Search results for ""philip wilson publishers ltd""
Philip Wilson Publishers Ltd English and American Watches
In this long-awaited reprint - first published in 1967 - the late George Daniels, a master watchmaker of the twentieth century, documents the important contribution made by England and America in the development of the pocket watch from the earliest times to late 1960s America. Daniels tells of the sequence of technical developments that led to the production of electric and electronic watches. It is a fascinating story for all who appreciate not only a watch's technical niceties but also the intrinsic beauty with which devoted craftsmen endowed it. Mr Daniels' concise, learned account, which places each phase of the story in its true perspective, will be found indispensable both by collectors and by those new to the history of watchmaking. Over a hundred photographs together with a series of clear line drawings, emphasise the watchmakers' achievement in marrying pure function and beauty, and at the same time illustrate the changes in movements that accompanied progress in external a
£36.00
Philip Wilson Publishers Ltd Ranjit Singh
Through exquisite artworks, glittering jewellery and weaponry discover how Ranjit Singh, one of the greatest figures in the history of India, established a hugely influential Sikh Empire at the beginning of the 19th century.Through a stunning selection of over one hundred key objects from the Sikh Empire drawn from major private and public collections, explore how a voracious warrior-king named Ranjit Singh brought about a golden age in Punjab where trade boomed, the arts flourished and a formidable army was developed along European lines to keep any British, Afghan, Persian or Russian threat at bay. Backed by the tactical support of a guileful mother-in-law and a holy man with a penchant for warfare, Ranjit Singh would emerge as the region''s undisputed ''maharaja'' or Great King at the beginning of the nineteenth century. His meteoric rise to power ushered in a short-lived but hugely influential Sikh Empire that would inextricably impact on the fortun
£18.00
Philip Wilson Publishers Ltd Ingrid Pollard: Carbon Slowly Turning
Published to accompany an exhibition at MK Gallery, this is the first major survey of the work of contemporary British artist and photographer Ingrid Pollard, nominated for the Turner Prize 2022. This publication provides the first overview of works by British artist and photographer Ingrid Pollard. Pollard is renowned for using portrait and landscape photography to question our relationship with the natural world and to interrogate social constructs such as Britishness, race, sexuality and identity. Working across a variety of techniques from photography, printmaking, drawing and installation to artists’ books, video and audio, Pollard combines meticulous research and experimental processes to make art that is at once deeply personal and socially resonant. ‘Ingrid Pollard’s practice has long been focused on the human body, astro-physics and geology, and in particular geology in the formation of the stars and planets. The title of this publication – Carbon Slowly Turning – invites us to reflect on geological time in relation to human time. On the one hand, the millennia in which carbon, rock and other natural materials are made, and on the other, the brevity of human existence by comparison and the affecting nature of geology on the human form. A number of Pollard’s works reflect on the cyclical nature of history and human experience, where everything is subject to change, sometimes over hundreds or thousands of years, at other times in the blink of an eye.’ — Gilane Tawadros, Curator, writer and CEO, DACS ‘Ingrid Pollard’s work slows down our looking to create space to consider alternative formations of history and landscape. Across four decades she has re-scripted Britishness, looking back in order that we might move forward differently. This is a profound and timely exploration of this vital British artist.’ — Maria Balshaw, Director, Tate This book accompanies an exhibition at MK Gallery and Turner Contemporary, curated by Gilane Tawadros, with the artist, and supported by the Freelands Award 2020. Edited by Fay Blanchard and Anthony Spira. Essays by Anna Arabindan-Kesson, Cheryl Finley, Paul Gilroy, Mason Leaver-Yap and Gilane Tawadros.
£27.00
Philip Wilson Publishers Ltd Industry and Ingenuity: The Partnership of William Ince and John Mayhew
The first comprehensive study of William Ince and John Mayhew’s famous eighteenth-century cabinetmaking partnership, complemented by high-quality photographs of their work. The partnership of William Ince (1737–1804) and John Mayhew (1736–1811) ran from 1758 to 1804, and was one of the most enduring and well-connected collaborations in Georgian London’s tight-knit cabinetmaking community. The partners’ clientele was probably larger, and their work was arguably more influential over a longer period, than most other leading metropolitan makers – perhaps even than that of their older contemporary, the celebrated Thomas Chippendale. Despite their considerable output and an impressive tally of clients and commissions, much of Ince and Mayhew’s work has remained unidentified until recent times. The authors’ substantial research in private family archives, county record offices and bank archives has allowed them to uncover much new evidence about the business and its influence within cabinetmaking circles. In Industry and Ingenuity, the results of these new investigations are presented alongside an impressive selection of more than 500 colourful, vibrant photographs of Ince and Mayhew’s works, many previously unpublished, which together emphasise the partnership’s proper position in the pantheon of great eighteenth-century cabinetmakers.
£67.50
Philip Wilson Publishers Ltd Heraldry and Stained Glass at Apothecaries' Hall
The first comprehensive study of heraldry and stained glass in one of the oldest surviving Livery Halls of the City of London, dating from 1672. Apothecaries' Hall, home of the Worshipful Society of Apothecaries of London, contains a large collection of armorial bearings in various media, but most particularly in stained glass. This comprehensive book describes the derivation and display of the Society's Arms, the Royal connections which also provide a source of heraldic decoration, and the large collection of glass panels relating to the coats of Arms of many of the Past Masters and Honorary Freemen. For twenty years, a tenant at the Hall was the renowned stained glass artist Carl Edwards. The book gives a glimpse of the working of a glass studio and is also a reference source for the glass produced by Edwards at the Hall. A comprehensive survey of all the heraldry and of the artists involved is included. Although Apothecaries' Hall is well-known to some members of the medical, dental and pharmaceutical professions, this beautifully illustrated publication brings all the information about heraldry and glass associated with the Society to a wider audience.
£45.00
Philip Wilson Publishers Ltd Henry Moore: The Helmet Heads
Coinciding with the major exhibition of the same name, Henry Moore: The Helmet Heads traces the footsteps of the artist through the armouries of the Wallace Collection, where he encountered ‘objects of power’ that profoundly influenced his work for the rest of his career. ‘The idea of one form inside another form may owe some of its incipient beginnings to my interest at one stage when I discovered armour. I spent many hours in the Wallace Collection, in London, looking at armour.’ - Henry Moore, 1980. Captivated by helmets in particular, Moore saw in them a fundamental form idea – an outer shell which could protect something vulnerable inside. Tobias Capwell identifies the specific helmets which inspired the artist and examines these alongside Moore’s sculptures for the very first time. The reasons for his fascination with armour and the implications it had on his art are explored by Hannah Higham and set in the context of Moore’s life and work – one punctuated by global conflicts and artistic experiment. Richly illustrated, this catalogue reveals the origins of some of Henry Moore’s most innovative works and examines in depth for the first time this largely unknown aspect of his career.
