THIS OBJECT WAS excavated from one of the largest graves in the Royal Cemetery at Ur in Mesopotamia. When found, the original wooden frame had decayed and the panels were crushed and broken. As a result, the present restoration is only a best guess as to how it actually appeared. Its original function is not known, but suggestions include a standard, and the sound-box of a musical instrument.

THIS BLACK LIMESTONE obelisk was found at the site of Kalhu, the ancient Assyrian capital. It was erected as a public monument in 825 вс at a time of civil war. The relief sculptures glorify the achievements of King Shalmaneser III (reigned 858-824 вс) and his chief minister.

THIS COLOUR PRINTED etching with hand-drawn additions in ink and watercolour was made three years before Goya’s The Sleep of Reason and a year after Turner’s watercolour of Tintern Abbey. It depicts the figure of Albion, a personification of Britain. Blake often portrayed Albion as an elderly man, exhausted or in fetters, destroyed by war, social injustice, false morality and capitalism. This image of Albion was printed in 1796 and reflects how Blake was inspired by the political changes created by the American War of Independence (1776-81) and the French Revolution (1789).

FRANCISCO JOSE DE Goya у Lucientes was a court artist to the Spanish royal family, but also a portraitist and satirist. In 1799 he produced a series of 80 satirical etchings known as Los Caprichos (The Fantasies). The series held up the vices and follies of contemporary Spanish society for ridicule.

THE IMAGES ON this page and the next were made at almost the same time in different parts of Europe by two famous painters. This watercolour of Tintern Abbey is by Turner. In the late eighteenth century the effects of the Industrial Revolution on the landscape, and a fashion for the medieval or ‘Gothick’, led to a new appreciation of the British countryside. Tourists sought out picturesque ruins and romantic landscapes.

In BOTH EUROPE and China, the past played a powerful role in inspiring art and the imagination in the eighteenth century. This can be seen in both the ancient object and the watercolour on the opposite page. This jade bi (ring or disc) dates to the Shang dynasty (about 1500-1050 вс). Engraved on the bi, however, is a poem written by the Qianlong emperor (reigned AD 1736-95).

THIS IS PERHAPS the single most famous of Hokusai’s colour woodblock prints, indeed possibly the most famous of all Japanese prints. The graceful snow-clad Mount Fuji stands in the background of the print, its white cap contrasting against the deep blue of the horizon. It is however, reduced to a tiny hillock compared with the towering strength of the wave which threatens to engulf the struggling boats. Such clever, playful manipulation of composition is a feature on many of Hokusai’s works.

PALMER BEGAN HIS career as an artist at an early age and first exhibited at the Royal Academy at the age of fourteen. In 1824 he met William Blake whose influence helped to confirm his visionary approach to art. Palmer retreated into rural isolation in the village of Shoreham in Kent. Here he gathered around him a group of artists who were influenced by Blake, such as Edward Calvert (1799-1883) and George Richmond (1809-96), who called themselves the Ancients’.

THIS YEAR-GOING, spring-driven table clock was made by Thomas Tompion for William III (reigned 1689-1702). It is a spectacular work by Britain’s most celebrated clockmaker. The case is made of ebony veneer decorated with applied silver and gilt-brass mounts.

An astronomical compendium is a collection of small mathematical instruments in a single box. It provided the user with a multitude of options in a handy format, but was also an expensive item, clearly meant to show off the owner’s wealth. This elaborate example was made by James Kynvyn for Robert Devereux, second earl of Essex (1567-1601), whose arms, crest and motto are engraved on the inside of the cover.