U Thong, 100 or so km north of Bangkok, has been an important site for over 2,000 years, as witnessed by the discovery of a 3rd century Roman coin. The moated city was connected to the Chin river, thereby gaining access to international trade routes.
The inhabitants of the early centers of Classic Southeast Asian civilization were already wealthy enough to own large quantities of ornate jewelry such as imported beads from India and carved stone from Taiwan. They had so much gold that central and western mainland Southeast Asia including the U Thong area was known in Sanskrit as Suvarnabhumi, the Golden Land.
This publication brings a new perspective to the study of ancient gold from U Thong. The author is a trained research metallurgy scientist, and these skills have been brought to bear on the highly significant corpus of early gold artifacts found in and around the moated city, the largest accumulation of such artifacts from any of the ancient muang of Thailand.
The goldsmiths were as highly skilled as those anywhere else in the world, but almost all previous studies have been written by people who can only study the outer appearance to draw conclusions regarding its age and place of origin.
Mixing Roman and medieval roots, Chichester sits at the heart of a storied landscape where South Down hills dotted with idyllic hamlets ripple back from a shoreline mixing wild dune-backed beaches with old-school seaside resorts. Reminders of smuggling and war add spice.
But a thrilling thread of modernity runs through this slice of West Sussex too. Chichester’s modernist Festival Theatre provided the foundation for London’s National Theatre, while masterpieces of contemporary architecture that draw admirers from around the world include Sea Lane House in East Preston and The White Tower in Bognor Regis.
Evocative ancient memorials abound. Chichester is blessed with the only English cathedral visible from the sea, while England’s largest castle rises above the ravishing – and cosmopolitan – riverside town of Arundel. Ancient yew trees mark the burial spots of Viking warriors in an idyllic Downland spot. And it’s a land vibrant with creative imprints: poets, painters, composers, from Blake and Keats to Joyce and Chagall.
This guidebook takes you exploring Chichester and its surroundings to find incomparable natural beauty, hidden secrets, astonishing history, art of all kinds, and much more.
Written by Valmiki, a dacoit-turned-sage who lived at the same time as Ram himself, Ramayana follows the path of Ram. From his birth, valorous deeds, winning of the hand of Seeta in marriage, exile and suffering from Ayodhya, battle with Ravan to his final triumphant return to his kingdom as the slayer of the demon of Lanka, this epic is a guide to navigating the complex pathways of life through the inspiration of paramatma taking an avatar to mingle with earthly beings and share their joys, sorrows and challenges.
Beautifully illustrated with paintings from the Mewar Ramayana prepared for Rana Jagat Singh of Mewar (reg. 1628-52), this is the first time that paintings from different locations have been put together in one volume. In the hands of mid-seventeenth century artists the story of Ram has been turned artistically into a sophisticated expression of Rajput ideals and society.
Ten more handscrolls from the series Collection of Ancient Calligraphy and Painting Handscrolls: Paintings have rich themes and diverse styles, such as vivid portraits, exquisite landscape paintings, and meticulous paintings of flowers and birds. The paintings are accompanied by texts written by experts, offering detailed analysis of the artists’ works. It is a powerful tribute to Chinese ancient paintings and provides original insight into the work itself. In this series (volumes 11-20), most of handscrolls are painted in Song Dynasty, in which painting became an art of high sophistication and reached a new level of sophistication with further development of landscape painting. The original paintings have been in the collection of the Palace Museum or the Taipei Palace Museum for many years.
The artworks are presented in the traditional format of a handscroll which can be extended indefinitely, so that the postscripts and observations of later generations can be directly followed by the end of the works.
Ten more handscrolls from the series Collection of Ancient Calligraphy and Painting Handscrolls: Paintings have rich themes and diverse styles, such as vivid portraits, exquisite landscape paintings, and meticulous paintings of flowers and birds. The paintings are accompanied by texts written by experts, offering detailed analysis of the artists’ works. It is a powerful tribute to Chinese ancient paintings and provides original insight into the work itself. In this series (volumes 11-20), most of handscrolls are painted in Song Dynasty, in which painting became an art of high sophistication and reached a new level of sophistication with further development of landscape painting. The original paintings have been in the collection of the Palace Museum or the Taipei Palace Museum for many years.
The artworks are presented in the traditional format of a handscroll which can be extended indefinitely, so that the postscripts and observations of later generations can be directly followed by the end of the works.
This beautiful coloring and drawing book contains intricate illustrations, decorative details and a fabulous fold-out map. This is the perfect starting point for your art adventure around the National Galleries of Scotland. Color in the buildings, draw your favorite artworks and add your friends and family into your pictures.