£22.50
Philip Wilson Publishers Ltd Ships of the Silk Road: The Bactrian Camel in Chinese Jade
An informed and beautifully illustrated new history of the Silk Road camel in Chinese jade. For hundreds of years, the Bactrian camel ploughed a lonely furrow across the vast wilderness of Asia. This bizarre-looking, temperamental yet hardy creature here came into its own as the core goods vehicle. This animal would resolutely and reliably transport to China – over huge and unforgiving distances – fine things from the West while taking treasures out of the Middle Kingdom in return. Where the chariot, wagon and other wheeled conveyances proved useless amidst the shifting desert dunes, the surefooted progress of the camel – the archetypal ‘ship of the Silk Road’ – now reigned supreme. The Bactrian camel was a subject that appealed particularly to Chinese artists because of its association with the exotic trade to mysterious Western lands. But the camel enjoyed cachet and status as more than just the chief conduit of thriving intercontinental commerce. After Buddhism arrived in China from India in the third century AD, via the Gandharan civilisation on the boarders of what is now Pakistan and Afghanistan, this new and vital religion stimulated the peaceful insemination of foreign ideas and culture as well as products. The camel was thus the harbinger not just of new things, but of entirely new ways of thinking. In his lavishly illustrated volume, Angus Forsyth explores diverse jade pieces depicting this iconic beast of burden. Almost one hundred separate objects are included, many of which have not been seen in print before. The author also offers the full historical background to his subject, presenting a strong appeal to collectors and art historians alike.
£36.00
Philip Wilson Publishers Ltd Bruegel: Defining a Dynasty
This richly illustrated publication explores the diversity and innovation of a legendary dynasty of Flemish painters over four generations. From the peasant festivals and proverb pictures of Pieter Bruegel the Elder and his son Pieter Brueghel the Younger, to the exquisite flower paintings and paradise landscapes of Jan ‘Velvet’ Brueghel, to the captivating cabinet pictures of Jan van Kessel the Elder, the Bruegel family played a fundamental role in many of the key artistic developments of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The book investigates themes common throughout the generations, such as an enduring interest in the natural world and the role of close observation from life. Its new research findings also unravel practical mysteries, exploring how Bruegel’s sons were able to produce multiple versions of compositions inspired by their father’s model. Nearly five hundred years have passed since the birth of Pieter Bruegel the Elder, but the energy, influence and inventiveness of his unique family remain unrivalled in the history of art. This illuminating book redefines our appreciation of its artistic legacy and is an essential read for scholars and non-specialists alike. This book accompanied the first ever exhibition devoted to the Bruegel dynasty in the UK, presented in February 2017 by the Holburne Museum.
£16.95
Philip Wilson Publishers Ltd Janice Sylvia Brock: My Life on Canvas
Illustrated throughout with her colourful and vibrant paintings, this is the story of English artist Janice Sylvia Brock. My Life on Canvas follows the fascinating and at times harrowing journey of a unique talent. After surviving childhood illness and despite disability, Brock became an internationally successful painter. This is the first book to combine Brock's full biography with the largest selection of images yet published. Commencing with Brock’s carefree childhood, we learn how she then started painting from a hospital bed aged eleven, how she built her artistic business, overcame tragic events including the death of her brother, survived broken marriages, and of the healing that began with her first travels to the Caribbean – where she finally achieved her dream to have a studio and gallery in Barbados. From the early, detailed Pre-Raphaelite-inspired pictures, through sun-drenched Caribbean scenes, to the contemplative oval heads that characterise her current paintings, Brock shows the ability to soak up a huge variety of influences – whether they be Impressionism, Expressionism or even elements of Surrealism – then turn them around and give her own interpretation. Brock divides her time between Barbados and the UK with studios in both and she has a large international following. This is a celebration of an artist at the height of her powers.
£36.00
Philip Wilson Publishers Ltd The Dutch Italianates: 17th-century Masterpieces from Dulwich Picture Gallery, London
Throughout the 17th century, a steady stream of Dutch painters made the arduous journey to Italy, the acknowledged 'home of art'. But they were more inspired by the country itself than its artistic tradition. In their paintings, they recorded the glittering distances of the Roman campagna, the ruins of earlier civilisations, and the colourful characters of the streets and countryside. Hugely popular in their own time, and influential throughout the 18th century, the 'Dutch Italianates' fell out of favour in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. However, for Noel Desenfans and Sir Francis Bourgeois, founders of Dulwich Picture Gallery, artists like Nicolaes Berchem, Karel Du Jardin, Philips Wouwermans, Aelbert Cuyp and Adam Pynacker were names to mention in the same breath as Rembrandt and Ruisdael.This book once again celebrates the beauty, virtuosity, observation and humour of the Dutch Italianate vision while also telling the fascinating story of Dulwich Picture Gallery itself.
£22.50
Philip Wilson Publishers Ltd Kandinsky Drawings Vol 2: Catalogue Raisonné Volume Two: Sketchbooks
Vasily Kandinsky was born in Moscow in 1866 and, at the age of thirty, decided to study painting in Munich. Although he travelled extensively, Kandinsky lived primarily in Germany until 1914 and again from 1922-1933, when he taught at the Bauhaus. He moved to Paris in 1934 and continued to draw and paint until his death in 1944. The two-volume catalogue raisonne of Kandinsky's drawings publishes many drawings for the first time and presents new insights into the artist's creative process. This second volume is devoted to Kandinsky's thirty-eight sketchbooks that have remained intact. Intended as a companion to Volume One, it illustrates and documents all the sketchbook pages with drawings. The sketchbooks belong primarily to the Stadtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus in Munich and to the Musee National d'Art Moderne at the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris. Many of the drawings, which date from 1889 to 1943, have never been published before. Ms. Barnett contributes a text on Kandinsky's sketchbooks, an aspect of his work that has not been previously studied. In addition there is an appendix of rare wood sculptures and decorative objects that Kandinsky created as well as an appendix with new information and color reproductions of paintings and watercolours included, but not illustrated, in previous volumes. The two volumes on the drawings complete the series of catalogues raisonnes of Kandinsky's work. Indispensable for scholars, collectors and art lovers, they follow the same format and high standard as the previous volumes on the oil-paintings and the watercolours.
£180.00
Philip Wilson Publishers Ltd Art of the Renaissance Bronze, 1500-1650: The Robert H. Smith Collection
The fruits of sixteen years of discriminating acquisition on the international art market, Robert Smith's is one of the most important collections of European bronzes in private hands today. The collection embraces the Renaissance in Italy and northern Europe in such a way that its components complement and enhance the appreciation of each other. Central to the collection is a group of thirteen pieces that illustrate the legacy of Giambologna in Florence. Also assembled are pieces by independent contemporaries: Alessandro Vittoria and Francesco Segala in the Veneto, and the younger Genoese-born Niccolo Roccatagliata, whose surviving work is of the utmost rarity. A selection of fine early North Italian bronzes serves as an introduction to the collection; the Netherlands and France are also well represented. Many pieces have distinguished provenances, and all have been exhaustively researched. The book comprises not just a catalogue but an important and original contribution to scholarship in its own right. This new and extended version of the first edition retains the entries written by Anthony Radcliffe with a few additions or corrections, and an entry that he drafted on the miniature cannon signed by Orazio Antonio Alberghetti has also been incorporated. New entries have been supplied by Marietta Cambareri, currently Curator of Sculpture in the 'Arts of Europe' section of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, by Fabio Barry, Mellon intern for 2004 in the Department of Sculpture at the National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C., and by Nicholas Penny.
