Laura Freeman

The Victoria and Albert

24 September 2016 9:00 am

Thomas Hardy, while still married to his first wife Emma, but arranging assignations in London with Florence, his second-wife-to-be, used…

Hardy perennial: a crowd in the V&A Cast Courts

The Victoria and Albert

22 September 2016 1:00 pm

Thomas Hardy, while still married to his first wife Emma, but arranging assignations in London with Florence, his second-wife-to-be, used…

Hush money

17 September 2016 9:00 am

The new consumer obsession of my generation isn’t white goods, trainers or designer labels. It is — whisper it —…

Room for inspiration

8 September 2016 1:00 pm

The curious thing about an art room is that you never remember the look of the place. Each summer, a…

Ice cream

30 July 2016 9:00 am

It was a mistake to tell us about the gelati-to-sightseeing ratio. This was the formula my father, his younger sister…

Everything is illuminated

30 July 2016 9:00 am

One could honour God with prayer, of course, and build cathedrals, amass treasuries, turn choirs into stained-glass jewel boxes, carve…

The taste of freedom and sunburnt holidays

Ice cream

28 July 2016 1:00 pm

It was a mistake to tell us about the gelati-to-sightseeing ratio. This was the formula my father, his younger sister…

Astonishing splashes of colour: historiated initial from a gradual, Entry into Jerusalem (c.1410–20), by Cristoforo Cortese

Everything is illuminated

28 July 2016 1:00 pm

One could honour God with prayer, of course, and build cathedrals, amass treasuries, turn choirs into stained-glass jewel boxes, carve…

Robots are our friends

7 July 2016 4:00 am

We have watched too many-movies. To our cinema-flamed imaginations the robots of the future are silken-voiced and pliant like Scarlett…

Holy visions and dustbins

2 July 2016 9:00 am

Woolworth’s spectacles. Pudding-basin haircut, rather sparse. Norfolk jacket. Pyjama cuffs below trouser legs and sleeves. Paints and brushes in an…

‘Sausage Shop’, 1951, by Stanley Spencer

Holy visions and dustbins

30 June 2016 1:00 pm

Woolworth’s spectacles. Pudding-basin haircut, rather sparse. Norfolk jacket. Pyjama cuffs below trouser legs and sleeves. Paints and brushes in an…

Twists, turns and good red herrings

25 June 2016 3:00 am

Jessie Burton’s first novel, The Miniaturist, set in 17th-century Amsterdam, read like a lantern-slide show. Her churches were by Pieter…

The happiness police

25 June 2016 3:00 am

On a recent sodden weekend walk, I tried to cheer myself up by thinking: it’s not so bad. Not the slugs…

Cartoon for St Luke, Chichester Cathedral Tapestry, 1965, by John Piper

The shimmering, restless, groovy fabrics of John Piper

21 May 2016 9:00 am

A story John Piper liked to tell — and the one most told about him — is of a morning…

Cartoon for St Luke, Chichester Cathedral Tapestry, 1965, by John Piper

Close encounters

19 May 2016 1:00 pm

A story John Piper liked to tell — and the one most told about him — is of a morning…

It starts with tidying your sock drawer. It ends with emptying your mind

16 April 2016 9:00 am

It starts with tidying your sock drawer. It ends with emptying your mind

‘Macbeth, Banquo and Witches on the Heath’, 1794, by Henry Fuseli

Why do some museums insist on playing piped music into exhibitions?

9 April 2016 9:00 am

There was a genteel brouhaha last year — leaders in the Times, letters to the Telegraph, tutting in the galleries…

‘Macbeth, Banquo and Witches on the Heath’, 1794, by Henry Fuseli

Sound and fury

7 April 2016 1:00 pm

There was a genteel brouhaha last year — leaders in the Times, letters to the Telegraph, tutting in the galleries…

Convivial: the Reading Room

The discreet charm of the London Library

19 March 2016 9:00 am

Some rogue has been writing in my bedside book. A fastidious hand has crossed out misspelled words and written neat…

Convivial: the Reading Room

The London Library

17 March 2016 3:00 pm

Some rogue has been writing in my bedside book. A fastidious hand has crossed out misspelled words and written neat…

‘Venus’, 1490s, by Sandro Botticelli

V&A's Botticelli Reimagined has too many desperate pretenders

5 March 2016 9:00 am

When Tom Birkin, hero of J.L. Carr’s novel A Month in the Country, wakes from sleeping in the sun, it…

‘Venus’, 1490s, by Sandro Botticelli

Topsy-turvy

3 March 2016 3:00 pm

When Tom Birkin, hero of J.L. Carr’s novel A Month in the Country, wakes from sleeping in the sun, it…

‘The Woodman’s Child’, 1860, by Arthur Hughes

Twee, treacly and tearful: Pre-Raphaelites at the Walker Art Gallery reviewed

27 February 2016 9:00 am

Dear, good, kind, sacrificing Little Nell. Here she is kneeling by a wayside pond, bonnet pushed back, shoes and stockings…

Sweet and sour

25 February 2016 3:00 pm

Dear, good, kind, sacrificing Little Nell. Here she is kneeling by a wayside pond, bonnet pushed back, shoes and stockings…

‘The Woodman’s Child’, 1860, by Arthur Hughes

Sweet and sour

25 February 2016 3:00 pm

Dear, good, kind, sacrificing Little Nell. Here she is kneeling by a wayside pond, bonnet pushed back, shoes and stockings…