This is the exceptionally rich story of Rembrandt’s fame and influence in Britain. No other nation has witnessed such a passionate – and sometimes eccentric – enthusiam for Rembrandt’s works. His imagery has become ubiquitous, making him one of the most recognised artists in history. In this book, some of the world’s leading experts reveal how the taste for Rembrandt’s paintings, drawings and prints evolved, growing into a mania that gripped collectors and art lovers across the country. This reached a fever pitch in the late 1700s, before the dawn of a new century ushered in a re-evaluation of Rembrandt’s reputation and opportunities for the wider public to see his masterpieces for themselves.
The story of Rembrandt’s profound and inspirational impact on the British imagination is illustrated by over 130 sumptuous works by the master himself, as well as by some of Britain’s best-loved artists, including William Hogarth, James Abbott McNeill Whistler, Eduardo Paolozzi and John Bellany.
Foreword; Introduction; 1 Rembrandt’s Fame in Britain, 1630 1900: An Overview- Christian Tico Seifert; 2 Rembrandt and Britain: The Modern Era – Patrick Elliott; 3 ‘The Finest Possible State’: Cataloguing and Collecting Rembrandt’s Prints, c.1700 1840 – Stephanie S. Dickey; 4 From Studio to Academy: Copying Rembrandt in Eighteenth-century Britain – Jonathan Yarker; 5 Regarding Rembrandt: Reynolds and Rembrandt – Donato Esposito; 6 Rembrandt: Paragon of the Etching Revival – Peter Black; 7 Rembrandt and Britain: A ‘Picture Flight’ in Three Stages, 1850 1930 – M.J. Ripps; Catalogue; Bibliography.
The Great Himalayan National Park Conservation Area, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, is one of the most important protected areas in the Himalayas, one of the World’s great biological realms. The book is intended both as a history and an ecological overview of the Park and as a plea for continuing conservation of the rich legacy of Himalayan plants and animals. In addition to descriptions of the ecology, the book includes local history and culture and a review of current development in the region. The inscription of the Park into the UNESCO World Heritage List in 2014 confirmed the Outstanding Universal Values of the area, which contains the most important and significant natural habitats for in-situ conservation of Western Himalayan biological diversity. The pictures, taken by the authors and their collaborators, vividly illustrate the grandeur and diversity of the area. The book has universal appeal: to naturalists, scholars, resource managers, trekkers, arm-chair travelers. Success and failure along the road to creating today’s Park are discussed frankly to inform future management efforts and there are numerous examples of conservation in action that will motivate a new generation of naturalists and ecologists to continue the fight to protect the ecology of the greatest mountains on earth.
The Humayun’s Tomb-Nizamuddin area is inhabited by a vibrant local community being visited by millions of tourists and pilgrims each year. Conservation works being undertaken on the monuments in this area have aimed to re-define standard conservation practice in India by setting benchmarks in using a craft-based approach, setting documentation standards, using a participatory and multi-disciplinary approach, and using the conservation initiative as a tool towards improving quality of life for local communities.
This book aims to inform the general public about the discipline of conservation and the rationale behind the successful conservation initiative and makes an argument for change in conservation approach in India: from isolated monuments to an urban approach that includes concern for the setting; from a ‘tender-based’ approach to a quality-concerned method; amongst other factors.
Published in association with Aga Khan Trust for Culture, New Delhi.
Contents:
Introduction; Conservation Policy; Preparing for Conservation; Conserving a World Heritage Site; Making Conservation Meaningful; Planning the Next Steps.
Experienced base jumpers and other extreme sports athletes have one unwritten rule: self-knowledge. The way you think and the choices you make determine who you are and who you will become. If you know yourself, you will dare to take risks, to go your own way and to change. This rule goes for professionals who aim for high performances too. If you want your performances to have a positive drive, you first have to get to know yourself. Dare to Jump helps you to overcome your fears and gives you three power skills with which you can become the best version of yourself. Someone with a boundless mind-set, a sharp focus and a great amount of trust. You learn why focus is the new IQ, how to train yourself to enter the right flow, and how you build the level of trust within your team.
Michael Broadbent, wine critic, writer, auctioneer and much-admired expert revolutionized the wine trade with his first edition of Wine Tasting in 1968 and has continued to capture the magic of wine for over 50 years, bringing it to the page and to the public in compleling detail, always tinged with his uniquely wry sense of humor.
Michael’s original text (from the 1975 edition) updated with the latest vintages and footnotes revealing Michael’s reactions to the changing wine scene.
Personal tributes to Michael from Hugh Johnson OBE, Jancis Robinson OBE MW, Steven Spurrier, the late Gerard Basset OBE MW MS, and international wine auctioneers Paul Bowker and Fritz Hatton.
