When Cézanne visited his childhood friend, the writer Émile Zola, he sat on the banks of the River Seine and painted Zola’s house in vibrant shades of green, yellow and blue.

This is an extremely fine armour of the type worn by light horsemen armed with lances and handguns. It offers excellent protection and allows freedom of movement in the fight.

Rembrandt van Rijn was just 26 when he created this self portrait. It was one of the first paintings he made when he moved to Amsterdam in search of work.

Carved alabaster heads of St John the Baptist were produced for a mass market and sold at a modest price. They were treasured items, made to assist prayer in the home.

Ceramic figures of tomb guardians kept evil spirits away from the deceased. This one is a fangxiang in exaggerated human form.

Made up of multi-coloured stone tesserae set in plaster, this Roman mosaic of a cockerel would have once been set in a pavement.

This Egyptian queen is shown wearing a vulture cap with a rising cobra. The vulture was associated with the goddess Nekhbet and the cobra with the goddess Wadjet.

This rare surviving Tudor embroidery was made for Henry VIII of England and his second wife, Anne Boleyn. The design includes their initials ‘HA’, acorns symbolising Henry’s royalty and honeysuckles for Anne.

These six panels are just a section from the huge seven-window display created for the Church at Boppard in the 1440s. Much of this stained glass survives in museums all over the world.

The garden design on this carpet is crammed with shrubs and trees, animals and birds intersected by water channels and a pool full of fish and ducks.