In our twelve issues last year, we published one hundred and fifty reviews of exhibitions, mostly taking place in Europe and North America but also in Australia, Mexico and South America. The range of subjects was equally wide – from ‘late period’ Pharaonic sculpture to contemporary art in commercial galleries in London and New York; from the spoils of the captured vessel the Westmorland to the couture of Schiaparelli; and monographic shows and retrospectives from Leonardo and Raphael to Beckmann and de Kooning. Many of these exhibitions left our reviewers satisfied, even if there were reservations about omissions, display and the standard of accompanying catalogues. There were examples of flawed shows with good catalogues – the exploration of Degas and the ballet at the Royal Academy of Arts was one – and enjoyable shows with less than satisfactory publications, such as collecting Rembrandt in America, which toured from Raleigh, North Carolina. Several shows of work by less well-known figures were welcomed – Antico (‘hardly a household name’), Bloemaert, Boilly, Lusieri (an exhibition ‘quite simply perfect’), Cornelis Bega and David d’Angers. And some tightly focused, modestly scaled exhibitions came off better than more grandiose displays. In this respect the now well-established shows at the Courtauld Gallery, usually in two rooms, have been outstanding – earlier in the year there was the juxtaposition of Mondrian and Nicholson and, currently, Peter Lely’s narrative paintings; this year we are promised Becoming Picasso: Paris 1901 and later we shall see The Young Dürer: Drawing the Figure. In this context we should also remember the National Gallery’s display around Titian’s early Flight into Egypt, a marvellous, provocative loan from Russia.

A notable near-absence among last year’s shows were illuminating exhibitions on design, furniture and the decorative arts, reflecting, perhaps, the diminishing study of the subject at university level, and, often, the physical problems of transport and display. Nevertheless, some amends are made with the review in this issue (pp.61–62) of the ‘princely’ furniture of the Roentgens currently at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; and we shall review the substantial show devoted to Karl Friedrich Schinkel now in Berlin (later in Munich) which examines his interiors, stage designs and decorative aesthetic. It should also be noted here that the Victoria and Albert Museum last month opened its new permanent gallery devoted to furniture with over two hundred items from medieval Europe to the present.

Looking ahead – and it should be stressed that this is a highly selective guide, partly inflected by many museums’ seeming reluctance to publicise their forthcoming programmes – there are what promise to be some absorbing old-master exhibitions. Barocci: Brilliance and Grace is already at the Saint Louis Art Museum and will be seen at the National Gallery, London (27th February to 19th May); we can find little on Titian, temptingly announced for the spring at the Scuderie del Quirinale, Rome; but firmly in the diary is the Palazzo Strozzi’s examination of sculpture and the arts in Florence, 1400–60; and paintings by Zurbarán will be seen in Ferrara next autumn, a show with input from the Prado and which will travel to Brussels in 2014. Again in Brussels, painting in the city in the wake of Rogier van der Weyden will be on view in the Royal Mus­eum of Fine Arts (10th October to 26th January 2014). A small show at the Frick Collection, New York, of seven paintings by Piero della Francesca from American collections (12th February to 19th May) is sure to be unmissable. An exceptionally interesting event in Britain this summer will be the return to Houghton Hall, Norfolk, of many works once on display there in the collection of Sir Robert Walpole which were sold to Catherine the Great. Most of these European old masters are from the Hermitage Museum but loans from public and private collections are included.

Two of the towering figures of nineteenth-century painting are celebrated in two exhibitions this year. The first explores Manet’s portraiture and portrayal of contemporary life and travels from the Toledo Museum of Art (now on view) to the Royal Academy of Arts, London (26th January to 14th April). The second is devoted to paintings by Camille Pissarro, the first monographic show of his work to be held in Spain (at the Thyssen-Bornemisza; 4th June to 15th September). Their contemporary J.A.M. Whistler will be at Dulwich Picture Gallery (16th October to 12th January) in a show focusing on his depictions of London, particularly the Thames at Battersea.

Two anniversaries of British artists are celebrated this year: the birth of Allan Ramsay three hundred years ago will be marked at the Hunterian Museum, Glasgow (13th September to 5th January 2014), with selected portraits, works on paper and documentary material; and the centenary of the birth of William Scott will see a touring show, with changes, at Tate St Ives, the Hepworth Wakefield and the Ulster Museum, Belfast. Among other British artists, the work of Frank Holl, the nineteenth-century social realist and portrait painter, admired by Van Gogh, will be on view at the Watts Gallery, Compton (18th June to 27th October); works by the precocious generation taught by Henry Tonks at the Slade School of Art, among them Paul Nash, Nevinson and Bomberg, are brought together at Dulwich Picture Gallery (12th June to 22nd September); and Patrick Caulfield’s career will be surveyed at Tate Britain (5th June to 1st September), followed by a re-examination of the art of L.S. Lowry. It should be noted here that in May Tate Britain will inaugurate a complete re-hang of its permanent collection, following rebuilding and refurbishment. Modern British sculptors are well to the fore with Henry Moore juxtaposed with Rodin at the Moore Foundation, Perry Green (28th March to 28th October); a retrospective of works by the late William Turnbull will be at Chatsworth House (10th March to 30th June); and, during this year’s Venice Biennale, a major exhibition devoted to Anthony Caro will be installed in the Museo Correr. Of modern masters, Magritte’s early work is the subject of an American touring show, beginning in the autumn at the Museum of Modern Art, New York; Léger and depictions of the modern city will be at the Philadelphia Mus­eum of Art, also in the autumn; a Chagall retrospective will tour from Zürich to Tate Liverpool; and Picasso’s works in black and white, currently at the Guggenheim Museum, New York (to 23rd January), travel to the Houston Museum of Fine Arts (24th February to 27th May). Our Calendar each month will alert readers to details of all these shows and numerous new ones as they take their place in this year’s vast jigsaw of exhibitions.