“He had added what the wine trade had lacked; a veneer of scholarship, and a dealer of genius.” – Hugh Johnson
“A must read” – Ian Harris, CEO of the Wine and Spirit Education Trust
The Ruskin Society Book of The Year. Who was John Ruskin? What did he achieve – and how? Where is he today? One possible answer: almost everywhere. John Ruskin was the Victorian age’s best-known and most controversial intellectual. He was an art critic, a social activist, an early environmentalist; he was also a painter, writer, and a determined tastemaker in the fields of architecture and design. His ideas, which poured from his pen in the second half of the 19th century, sowed the seeds of the modern welfare state, universal state education and healthcare free at the point of delivery. His acute appreciation of natural beauty underpinned the National Trust, while his sensitivity to environmental change, decades before it was considered other than a local phenomenon, fuelled the modern green movement. His violent critique of free market economics, Unto This Last, has a claim to be the most influential political pamphlet ever written. Ruskin laid into the smug champions of Victorian capitalism, prefigured the current debate about inequality, executive pay, ethical business and automation. Gandhi is just one of the many whose lives were changed radically by reading Ruskin, and who went on to change the world. This book, timed to coincide with the 200th anniversary of John Ruskin’s birth in 2019, will retrace Ruskin’s steps, telling his life story and visiting the places and talking to the people who – perhaps unknowingly – were influenced by Ruskin himself or by his profoundly important ideas. What, if anything, do they know about him? How is what they do or think linked to the vivid, difficult but often prophetic pronouncements he made about the way our modern world should look, live, work and think? As important, where – and why – have his ideas been swept away or displaced, sometimes by buildings, developments and practices that Ruskin himself would have abhorred? Part travelog, part quest, part unconventional biography, this book will attempt to map Ruskinland: a place where, two centuries after John Ruskin’s birth, more of us live than we know.
Beautifully produced facsimile of a watercolor artist’s book recording many of the most fascinating birds and animals of the Galápagos Islands. Profits to go to the Galápagos Trust.
October 21, 1982. Three singers stand on the steps of the High Court with large cheques and broken dreams. The women are Annie (Annabel Leventon, the book’s author), GB (Gaye Brown), and Di-Di (Diane Langton). Their dream was of a British three-woman rock band, unique and different from anything that had gone before. They called themselves Rock Bottom. They were raunchy, rude and hilarious – the contemporary media described them as ‘a cross between the female Rolling Stones and the female Marx Brothers’ – and they nearly made it.
Until Thames Television stole everything and made a major award-winning series called Rock Follies, about them, based on them, but without them. It made stars of the three lookalikes playing them. And they lost everything.
A common enough tale of showbiz betrayal. Except that they fought back. At the offset of the Court trial, the Head of Drama at Thames TV sarcastically quipped, ‘three little actresses against the might of EMI?’ Forget it, the three ladies were told. Move on. They didn’t. They took the case to the High Court and won. Breach of Confidence is now on the Statute Books and it has become one of the defining cases in Intellectual Property.
The Real Rock Follies is a real-life story of youthful trust betrayed, dreams of stardom dashed and cruel lessons learnt. The three girls, then in their late twenties, learned too late that in the harsh showbiz world you can hardly trust anyone, not even your friends. However, despite everything, they got the last laugh. Their promising career couldn’t be returned to them but they enjoyed the huge satisfaction (both emotional and financial) that the ruling confirmed that the creative concept behind Rock Follies was fully theirs.
“… With its hundreds of beautiful photographs and outstanding research, it is a magnificent and eye-opening contribution that tells not only the story of the silver and gold items fashioned by Malay artisans but the Malay peoples themselves.’ — Seif El Rashidi, Islamic scholar, author & Director, Barakat Trust
This ground breaking new book is the first study of Malay silver and gold to take chronology and place production into serious consideration, leading to a much more nuanced understanding of developments across Southeast Asia. The exciting findings include the identification as Malay of certain exquisite gold filigree pieces held in august collections worldwide.’ — Annabel Teh Gallop, Head, Southeast Asia Department, British Library
At last, here is an excellent publication that does full justice to the scope and beauty of Malay silver and gold…’ — Sylvia Fraser-Lu, Author
This beautifully produced and illustrated book, ideal for collectors and curators, is the most comprehensive book ever published on the silver and gold ware of the Malay people of Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, southern Thailand and Brunei.
Hundreds of color photographs of previously unpublished items, and meticulous research, are used to tell not just the story of Malay gold and silver, but that of the Malay people, with reference to their princely regalia, banqueting items, betel sets, jewelry, silver and gold-encased weapons, and other items of adornment and finery. In addition, previously unrecognized gold items made by the Malays for the 18th century European market are identified, and other items of silverware now in museum collections and believed to be Malay are shown not to be.
