The year 2017 marks the bicentenary of the exhibition of the Parthenon Marbles at the British Museum. The artefacts were removed from the Athenian Acropolis in 1801 and 1802 by Thomas Bruce, seventh Lord Elgin British Ambassador (1799–1803) to the Ottoman Empire. The sculptures were commissioned in the fifth century BC as part of the rebuilding of the City of Athens ordered by the statesman Pericles following the successful war against the Persians.

A blockbuster exhibition at the National Gallery traces the travels of Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528), the ‘Apelles of the black line’ as Erasmus called him. These journeys were principally to cities along the Rhine (1490-4), twice to Venice (1505-7), and the Netherlands (1520-21). No other artist has produced a comparable body of work from the experience of travel. Like the landmark self-portrait of 1500, which evokes Christ (above) Durer’s art signals a self-awareness that crosses frontiers.