What is Scagliola, and how did a marble imitation become an object of desire?
By Catherine Jacobi It began as a way to imitate costly stone. Within a century, Grand Tourists were waiting years for tables made of it by a monk in the Tuscan hills. In the British Museum‘s Enlightenment gallery, the room Robert Smirke designed in the 1820s to hold George III’s library, the walls glow in […]
Portrait: Horst P. Horst
By Catherine Jacobi The photographer behind Vogue’s most famous corset also designed his own house, planted his own garden and spent decades in other people’s drawing rooms, looking at each of them with the same exacting eye. Summer fashion at Horst’s house, Oyster Bay, 1948. Horst P. Horst for Vogue. © Condé Nast / Horst […]
The Man Who Broke the Frame
From Fountain to the readymades, the landmark exhibition traces how Duchamp redefined the relationship between objects, ideas, and museums.