The concert at the National Concert Hall on Monday of this week, by the Prague Symphony Orchestra, was sensationally good. The heart of its magic lay in the playing by Nikolai Demidenko of Chopin's First Piano Concerto. Read More...

One of the minor but intense glories of Impressionist painting, influencing those French artists who painted landscapes out of doors in the last quarter of the 19th Century, were the memorable snow scenes. They were not accidental.

Between 1865 and the 1890s severe snowfalls became a regular feature. In the winter of 1867 the River Seine froze over and this happened during cold snaps in subsequent years. Traffic was disrupted, trains were stopped by drifts and had to let passengers out into deep snow to find their own way to safety. There was epic coverage in the illustrated journals tracking a phenomenon that had a rich artistic harvest. Read More...

There is a fine watercolour by John Butler Yeats painted in 1900 of his son Jack sitting opposite his wife, Cottie. They are either side of a blazing fire in a large and imposing fireplace. On the high mantelpiece is a carriage clock in its leather case and four green glass decanters. Cottie sits to one side, reading a book, a draft screen behind her. She is the picture of domestic contentment, a woman in possession of all that mattered to her, a home, a husband and a reasonably assured future. Read More...