£85.50
Philip Wilson Publishers Ltd Pictures of Krupp: Photography and History in the Industrial Age
This volume, written by historians and specialists in the history of photography, opens up a unique collection of photographs: the resource constituted by the Historical Archive of the firm of Friedrich Krupp in Essen. It affords an inside view of the company up to the outbreak of World War I, while at the same time being an excellent example of the use of the medium of photography as a historical source. The almost unbroken photographic documentation is due first and foremost to the great interest taken in photographic records by Alfred Krupp, one of the firm's pioneers. Other contributions are devoted to the faces of the workforce and photography as a source for the history of labour and technology, Krupp family life outside the factory gates, and relations between the town of Essen and the Krupp factories.
£37.35
Philip Wilson Publishers Ltd Ships and Seascapes: Introduction to Maritime Prints, Drawings and Watercolours
Maritime prints, drawings and watercolours a re discussed, and a historical survey of the development of marine art is given, by a former Head of Painting at the Nat ional Maritime Museum in Greenwich. '
£67.50
Philip Wilson Publishers Ltd Frans Hals: The Male Portrait
This is the first book to concentrate on Dutch Golden Age painter Frans Hals’s highly innovative approach to male portraiture. Frans Hals is one of the greatest portrait painters of all time and, together with Rembrandt, is one of the most eminent seventeenth-century Dutch artists. Published to coincide with the Wallace Collection’s exhibition of the same name, Frans Hals: The Male Portrait explores the artist’s highly innovative approach to male portraiture, from the beginning of his career in the 1610s until the end of his life in 1666. Through pose, expression and virtuosic painterly technique, Hals revolutionised the male portrait into something entirely new and fresh, capturing and revealing his sitters’ characters like no one else before him. This book includes the first in-depth study of Hals’s great masterpiece, The Laughing Cavalier, from 1624. The extravagantly dressed young man, confidently posed with his left arm akimbo in the extreme foreground of the picture and seemingly penetrating into the viewer’s space, has been charming audiences for over a century. Richly illustrated, Frans Hals: The Male Portrait situates The Laughing Cavalier within the artist’s larger oeuvre and demonstrates how, at a relatively early point in his career, Hals was able to achieve this great masterpiece.
£20.00
Philip Wilson Publishers Ltd Executions: 700 Years of Public Punishment in London
A fascinating record of how London and Londoners were shaped by nearly 700 years of public executions. More frequent in London than in any other city or town in Britain, these morbid spectacles often attracted tens of thousands of onlookers at locations across the capital and were a major part of Londoners' lives for centuries. From Smithfield to Kennington, Tyburn to Newgate Prison, public executions became embedded in London’s landscape and people’s lives. Even today, hints of this dark chapter in London’s history can still be seen across the city. Featuring the lives and legacies of those who died or who witnessed public executions first hand from 1196 to 1868, this book tells the rarely told and often tragic human stories behind these events. It includes a range of fascinating objects, paintings and documents, many from the Museum of London’s collections, such as the vest said to have been worn by King Charles I when he was executed, portraits of ‘celebrity criminals’, and last letters of the condemned. From the sites of execution to the thriving ‘gallows’ economy, the book reveals the role that Londoners played as both spectators and participants in this most public demonstration of state power over the life and death of its citizens.
£16.99
Philip Wilson Publishers Ltd Il Bresciano: Bronze-caster of Renaissance Venice
The first comprehensive study of an important Italian Renaissance bronze-caster by a leading authority. 'This monograph is a testament to the work of Charles Avery, who has put Il Bresciano on the map as a leading Italian Renaissance sculptor… Avery has established an impressively substantial oeuvre for Bresciano.' David Ekserdjian, The Art Newspaper A nucleus of sculptures cast by Andrea di Alessandri, commonly called from his native city, ‘Il Bresciano’, or from his products, ‘Andrea dai bronzi’, has been identified over the centuries. His style has been described as having similarities both with the High Renaissance of Sansovino and the Mannerism of Vittoria, the two successive master sculptors of sixteenth-century Venice, though he cast major bronzes for both. Andrea’s signed masterpiece is a Paschal Candlestick in bronze, over two metres high and with sixty or more fascinating figures, made for Sansovino’s magnificent lost church of Santo Spirito in 1568 and now in Santa Maria della Salute. The author’s identification in 1996 of a pair of magnificent Firedogs with sphinx feet (which in 1568 had been recommended to Prince Francesco de’Medici in Florence), and in 2015 of an elaborate figurative bronze Ewer in Verona, have been the culmination of the process of recognition. Archival research has at last revealed the span of Andrea’s life as 1524/25-1573, as well as many significant facts about his family and patronage. So the time is ripe for a comprehensive, well-illustrated, book on Il Bresciano, a ‘new’ and major bronzistà in the great tradition of north Italy.
£36.00
Philip Wilson Publishers Ltd Jean-Henri Riesener: Cabinetmaker to Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette
This first major monograph on cabinetmaker Jean-Henri Riesener traces his life and career, bringing new insights into his business practice, designs and construction techniques. Jean-Henri Riesener (1734–1806) was one of the greatest French cabinetmakers of all time. From humble beginnings as a German immigrant in Paris, he found fame through the delivery of a magnificent roll-top desk to Louis XV in 1769. He went on to become Marie-Antoinette’s favourite cabinetmaker, supplying the queen and the court of Louis XVI with sumptuous furniture of superb quality. Renowned for his exquisite marquetry and refined designs, his pieces were ornamented with spectacular gilt-bronze mounts made by some of the greatest metalworkers in Paris. In the nineteenth century, Riesener’s name became associated with the very best of Louis XVI-period French furniture. His pieces continue to be highly sought after and are found in major museums worldwide. Based on the extensive collections of Riesener furniture in the Wallace Collection, Waddesdon Manor and the Royal Collection, the authors examine the objects and their history, and highlight the changing tastes of the nineteenth-century collectors who acquired so many former French royal pieces. The new illustrations and visual glossary add another important resource for art historians, decorative arts enthusiasts and furniture lovers.
