Christmas round-up

A Christmas spirit hovers over Art of the Middle Ages at Sam Fogg (15d Clifford Street, W1, until 12 January), visible particularly in the Three Kings bearing gifts in the tiny 14th-century French ivory diptych, and in the green-winged stained-glass angel probably from the glazier who worked at Sées Cathedral, Orne in Normandy, around 1270–80. This high standard is maintained in the stucco relief of the ‘Virgin and Child Enthroned’ of c.1420, by Michele da Firenze, a kneeling wooden king from an Austrian ‘Adoration of the Magi’, and a remarkable Bavarian limewood Jesse figure. Other treasures include illuminated manuscripts, miniatures and Romanesque architectural sculpture. Here are gifts indeed to impress loved ones.

Christmas shows abound in the commercial galleries of the West End: a good chance to recycle old stock, or bring on delectable (even saleable) miniature works, to be offered as presents. Flowers has perfected this, with its annual Small is Beautiful show in Cork Street (until 7 January). Its 23rd exhibition includes tempting things by some of our best abstractionists: Nigel Hall, Sandra Blow, John McLean, Michael Kidner and Manijeh Yadegar. Across the road, Art First presents Twelve Square (until 22 December) — ‘perfect pieces precisely produced’ by gallery artists such as Jack Milroy, Luke Elwes, Eileen Cooper and Philippa Stjernsward. And introducing the distinguished South African painter Louis Maqhubela, whose work the gallery will be showing from January to February. At The Drawing Gallery (37 Duke Street, St James’s, SW1, until 22 December, then 10–26 January), 40 artists from Edward Allington to James Wright each contribute a work. All praise to this tiny gallery which is devoted to putting drawings back on the map as highly desirable purchases.