minium, the name of the red pigments often used in the decoration of manuscript books. In time the words miniature and miniature (as an adjective) came to stand for any small forms of art and, indeed, for things of small dimensions in general.
The Surbarán exhibition at the Louvre opens with the "Crucifixion" that launched the painter's fame in Seville in 1627. The Dominicans of the monastery of San Pablo el Real commissioned 21 paintings from the young Surbarán, and this vast canvas, almost three metres high, became the
Jamie Raskin, the Democratic congressman for Maryland, has introduced in the US House of Representatives a bill that would oblige the Smithsonian Institution to create a permanent exhibition on the propaganda of Donald Trump. The bill is entitled the "Preserving and Remembering the History of Trump and Other Tyrants
This bronze bracelet, discovered in the Celtic necropolis of Bucquoy in the department of Val-d'Oise, is an outstanding example of Gallic jewellery-making. The ornament dates from the 3rd or 2nd century BC and belongs to the heyday of the La Tène culture. The piece is distinguished
The emperors of the Ming dynasty, which ruled China from 1368 to 1644, were in dire need of silver in the sixteenth century. It went chiefly on prestige projects such as the Forbidden City in Beijing and the repair of the Great Wall. The historian Mark Cartwright writes in the