Michael Backman also shows how 19th century collecting for museums and private collections, and colonialism itself, all distorted our view of Malay gold and silver today, if not the Malays themselves, and also influenced what was produced. He weaves a complex story, and in so doing reveals the Malays’ rich, dynamic and sophisticated legacy, one that is little understood today.
‘Malay Silver and Gold is the first book on this topic to have been published in over a hundred years. Rightly, it restores the Malays to the very centre of the commercial history and material culture setting of their region whilst placing them in the broader context of the ‘Islamic world’. With its hundreds of beautiful photographs and outstanding research, it is a magnificent and eye-opening contribution that tells not only the story of the silver and gold items fashioned by Malay artisans but the Malay peoples themselves.’ – Seif El Rashidi, Islamic scholar, author & Director, Barakat Trust
‘This ground breaking new book is the first study of Malay silver and gold to take chronology and place production into serious consideration, leading to a much more nuanced understanding of developments across Southeast Asia. The exciting findings include the identification as Malay of certain exquisite gold filigree pieces held in august collections worldwide.’ -Annabel Teh Gallop, Head, Southeast Asia Department, British Library
‘At last, here is an excellent publication that does full justice to the scope and beauty of Malay silver and gold. Michael Backman describes and illustrates the full range of Malay silver and gold work with superlative photographs. A great contribution to a very important, but hitherto not well understood Southeast Asia craft!’ -Sylvia Fraser-Lu, Author
This delightful manuscript, published in facsimile, was composed around 1585 by a clergyman in a bid for the patronage of an Elizabethan magnate, Sir John Petre. Modeled on printed writing books, German and French, it presents a profusion of scripts, accompanying decorated capital letters from A to Z. Its texts are eloquent on the value of learning. All is transcribed in print and, when needed, translated, including poems in English and Latin in which Amos Lewis, the creator, presses his case, reinforced by colorful Petre heraldry. The commentary unravels the Alphabet Book’s precursors and analyzes its ingredients, including a lively range of ornament. The first writing book published in London, in 1570, was by a Frenchman, Jean de Beau Chesne. Lewis’s manuscript is the first attempt at an original writing book by an Englishman. This signal rarity, virtually unknown hitherto, is a window into handwriting and education in the age of Shakespeare.
The National Galleries Barberini and Corsini contain paintings and sculptures of exceptional historical and artistic value. Page after page, through the masterpieces of many of the greatest Italian artists from the Middle Ages to the 18th century (Angelico, Raphael, Piero di Cosimo, Bronzino, Lotto, Tintoretto, Cortona, Caravaggio, Bernini, Reni, Guercino, Batoni, Canaletto) the reader can follow the development of art history. The collections also include artwork by Holbein, Murille and Van Dyck, besides a few antique pieces. In addition to the 100 entries, there are descriptions of particularly important elements that are part of the palaces’ architecture, such as Borromini’s spiral staircase, Bernini’s main staircase and the huge ceiling frescoed by Pietro da Cortona.
Gertrude Vernon, or Lady Agnew of Lochnaw, was an English woman who married a Scot. The American artist John Singer Sargent excelled as a painter in Europe. His portrait of Lady Agnew was painted in London but has found its definitive home in Edinburgh. All these contexts converge in a supremely beautiful painting which is one the icons of the collection of the National Galleries of Scotland.
Created in the 1890s, it proved to be a seminal work in the lives of the artist and his subject and has enjoyed a rich afterlife, inspiring artistic and written responses. This book offers a fascinating biography of this most accomplished, evocative and admired of portraits, placing it in the context of Sargent’s career and how he worked, discussing the life of the sitter and unveiling the picture’s rich critical history.
The Royal Touch is a beautiful compilation of stunning recipes gathered from far and wide on an incredible culinary journey. It is one that has covered three continents over several decades and has taken in many a royal palace along the way. Carolyn Robb, former personal chef to TRH The Prince and Princess of Wales, Prince William and Prince Harry, presents the food that she loves to serve to her family and friends; food that is fit for a king, yet is accessible to us all. Inspired by everything from her mother’s home-cooking, memories of her happy childhood in South Africa and her extensive travels to the extraordinary experiences of 13 years as a chef in the royal household, Carolyn’s recipes are simple to prepare and perfect to share. Whether you are entertaining special guests, going on a picnic, planning a cosy fireside supper, cooking with children or you simply feel like trying your hand at some baking, this book has it all and the ingredients you require won’t break the bank.