£45.00
Philip Wilson Publishers Ltd William Powell Frith: The People's Painter
This highly illustrated book provides fresh assessments of the life and work of William Powell Frith, one of the most celebrated visual chroniclers of the mid-Victorian scene. William Powell Frith (1819-1909), famous for his picture The Derby Day which normally hangs at Tate Britain, was not only the most celebrated painter of modern-life subjects in mid-Victorian England, but the most popular British artist of that time. Published to mark the bicentenary of his birth and in association with an exhibition at the Mercer Art Gallery, Harrogate, this richly illustrated volume of essays offers fresh and fascinating perspectives on Frith’s career and context. Despite dramatic shifts in taste with regard to Victorian painting during subsequent generations, Frith’s name has never been eclipsed, let alone forgotten – unlike those of most of his genre-painter contemporaries – as an introductory survey of critical responses to the artist’s work reveals. This provides a starting point for investigations, drawing on much new and original material, of three of Frith’s great panoramas of the Victorian world – Life at the Sea-Side (Ramsgate Sands), The Derby Day and The Private View at the Royal Academy, 1881. Further contributions explore important but hitherto neglected aspects of Frith’s personal life and professional activity. Of significant biographical interest are studies of Frith’s close connections with Yorkshire (the county of his birth and also his first wife Isabelle’s) and his friendships with contemporary writers, notably the Sensation novelist Mary Elizabeth Braddon. The artist’s less well-known historical genre pictures are reappraised, with focus on the early success of An English Merry-Making, A Hundred Years Ago, while the key role played by the print trade in the widespread dissemination of Frith’s images is examined in detail for the first time. An intriguing manifestation of Frith’s popularisation was the re-creation of certain of his most famous compositions as tableaux on the London stage, yet another fresh topic in this presentation of ‘The People’s Painter’. Revisiting Frith and his achievement through new approaches, this book confirms his position as the pre-eminent visual chronicler of the mid-Victorian scene and the importance of his place in the history of British art.
£22.50
Philip Wilson Publishers Ltd Celestial Beings and Bird-Men: Human Flight in Chinese Jade
A sequel to Ships of the Silk Road, this is an informed and beautifully illustrated treatment of flying men in Chinese jade. Jade figurines depicting human flight are a varied and expressive manifestation of this most prized artistic medium. Angus Forsyth, a prominent collector of Chinese jade, explores the making in the Middle Kingdom (over a 2000-year period, from the Han Dynasty onwards) of unique objects depicting figural movement through the air. A distinctive characteristic of Chinese artefacts is that, in contrast to their Western angelic counterparts, they often are wingless. Forsyth examines the depiction of apsaras (flying angels), kinnaras (bird-men), garudas (humanoid birds appearing in both Hindu and Buddhist mythology) and finally anthropomorphized bird headdress ornaments. He shows how these flying figures came to be associated with veneration of the gods and specific devotional practice. Examining a variety of representative objects, none of which has been seen in print before, the author reveals that the original concept behind flying celestial beings and bird-men originated not in China but in India and the Christianized West, via the Silk Road. The book discusses small and larger jade pieces alike.
£36.00
Philip Wilson Publishers Ltd Edward Bawden
This comprehensive survey of the career of Edward Bawden (1903-89) accompanies a major exhibition at Dulwich Picture Gallery and brings together his most significant work in watercolour, printmaking, design and illustration. Bawden began his career in the 1920s as a precociously talented designer and illustrator, and he successfully reinvented himself time and again as the decades passed while always retaining a distinctive freshness, humour and humanity in his work. The book explores in depth the most significant creative periods of Bawden’s life and is fully illustrated throughout.
£22.50
Philip Wilson Publishers Ltd Ceramics: 400 Years of British Collecting in 100 Masterpieces
A celebration of the best of the National Trust's exquisite ceramic collection. This publication introduces the rich and varied ceramics in the National Trust's vast and encyclopaedic collection. This collection numbers approximately 75,000 artefacts, housed in 250 historic properties in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. One hundred key pieces have been selected from this rich treasure trove, each contributing to our knowledge of ceramic patronage and history, revealing the very personal stories of ownership, display, taste and consumption. The selection includes the following Continental wares: 'Red-figure' wares; Italian armorial tableware; Dutch Delft from the Greek A factory, owned by Adrianus Kocx; Chinese Kraak ware; Dehua ware; Japanese Kakiemon-style and Imari-style tableware and garnitures; Meissen table sculpture by Johann Joachim Kandler; tableware attributed to Adam Friedrich von Lowenfinck; Castelli faience from the Grue workshop. It also includes wares from the following porcelain manufactories: Doccia; Vienna; Vincennes; Sèvres; Dihl and Feulliet. English pottery and porcelain includes delftware; salt-glazed stoneware; creamware; Wedgwood Black Basalt and Etruscan ware; Chelsea, Bow, Worcester and Derby porcelain; Minton China; De Morgan, and Martin ware. From the Americas, the selection includes Pueblo ware. Many are published for the first time, sometimes illustrated in their original interiors. Collectively, the selection surveys patterns of ceramic collecting by the British aristocracy and gentry over a four hundred year period.
£40.50
Philip Wilson Publishers Ltd Fred A Farrell: Glasgow's War Artist
The first proper overview of Fred Farrell's vivid drawings from the First World War. Beautifully illustrated in full colour, insightful essays and catalogue entries explain the genesis, execution and reception of these poignant works. Frederick Arthur Farrell (1882-1935) came from a distinguished Glasgow family. He initially studied civil engineering, and as an artist was self-taught, although he owes a debt to the advice and example of Muirhead Bone. By the outbreak of World War I, he was developing a reputation as an up-and-coming etcher and watercolourist of portraits and topographical subjects. He enlisted as a sapper, or military engineer, with the Royal Engineers Railway Troops Depot but was discharged from the Army due to ill health. In December 1916, Farrell returned to the Front as a war artist, attached for three weeks to the 15th, 16th and 17th Highland Light Infantry in Flanders. In November 1917 he was in France, attached for two months to the staff of the 51st (Highland) Division. In between, authorized by the Minister of Munitions and Admiralty, and supported by Glasgow's Lord Provost, Farrell drew the heroic home effort of women in Glasgow's munitions factories, shipyards and engineering works. As a former soldier, Farrell's sketches and watercolours of the Front powerfully offer a landscape filtered through personal experience and emotion. Battle scenes and strategic deliberations are reconstructed, informed by first-hand accounts. Many include portraits of actual soldiers. There are poignant images of graves, devastated landscapes and destroyed churches. However, there are also scenes of reconstruction and renewed activity amid the desolation. He is at his most dynamic in his drawings of the munitions factories which are full of noise, light and movement. In these there is a sense of joy and energy in industry and machinery, in patterning and design. The commission Farrell received from the Corporation of Glasgow to produce 50 drawings of the front line and munitions factories in the city to record the war for posterity was extraordinary. He was unique in being the only war artist to be commissioned by a city rather than by the government, Imperial War Museum or armed forces. Glasgow was one of the first cities to recognize the importance of creating such a memorial, rather than just creating images for propaganda purposes.
£16.99
Philip Wilson Publishers Ltd In the Realm of Gods and Kings: Arts of India
This volume celebrates the wealth and diversity of the arts of India created for the life of courts and temples from 1000 BC to the twentieth century. Paintings, objects and photographs, ranging in date from the second century BC to the late twentieth century, reflect the variety and continuity of India's aesthetic traditions. Andrew Topsfield has contributed background essays describing aspects of Indian life related to the themes explored in the book: The Sacred Realm: Nature, Temple, Gods, Goddesses, Saint and Sadhus; The Court: Courtly Life, The Hunt, Royal Portraits, Couples and Women, Courtly Manuscripts. Catalogue entries by experts in the field comment on narrative episodes from the epics, iconographic symbolism, religious, as well as social and contextual references related to the works shown. An extensive and authoritative essay by Dr. Vishakha Desai, The Experience of Creativity in Indian Art, is included as well as an essay by Cynthia Hazen Polsky, To Beckon the Modern Eye. Each work is fully illustrated and most of these works have not been previously published. This book accompanied an exhibition of selections from the Polsky Collection and the Metropolitan Museum at the Asia Society, New York.
