The German artist Peter von Hess performed in the forties of last century by the special order of Tsar Nikolay I of Russia twelve canvases describing different episodes of the Patriotic war. All these canvases are in the Winter Palace in St.Petersburg. Peter Heinrich Lambert von Hess (29 July 1792 – 4 April 1871) was a German painter, known for historic paintings, especially of the Napoleonic Wars and the Greek War of Independence. Peter von Hess initially received training from his father Carl Ernst Christoph Hess...

How a tiny island and its queen came to possess an empire so large that the sun never set on it “Britain had the might, ingenuity and limitless ambition to conquer the world” The date was 22 January 1901 and the British Empire was the largest of any in human history, but the monarch who reigned over it would not live to see another day. As Queen Victoria lay dying in Osborne House on the Isle of Wight she looked back on a reign that spanned over 63 years. She had seen her empire grow from a collection...