The architect behind Bonhams' cutting-edge headquarters gives Hugh Pearman a guided tour
Alex Lifschutz bowls up on his Brompton bike, smiling broadly. The award-winning architect has come to show me his transformation of Bonhams New Bond Street headquarters, which is in its final frenzy of construction the day we meet. He does not disappoint: this is a very clever project ...
Matthew Sturgis looks back at how the auction world evolved from Babylonian 'marriage sales', the innovations of the Dutch and the cut-throat world of the coffee houses of Covent Garden
The opening of Bonhams' handsome new saleroom in New Bond Street marks an exciting phase in the history of the auction house. It is a reminder, too, of how far ...
Sam Spade, private detective, falls in with three unscrupulous adventurers who have been scouring the globe for a certain Maltese falcon. They need look no further: the bird is being sold by Bonhams. David Thomson investigates
The dying man was clutching a brown-paper parcel, held together by thin rope: "It was an ellipsoid somewhat larger than an American football." It ...
Fragonard's portrait of the 5th Duc d'Harcourt sums up an age when appearance was everything. Robert Tombs describes the performances, masquerades and theatrics at play in the court of Louis XV
If you did not live through the years before 1789," sighed Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord, aristocrat, bishop, libertine and politician, "you cannot know the real pleasure of ...
Stephen Bogart talks to Zachary Faganson about his father's style
The jewel-encrusted statue that is both the namesake and focus of the 1941 film-noir masterpiece The Maltese Falcon is a McGuffin, "in the Hitchcockian sense of the word," says Stephen Bogart over the telephone from his home in Naples, Florida.
It's the reason Sam Spade, played by Stephen ...
The first gift was a gold ring... and then the jewels kept coming. One of the world's bestselling novelists, Barbara Taylor Bradford, tells Lucinda Bredin about her jewellery collection – and the man who bestows them upon her
We were in Capri," says Barbara Taylor Bradford, who is sitting in the dining room of her New York apartment looking at ...
Images of the Crucifixion hit a nerve in 14th and 15th-century Europe. Martin Gayford explores the effect of these unusually intense paintings
In 1413, an English woman named Margery Kempe set out from Yarmouth for the Holy Land. She travelled via Constance and Venice and finally reached Jerusalem. While she was there, she was granted a 'showing'. "It was granted ...
They were colourful and extravagant. And that was just the glasses. John Sandon finds out about the Bohemian lifestyle
During the 1830s something happened to glass in Europe. It suddenly became colourful, and it also got much bigger. The country-house class had been used to colourless glass. Suddenly here was a new kind of ornament – glass from Bohemia that was ...
Childe Hassam embraced France and Impressionism, but it is his American paintings that show his true roots, says Kathleen Burnside
Confident in personality, robust in appearance and exceptionally vigorous in artistic output during his long lifetime, Childe Hassam (1859-1935) was perhaps the most highly successful exponent of American Impressionist painting in America. During his career he was lauded for his ...
David Murray liked a stiff drink and a speedy car. He was also the engine behind Scotland's first racing team. Richard Williams tracks its history from a mews to Le Mans
David Murray was the life and soul of any party, not necessarily the sort of figure springing to mind when the words 'Edinburgh accountant' are uttered. No pillar ...
Nicholas Faith describes how members' clubs have shaped drinking habits
Members of London clubs have always been traditionalists. They might be prepared to try Rioja or Chianti at home, but once they step into their regular haunts they still tend to stick to historic favourites: sherry, port, claret, champagne and cognac. Of course habits varied.
Members of the 'professional' clubs ...
The Cheyenne tribe needed all the help it could get. Outnumbered and outgunned by the US army, it put its faith in armour imbued with spiritual powers, explains Max Carocci
The Cheyenne, one of the tribes of the Great Plains, roamed from North Dakota to Mexico. But increasing encroachment of European settlers forced its warriors to go to war. By ...
Marrakech has colour, heat and a feeling that anything is possible, says Vanessa Branson
I first passed through Marrakech more than 30 years ago, but I only really got to know it in the mid-1990s, when my brother Richard was based here on his venture to circumnavigate the world in a balloon. What made that so memorable was a combination ...
Sir Stirling Moss,one of Britain's most famous racing drivers, on how he conquered the exhilarating Nürburgring
My favourite track is Germany's Nürburgring. I'm talking about the traditional old North Circuit – the Nordschleife they called it – not the boring piece they added in the 1980s, which is still used for modern racing. The old Nürburgring Nordschleife was ...