£22.50
Philip Wilson Publishers Ltd The Art of Tapestry
Extensively illustrated, this is the first accessible publication on the history of tapestry in over two decades. Woven with dazzling images from history, mythology and the natural world, and breath-taking in their craftsmanship, tapestries were among the most valuable and high-status works of art available in Europe from the medieval period to the end of the eighteenth century. Over 600 historic examples hang in National Trust properties in England and Wales – the largest collection in the UK. This beautifully illustrated study by tapestry expert Helen Wyld, in association with the National Trust, offers new insights into these works, from the complex themes embedded in their imagery, to long-forgotten practices of sacred significance and ritual use. The range of historical, mythological and pastoral themes that recur across the centuries is explored, while the importance of the ‘revival’ of tapestry from the late nineteenth century is considered in detail for the first time. Although focussed on the National Trust’s collection, this book offers a fresh perspective on the history of tapestry across Europe. Both the tapestry specialist and the keen art-history enthusiast can find a wealth of information here about woven wall hangings and furnishings, including methods of production, purchase and distribution, evolving techniques and technologies, the changing trends of subject matter across time, and how tapestries have been collected, used and displayed in British country houses across the centuries.
£40.50
Philip Wilson Publishers Ltd Fashion City: How Jewish Londoners shaped global style
Discover the extraordinary stories of the Jewish people who designed, made and sold fashion in twentieth-century London, revealing their vital role in making it an iconic fashion city. While Jewish people have long been associated with making clothes, the full extent of the contributions they made to London’s growing reputation as a global fashion capital and the democratisation of fashion through the development of ready-to-wear clothes in the twentieth century have been widely forgotten. Spanning all sectors of the fashion industry – from homeworking to haute couture – the book draws stories from generations of Jewish Londoners and is richly illustrated with images from across the city and the Museum of London’s collections. Fashion City takes you on a journey across London, from the busy clothing factories of the East End to the swinging boutiques of Carnaby Street and the manicured squares of Mayfair. Along the way it introduces you to the intriguing stories of the key figures behind London fashion, such as Frederick Starke, a boy from the East End whose ability to tell a creative story changed the way the world saw British ready-to-wear fashion; Otto Lucas, a gay Jewish German hat maker who became the most financially successful milliner in the world; Mr Fish, the rule-defying tailor who dressed Mick Jagger and Muhammed Ali; and Netty Spiegel, who escaped the Nazis on the Kindertransport and became a London wedding dress designer of choice under her ‘Neymar’ label. Bringing together a wealth of new research and presenting a novel perspective of London fashion, this book gives a voice to the city’s overlooked and often forgotten Jewish fashion makers.
£18.00
Philip Wilson Publishers Ltd Watches: A Complete History of the Technical and Decorative Development of the Watch
The long-awaited reprint of an important illustrated reference work on the general history of the watch from 1500 to 1980. When Watches was first published in 1965 it quickly gained for itself a reputation as the foremost general history of the subject and, following the expanded edition in 1979 which covered recent years past 1830, this has remained unchallenged in horological history. In this long-awaited reprinted edition, collectors and horological students can again make use of the reference illustrations and history in this work as approached by the leading horology historians and clockmakers of the twentieth century. Clutton and Daniels write expertly on the vast history of watches, through the changing tastes and styles of collectors and makers, as well as imparting their own knowledge on various technical aspects within the watches. The expansive historical section encompasses both decorative and mechanical aspects of mid-sixteenth to late twentieth century watches, including those by George Daniels himself, detailing the rich history behind more modern designs and fascinations. These later years include a variety of semi-experimental escapements, as well as covering the development of the precision watch and work leading to it by Ferdinand Berthoud and Pierre Le Roy, discussed alongside John Arnold in England, to satisfy the technical-minded collector. Horology and collecting have grown with the changing technologies, and watches continue to be produced to an exceptional technological standard. Precision watches from the 1730-1930 period are covered in detail, as well as high standard Swiss and American watches of the last hundred years; these highly complicated watches benefit greatly from having both colour and mono illustrations to clarify the details. For a truly comprehensive understanding of escapements, photographs of these have been included alongside a critical approach to this essential mechanism. Since its first publication, Watches has provided an essential work of reference and history behind some of the most renowned minds and creations. Now reprinted for a new generation of collectors and students, and featuring over 600 illustrations, the technical and decorative elements of historical watches can be studied and enjoyed once more.
£85.50
Philip Wilson Publishers Ltd Inspiring Walt Disney: The Animation of French Decorative Arts at the Wallace Collection
Accompanying an exhibition at the Wallace Collection, Inspiring Walt Disney explores the influences of the art and architecture of France on Walt Disney and his studio artists, highlighting in particular the Disney classics of hand-drawn animation, Cinderella (1950) and Beauty and the Beast (1991). Pairing preparatory material from these films – including concept art for talking furniture and fairy-tale castles – with masterpieces from the eighteenth century reveals hidden sources of inspiration and allows us to appreciate the extraordinary talents behind Disney animated films and French decorative arts. Just as the dynamic, twisting movements of the Rococo sought to breathe life into what was essentially inanimate – silver, porcelain, furniture – so too did Disney animators seek to create the illusion of movement, action and emotion. Illustrated with innovative works by artists such as Mary Blair, Hans Bacher and Peter J. Hall, and the animated and anthropomorphic furniture, Sèvres porcelain and gilt bronze of rococo designers, the catalogue explores the shared creative roots of these two seemingly disparate artistic realms and looks to revitalise the feelings of excitement, awe and marvel, which both eighteenth-century craftsmen and Disney animators sought to spark in their audiences.
£15.99
Philip Wilson Publishers Ltd Ravilious
This beautifully illustrated book is the first full-length critical study to focus on the watercolours of multitalented British artist and designer Eric Ravilious (1903–1942). Adopting the wide-ranging approach familiar to readers of his previous books on the artist, author James Russell explores the evolution of a remarkable talent. An introductory section offers an intimate portrait of Ravilious, an artist for whom personal relationships, particularly with women, were paramount. It goes on to describe the extraordinary achievements of an all-too-brief career, drawing on new research to seek out artistic influences and examine Ravilious’s relationships with fellow-artists, as well as the development of his mark making. There follows the most comprehensive display of Ravilious watercolours yet assembled. Some have never been published, while others are familiar and well loved. Many are explored in short accompanying essays, some with full-bleed images that show details of paintings at full size. These texts are designed to entertain and enlighten, looking at composition, technique, influence and inspiration, or discussing the significance of particular subjects and the people behind the scenes. This is the definitive guide to the luminous, evocative and timeless watercolours of Eric Ravilious, an artist now regarded as one of the finest of the twentieth century.
