The Labours of the Months: January
Twelve tiny Venetian panels, vivid with ultramarine and vermilion, trace a year of rural labour — a rare, charming 16th-century celebration of seasons, work, and life’s quiet rhythm.
The Legendary Shield of Achilles
Homer’s Shield of Achilles — a microcosm of war, harvest, dance, and law — inspired Flaxman’s stunning 1821 silver-gilt masterpiece, proudly displayed at George IV’s coronation banquet.
Christmas-Time
Eastman Johnson — Longfellow’s portraitist, Dutch Masters admirer, and chronicler of American life — captured slavery, family, and freedom on canvas with quiet humanity and extraordinary skill.
Church of the Holy Martyr Polyeuktos
Built to rival Solomon’s Temple, Anicia Juliana’s magnificent 6th-century Constantinople church defied even Emperor Justinian — its looted treasures now scattered across Venice, Barcelona, and Vienna.
Teaching with Domenico Veneziano
Vasari’s gripping tale of artistic jealousy, a lute smashed and a murder committed — totally fictional, yet Domenico Veneziano’s ethereal Florentine masterpieces remain breathtakingly, undeniably real.
Matisse and Jazz
Matisse’s Jazz — bold, improvisational, electric with colour — mirrors the music it celebrates. Two dazzling pochoirs in Athens invite us to feel rhythm through cut paper and pigment.
The Month of December
Maestro Venceslao’s December fresco captures a frozen Trentino world — bare-footed peasants chopping timber, knights escorting noble ladies, icicles hanging from castle eaves — vivid, harsh, and unforgettable.
Lion Hunt Mosaic
Did Pella’s breathtaking Lion Hunt mosaic echo Krateros’s lost bronze monument at Delphi — immortalising Alexander’s legendary struggle with a lion in marble, metal, and memory?
Watercolours by Howard Carter
Before discovering Tutankhamun’s golden tomb, Howard Carter was a teenage tracer painting Egyptian hieroglyphs in watercolour — his artist’s eye forever shaping one of archaeology’s greatest discoveries.
Dioscurides and Krithamo
The Vienna Dioscurides — a breathtaking 515 AD Byzantine manuscript gifted to Anicia Juliana — preserves Greek botanical wisdom and over a thousand medicinal plants in luminous illuminated splendour.