Bringing plants indoors for decorative purposes has been a practice for many centuries, supported by the ceramic, glass and metalwork artist.  This talk follows the story of using plants in the home, through the influx of exotics, the changes in technology, and the fashions in interior design.

From their introduction in the thirteenth century onwards, clocks have held a variety of philosophical and social meanings. This talk explores the visual and literary uses of the clock, and their symbolism.

Aware of the inegalitarian nature of concert life during the late nineteenth century, Sir Henry Wood, organist, vocal pedagogue, recording artist and conductor, set about making music available to the man in the street by founding the Promenade Concerts at Queen's Hall in 1895. He was also quick to recognise the potential of the gramophone.

Some argue that the  invention of the ball ranks as highly as the invention of the wheel. This lecture delves into how these apparently simple objects came into being and how their design and manufacture has evolved in some of our best-known games over the centuries.

An exploration of the  various ways in which nature, in all its vastness, wilderness, and remoteness, with such exceptional light conditions as the midnight sun and auroras, has been represented by Danish, Finnish, Norwegian and Swedish painters

Can you ever remember which saint is which? Who carries the wheel,  which John is the one with the lamb and which is the one with chalice and snake? Drawing on painting, metalwork, sculpture and manuscripts, this lecture will help us to ‘decode’ the saints.

As the second city of the British Empire, hub of cultural and artistic production, the lecture explores the poetry, theatre, literature, song and architecture of this extraordinary city, India’s capital until 1911. At the epicentre of the ‘Bengal renaissance’, Calcutta played a central role in shaping the arts and culture of modern India.

Shining a light on the intriguing story of women’s love affair with plumage, and of those who bravely fought back on behalf of the birds, you’ll be taken back in time to a world where every woman, of every class, wore a hat, moving from a polite Victorian tea party to an egret hunt in a Florida swamp.

We join a day on the Rialto in Renaissance Venice, its surrounding buildings and its merchants, looking at the wares on offer, including luxury goods from the Islamic East and Northern Europe and how Venetians displayed them after purchase.

This lecture tells the story of how these much-loved books, introduced to children of all ages between 1924 and 1928, were created by the genius of Milne and Shepard’s groundbreaking collaboration and why they remain embedded in our national identity to this day.