£22.50
Philip Wilson Publishers Ltd Beyond the Page: South Asian Miniatures and Britain, 1600 to now
A richly illustrated exploration of the impact of South Asian Miniature painting on contemporary art. This book tells the dynamic story of contemporary art’s engagement with the miniature painting traditions of South Asia from the sixteenth century onwards, and the role of Britain in these developments. This is the first publication to address this remarkable painting tradition on a transhistorical and transnational scale. Readers are invited to admire the formal, technical and conceptual innovations of some of the most exciting historic and contemporary artists from South Asia, while reflecting on questions of culture and power in the entangled histories of empire and globalization. Many of the greatest collections of South Asian paintings are held in Britain, and some of the pivotal encounters that shaped this story happened in London. The process of these acquisitions and their central role within British and South Asian art histories are explored in this book. The book also demonstrates how the traditions of South Asian miniature painting have been reclaimed and reinvented by modern and contemporary artists, exploding beyond the pages of illuminated manuscripts to experimental forms that include installation, sculpture and film. While miniature painting represented a strand of cultural resistance to colonial rule in the early twentieth century, artists continue to find contemporary relevance in the possibilities offered by this tradition. Beyond the Page is richly illustrated with historic works from the Victoria & Albert Museum, the British Library, the British Museum, the Ashmolean, the Bodleian Library and the Royal Collection Trust. It also features work by artists from different generations working in dialogue with the miniature tradition, including Hamra Abbas, David Alesworth, Nandalal Bose, Noor Ali Chagani, Lubna Chowdhary, Adbur Rahman Chughtai, Samuel Fyzee-Rahamin, N.S. Harsha, Howard Hodgkin, Ali Kazim, Bhupen Khakhar, Jess MacNeil, Imran Qureshi, Nusra Latif Qureshi, Mohan Samant, Nilima Sheikh, the Singh Twins, Shahzia Sikander and Abanindranath Tagore.
£27.00
Philip Wilson Publishers Ltd Gainsborough and the Theatre
Based on new research, this profusely illustrated book draws together for the first time a group of works from public and private collections to examine the relationship that Thomas Gainsborough had with the theatrical world and the most celebrated stage artists of his day. Thomas Gainsborough (1727–88) was linked with the stage through personal friendships with James Quin, David Garrick and Sarah Siddons, the most renowned actors of the eighteenth century. He painted notable portraits of these and twenty others, including dramatists, dancers and composers. Not long after Gainsborough moved from Bath to London in 1774, the management of the Drury Lane theatre passed to the artist's friends Richard Brinsley and Thomas Linley. At this time, London's theatres were undergoing regular refurbishment to take account of technical innovations in lighting and stage machinery. At the King's Theatre in Haymarket in 1778, the 'elegant improvements' included frontispiece figures emblematic of Music and Dancing, and were painted in monochrome by Gainsborough. This publication firmly establishes the artist’s place within the theatrical worlds of Bath and London and shows why the art of ballet, and in particular Gainsborough’s sitters Gaetan Vestris, Auguste Vestris and Giovanna Baccelli, rose to prominence in 1780. It examines parallels between Gainsborough’s much admired painterly naturalism and the theatrical naturalism of David Garrick and Mrs Siddons, with whom he had personal friendships.
£15.95
Philip Wilson Publishers Ltd Tapestries from the Burrell Collection
Lavishly illustrated, this book presents comprehensive entries for each of the tapestries in the Burrell CollectionNew research by an international team of experts details how, where, when and why these tapestries were made. By analysing their raw materials and identifying the quirks of their weavers' techniques, by exploring their subject matter and design sources, occasionally linking them with named designers and weavers, and by discussing their original patrons and owners, each of the entries unveils the unique treasures within the Burrell's tapestry collection.This is an informative survey of medieval, Renaissance and early modern European tapestries, including key examples from all the major production centres, celebrating the medium's significance and appeal for its original audiences. The collection's remarkable survival, remaining together as a group, also provides an unparalleled opportunity to enjoy the tastes, and the opportunities, available to an enlightened early
£125.00
Philip Wilson Publishers Ltd Joseph de Levis and Company: Renaissance Bronze-Founders in Verona
Joseph de Levis and Company tells the compelling story of an Italian family of sixteenth-century Jewish bronze-artists. Between 1577 and 1605, Joseph de Levis applied his distinctive signature to a whole range of fantastic Mannerist bronze artefacts, some 45 in all. They range from large church-bells - some still in situ - and miniature table-bells, to mortars, inkstands, perfume-burners, door-knockers, firedogs, statuettes, and even a portrait-bust. Joseph's sons and nephews continued the family business into the seventeenth century, signing a similar range of artefacts in an early Baroque style. Around this core of guaranteed work a corpus of reasonable attributions may be made on stylistic and circumstantial grounds, giving a total of 140 items. The book provides a unique cross-section of the production of a hard-working and resilient renaissance foundry. Frequently inscriptions and coats-of-arms specify a wide-ranging clientele, from civic and church authorities, to guilds and confraternities (all-important in society at the time), nobility, merchants and connoisseur-collectors. Bronzes by the De Levis dynasty are now dispersed among museums in Europe, the USA and Israel. They are also found in Old Master collections, notably that of the late Robert H. Smith, whose foundation purchased in 2002 the eye-catching Ewer from the Salomon de Rothschild Foundation in Paris for GBP276,000. This well-illustrated catalogue raisonne is important both art-historically and from the perspective of the Jewish Diaspora in Renaissance Italy.
£36.00
Philip Wilson Publishers Ltd Feast & Fast: The Art of Food in Europe, 1500-1800
The UK Winner of the Entertaining category of the Gourmand World Cookbook Awards 2020, Feast and Fast explores our evolving relationship with food with treasures from the Fitzwilliam Museum. Food defines us as individuals, communities, and nations — we are what we eat and, equally, what we don’t eat. When, where, why, how and with whom we eat are crucial to our identity. This title presents novel approaches to understanding the history and culture of food and eating in early modern Europe. This richly illustrated book will showcase hidden and newly-conserved treasures from the Fitzwilliam Museum and other collections in and around Cambridge. It will tease out many contemporary and controversial issues — such as the origins of food and food security, overconsumption in times of austerity, and our relationship with animals and nature – through short research-led entries by some of the world’s leading cultural and food historians. This book explores food-related objects, images, and texts from the past in innovative ways and encourages us to rethink our evolving relationship with food.
£22.50
Philip Wilson Publishers Ltd Thomas Lawrence: Coming of Age
This survey of Lawrence’s first twenty-five years tells the story of an exceptional artist growing up at the end of the century as Britain created its own unique artistic voice. Like his Renaissance predecessors Raphael, Michelangelo and Dürer, the young Thomas Lawrence (1769-1830) was considered to be a boy genius. He first came to public attention when he was cited in a scientific paper on ‘early genius in children’; shortly afterwards his family moved to Bath where the eleven-year-old was kept busy making likenesses of the spa town’s fashionable visitors. By 1790, Lawrence's spectacular portraits were the most applauded works in the Royal Academy’s annual exhibition, which opened days before his twenty-first birthday. The book considers the young artist’s self-image as a prodigy, the impact of Bath’s rich cultural life on his formation, the rapid development of his painting technique following his move to London, and his use of celebrity, print media and the Royal Academy to grow his reputation. Particular attention is given to Lawrence’s perceptive depictions of old age and bold celebrations of youthful energy. His portraits from this time present a fascinating glimpse of British high society at the turn of a memorable century: they include celebrities such as the Duchess of Devonshire, Emma Hamilton and actresses Sarah Siddons and Elizabeth Farren, as well as political leaders, members of the Bluestocking circle and the Royal Family. The book accompanied a major exhibition at the Holburne Museum in Bath and includes previously unpublished works as well as some of Lawrence’s most brilliant masterpieces.
£18.99
Philip Wilson Publishers Ltd Chinese Wallpaper in Britain and Ireland
Chinese wallpaper has been an important element of western interior decoration for three hundred years. As trade between Europe and China flourished in the seventeenth century, Europeans developed a strong taste for Chinese art and design. The stunningly beautiful wall coverings now known as `Chinese wallpaper’ were developed by Chinese painting workshops in response to western demand. In spite of their spectacular beauty, Chinese wallpapers have not been studied in any depth until relatively recently. This book provides an overview of some of the most significant Chinese wallpapers surviving in the British Isles. Sumptuously illustrated, it shows how these wallpapers became a staple ingredient of high-end interiors while always retaining a touch of the exotic.
£22.50
Philip Wilson Publishers Ltd The Life and Work of Thomas Chippendale Junior
A beautifully illustrated catalogue bringing cabinet-maker Thomas Chippendale Junior out of the shadow of his father. The Chippendale cabinet-making firm, founded by Thomas Chippendale Senior in about 1750, became famous partly through the successful publication of The Gentleman and Cabinet-Maker's Director (1754, re-published 1755 and 1762), but also through the fine furniture supplied to a number of illustrious clients. Chippendale Senior ran the workshop for just over twenty years and his eldest son, Thomas Chippendale Junior, continued the business for over forty years; the first two decades in partnership with Thomas Haig. Chippendale Senior's work has been well-documented but Chippendale Junior's work has never, until now, been thoroughly researched. The Life and Work of Thomas Chippendale Junior repairs this omission. His patrons included members of the Royal Family, aristocrats, landed gentry and antiquarians; he was adept at satisfying their demands, whether they required lavish gilt or simpler, often mahogany, pieces. Where family archives and original settings survive, as at Harewood House, Paxton House and Stourhead, they reveal the variety and quality of Chippendale's output. An analysis of client's invoices, even when the furniture can no longer be traced, for the first time provides a colourful view of what customers chose and what prices they paid.
£58.50
Philip Wilson Publishers Ltd Masterpieces in Miniature: Engraved Gems from Prehistory to the Present
Exhibiting the mastery of the gem-engraver from prehistory to the present, Masterpieces in Miniature offers a survey of the finest products of the gems craft over millennia. The creation of miniature intaglios - or incised carvings - which could be impressed on clay or wax was one of the earliest crafts of civilisation. To this the Greeks added relief cameos, while comparable skills were lavished on the decoration of metal finger rings. These artefacts record subjects of significance for their period and place but are also the direct expression of an artist's skills and imagination. Engraved gems were collected first by the ancient Romans and then throughout the Renaissance were a source for knowledge of `classical' subjects and styles, when they were copied - from Michelangelo to Rubens - by the foremost artists of the day. There was a strong revival of the craft in the Neo-classical period of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, when European collectors - many undertaking their Grand Tour of the continent - made new collections, several of which form the basis for those held in major museums today. The gemstones explored and illustrated here are from a distinguished collection made in the earlier twentieth century by a notable connoisseur of ancient art. Many originate from named older European collections and were previously unknown to scholars and collectors. The authors offer a balanced selection of earlier eastern and Greek stones, alongside others from the Neo-classical era, that will delight all lovers of antiquity and art.
£36.00
Philip Wilson Publishers Ltd David Milne: Modern Painting
This beautifully illustrated book documents the life and work of one of Canada's greatest modern painters. David Milne's (1882-1953), vast body of work shows him to be an artist of true originality and vision. Like the members of the Group of Seven, Milne primarily chose landscape as his subject matter. However, his true subject was the process of perception and representation, reducing his painting to its essentials and infusing it with his own distinctive modern sensibility. Drawing on paintings in Canadian public and private collections and on photographs and on Milne's own writings, the book presents an account of one man's spiritual and emotional voyage into modernity - from the bustling sidewalks of New York to the war-torn landscapes of northern France as an official war artist and back again to the woods, lakes, fields and skies of north-eastern USA and Canada. Pivoting on Milne's war art, the aftermath of which he recorded to sensitively and which brought a heightened sense of formal discipline to his work, the book follows the change in Milne's approach from the Post-Impressionist style of his New York years, with its vivid colours dynamic brushstrokes, to the more distilled visual language of his later work. With more than one hundred works in oil and watercolour, never-before-published photographs and drawings by the artist, this book provides unique and personal insights into this innovative artist and an appreciation of one of Canada's most sophisticated modern painters.
£22.50
Philip Wilson Publishers Ltd Vincent Van Gogh: The Years in France: Complete Paintings 1886-1890
The Years in France is a wealth of new information of crucial importance to collectors, dealers, art historians and public institutions, while providing an extraordinary visual record of the most creative and productive period of Van Gogh's career. Vincent van Gogh's tumultuous final years were the climax of his career as a colourist. In France he reached a sustained height of expression and created a prodigious quantity of work, the importance of which is incontestable. In the landscapes, portraits and still lifes from this period, the intensity and singularity of vision finds its apotheosis. Presented here is a comprehensive illustrated catalogue of Van Gogh's paintings executed between 1886 and 1890 in Paris, Arles, Saint-Remy and Auvers-sur-Oise. Each of some 580 works from that time is reproduced in full colour and appears in related scale to its original size. All known provenance is given. For the first time the paintings recorded in early documents like the Andries Bonger Inventory List of 1890 and the 1905 Amsterdam Exhibition are fully identified. This book promises to be one of the most significant and enduring contributions to the understanding of this artist.
£58.50
Philip Wilson Publishers Ltd Vanessa Bell
£22.50
Philip Wilson Publishers Ltd Discovering Degas
A beautifully illustrated study of the works by Edgar Degas in the Burrell Collection, Glasgow.In 1874 the first Impressionist exhibition opened in Paris, shocking the art world with a radical new style of painting. Capturing contemporary subjects and everyday life, the ''Impressionist'' artists were fascinated by the way light, colour and shape constantly change. But frequent rejection by the Paris Salon jury led some, including Edgar Degas, to look to Britain for a more receptive audience. This richly illustrated book explores the influence of London-based dealers such as Ernest Gambart and Charles Deschamps, and Glasgow-based dealer Alex Reid, who saw the market for French art in Britain, encouraging an early following among British collectors for artists such as Monet, Pissarro, Manet and Degas. William Burrell''s first opportunity to see Degas''s work on public display in Scotland was at the 1888 International Exhibition in Glasgow. Over a 40-year
£18.00
Philip Wilson Publishers Ltd Rembrandt's Light
A unique picture of Rembrandt's mastery of light and visual storytelling. Rembrandt’s Light brings together 35 carefully selected paintings, concentrating on his greatest years from 1639-1658, when he lived in his ideal house at Breestraat in the heart of Amsterdam (today the Museum Het Rembrandthuis). Its striking, light-infused studio was the site for the creation of Rembrandt’s most exceptional paintings, prints and drawings including ‘The Denial of St Peter’ and ‘The Artist’s Studio’. Arranged thematically, the book traces Rembrandt’s innovation: from evoking a meditative mood, to lighting people, to creating impact and drama. Highlights will include three of Rembrandt’s most famous images of women: ‘A Woman Bathing in a Stream’, ‘A Woman in Bed’ and the inimitable ‘Girl at a Window’. Published to coincide with an exhibition at Dulwich Picture Gallery in 2019, with celebrations taking place throughout Europe to mark 350 years since the artist’s death (1669), this publication aims to refresh the way we look at works by this incomparable Dutch Master.
£17.95
Philip Wilson Publishers Ltd Gilded Interiors: Parisian Luxury and the Antique
The Wallace Collection has one of the most important collections of French eighteenth-century gilt bronze in the world. The Wallace Collection has an internationally-renowned collection of French eighteenth-century art, but perhaps lesser known today is their stunning collection of gilt-bronze objects. Intended, when they were made, to fill a practical role as well as for display, the bronzes d'ameublement include clocks, candelabra, wall-lights, firedogs, vases and mounted Sevres porcelain. Once an integral part of the decoration of Parisian homes, they proclaimed the wealth and good taste of patrons such as Marie Antoinette, the due d'Aumont and the comte d'Artois. Lavishly illustrated with new photography, this volume serves both to introduce some of the masterpieces in the Wallace Collection and to ground them in the art-historical and social context in which they were made. Focusing on the last two decades before the French Revolution, the book celebrates the superb skills and talents of the artists who made these remarkable works and illustrates the way in which the passion for the Antique world came to dominate all aspects of artistic production in France.
£17.95
Philip Wilson Publishers Ltd George Lance: Victorian Master of Still Life
Lavishly illustrated with George Lance's works, this first ever biography gives a rounded picture of the man, not just the artist, and serves as the definitive record of the life of a much under-appreciated painter. George Lance (1802-1864) brought new vibrancy to still life painting in the early Victorian period. In his seminal work Victorian Painting (1966), Graham Reynolds stated that the revival of still life painting, as an artist's main preoccupation, was effected almost single-handedly by Lance. Over one hundred years earlier J.M.W. Turner had expressed the view that Lance was one of the three greatest colourists of his era. Lance was a pupil of the contumacious and ultimately tragic B.R. Haydon, a titanic figure in the Regency art world. Lance drew inspiration from the Dutch and Flemish Old Masters, adopting many of their motifs. His work was purchased by some of the greatest aristocrats and industrialists of the time. He was never elected to the Royal Academy, a mystery to contemporary commentators but perhaps due to his confrontation with the political establishment. His popularity with his fellow artists, however, was never in doubt.
£22.50
Philip Wilson Publishers Ltd Silver for Entertaining: The Ickworth Collection
Silver for Entertaining is a comprehensive, well-illustrated guide to one of the most important collections of 18th-century silver in Europe. The guide extends to nearly a thousand individual pieces of the highest quality, style and exuberance of form. These pieces have survived virtually intact, along with extensive and previously untapped archival evidence of their commissioning and use. The book also provides new information on the diplomatic, political and court appointments of its principal patron, George William Hervey, 2nd Earl of Bristol (1721-75). The finest London makers of the time are represented, including Paul de Lamerie, Paul Crespin and, in particular, Frederick Kandler. It also contains a significant quantity of continental pieces, commissioned contemporaneously whilst Lord Bristol was in Turin. The Earl's silver, of the latest French fashions and of opulent extent, was a critical tool in his armoury. It was in part by maintaining a sufficient state of 'magnificence' there, and in Madrid, that he could hold the diplomatic ground for Britain during the Seven Years War. The book analyses the silver from stylistic and technical perspectives and uses them to illuminate the patronage, fashion and social history of the period, casting new light on the Herveys, one of England's most famous and eccentric aristocratic families.
£45.00
Philip Wilson Publishers Ltd Nothing Wasted: The Paintings of Richard Harrison
His private interests are music and animal welfare. He writes often on opera, on the plight of endangered bears, tigers and apes, and on the exploitation of farm animals. He raises funds for the rescue and rehoming of abandoned and ill-treated domestic pets in one of the most deprived areas of London and keeps three rescued bitches. At a time when figurative painting has long been out of fashion in British art schools and among the curators of the nation's galleries of modern art, Richard Harrison has been one of the very few younger contemporary artists to hold to this ancestral tradition. His early work was essentially abstract, and abstract values have formed the armature of all of his later work, but in subject he has moved from an interest in the texture and manipulable qualities of the simple materials of a painting to biblical and mythical narratives that were common among European painters from the High Renaissance to the High Olympus of Victorian art. As a student at Chelsea School of Art, Harrison was noticed in 1987 by the critic Brian Sewell, then searching for young painters for an exhibition; they have remained in contact ever since. This affectionate but dispassionate and critical book, part analysis and part account of an often alarming life, represents a comprehensive record of Harrison's intellectual and aesthetic development.
£45.00
Philip Wilson Publishers Ltd A Day in the Sun: Outdoor Pursuits in the Art of the 1930s
This ground-breaking exhibition focuses on an overlooked strand in British painting of the 1930s. It reveals a small group of figure painters, situated stylistically between the avant-garde abstractionists and the entrenched Edwardian traditions of belle peinture, who were looking for ways of being both modern and in touch with a wide public. Their crisp, realist style was one which enjoyed a vogue across Europe, and has been explored in a number of recent exhibitions on the Continent, but the full extent of the movement has never been investigated in its British context. The artists include Stanley Spencer and William Roberts, painters whose contribution to British painting between the wars is only now being fully recognised. Alongside them are shown a host of lesser names, including Maxwell Armfield, Laura Knight and Harold Williamson. Their paintings of swimmers, cyclists and sunbathers promote an aspect of our own culture in the 1930s which has long been concealed beneath the shadow of similar activities in Germany, where Freikorperkultur was put to the service of a more sinister ideology. Yet, these British paintings may not be as innocent as they seem, either. The exhibition also includes travel posters, press photographs and printed ephemera, all of which demonstrate the penetration and cross-fertilisation of this imagery across a wide range of visual culture.
£36.00