The Age of Johnson: The Library of Loren and Frances Rothschild brings together the most comprehensive collection of rare books and autograph works in private hands of the 18th-century literary giant Samuel Johnson, together with extensive collections of the works of the other principal authors of the period long-known as the Age of Johnson— including James Boswell, Edmund Burke, Frances Burney, Oliver Goldsmith, Hester (Thrale) Piozzi, Alexander Pope, and Jonathan Swift.

An introduction to each of these authors provides information placing the author in his or her historical and literary context, and the descriptive entries for each of the over 900 individual manuscripts, letters, and rare books records bibliographical information, significant facts, and critical information about the work recorded.    

The individual entries, when viewed in the aggregate, survey and illuminate the breadth and depth of the literary and intellectual canon of the authors of the Age of Johnson, illuminate their relationships and their works to one another. The text taken as a whole demonstrates why Samuel Johnson, as an individual and as an author, defined the era long named for him.

The seventeenth century is often known as the Dutch Golden Age, not only because of the great wealth the country amassed but also because of the impressive cultural flowering. The art of painting in particular reached a high point. Throughout the century, countless highly talented artists created masterpieces that still evoke our admiration more than four centuries later. Their paintings are the jewels in the collections of museums all over the world.

The artists of this period began painting landscapes, still lifes, scenes from everyday life, marine pictures and church interiors in a way that had never been done before. It was as if the artists wanted to record daily life around them, but they all did this in their studios at their easels. These painters had a degree of imaginative power that we find difficult to imagine. The art of the Dutch Golden Age is characterised by ceaseless creativity, huge levels of production and a style that was unique and typical of that time. The great names of Rembrandt, Vermeer and Frans Hals are world famous but the paintings of the lesser known old masters are often wonderful, splendid, exquisite or imposing.

From the authors of Understanding Jewellery, considered to be one of the most important and frequently referenced books on jewelry ever produced, Age of Grandeur focuses solely on the 19th century, bringing with it over 250 new color photographs of jewelry from this most celebrated era.
Taking the reader through the history of jewelry over the decades, we learn how and why particular styles came about and then changed. From Napoleonic classicism and Victorian sentimental and memorial jewelry, through the Romantic era and its penchant for naturalism, the Gothic style and recreation of the Renaissance and, finally, the unique designs of the Arts and Crafts and Art Nouveau periods, this comprehensive study enlightens and fascinates. With stunning photographs accompanying us on our journey through the decades, creating a rich visual history that brings the text to life, this book remains the essential bible on 19th-century jewelry.

The automobile is the ultimate analog machine and mankind’s most ingenious, seductive and damaging invention. For over a century, cars have provided reference points for our notions of style, status and desire. In design terms, the Age of Combustion was as rich and varied as architecture’s Baroque – and far more popular. And now it is coming to an end, as the internal-combustion engine is superseded by the battery and cars become wheeled computers, running on AI not oil. Together with a wide-ranging introduction, this book reproduces 60 of Stephen Bayley’s popular monthly columns for Octane, the outstanding classic car magazine where, for more than 10 years, he has provided the most consistent and insightful commentary on car culture, often based on privileged access to industry insiders.

Painter, engraver, illustrator, writer and art critic, Félix Vallotton (1865-1925) is known for the impact of his compositions, a combination of his decorative instincts and graphic wit. His revival of the woodcut in the 1890s quickly established him in the art and literary circles of Paris, and his talent as a prolific illustrator, especially for the press, spread his fame throughout Europe and as far afield as the United States. He illustrated bestsellers such as Poil de Carotte, by Jules Renard, and contributed to the most fashionable avant-garde periodicals of the time: including, La Revue Blanche, Le Rire, Le Cri de Paris, L’Assiette au Beurre, and Le Canard Sauvage, in Paris, Jugend and Die Insel, in Munich and Berlin, The Studio, in London, The Century Illustrated Monthly Magazine, in New York, among others.

This book assembles a number of critical essays and a selection of around 250 reproductions to explore this little-known aspect of Vallotton’s work. It is being brought out to coincide with the online publication of Félix Vallotton illustrateur. Catalogue raisonné (volume 32 in the Catalogues raisonnés d’artistes suisses series, created by Fondation Félix Vallotton, Lausanne, and Institut suisse pour l’étude de l’art, Lausanne/Zurich (SIK-ISEA).

Text in French.

Images:

Bleus d’aujourd’hui, dessin de Félix Vallotton en couverture du Rire, 1^er décembre 1894

Que les chiens sont heureux !, dessin de Félix Vallotton en couverture de Nib, 15 février 1895

Portrait of Stéphane Mallarmé, dessin de Félix Vallotton, The Chap-Book, 15 août 1895

Crete was famous in Greek myth as the location of the labyrinth in which the Minotaur was confined in a palace at somewhere called ‘Knossos’. From the Middle Ages travelers searched unsuccessfully for the Labyrinth. A handful of clues that survived, such as a coin with a labyrinth design and numerous small bronze age items. The name Knossos had survived – but it was nothing but a sprinkling of houses and farmland so they looked elsewhere. Finally, in 1878, a Cretan archeologist, Minos Kalokairinos discovered evidence of a Bronze Age palace. British Archaeologist and then Keeper of the Ashmolean Arthur Evans came out to visit and was fascinated by the site. Between 1900 and 1931 Evans uncovered the remains of the huge palace which he felt must be the that of King Minos, and he adopted the name ‘Minoans’ for its occupants. He employed a team of archeologists, architects and artists, and together they built up a picture of the Bronze Age community that had occupied the elaborate building. They imagined a sophisticated, nature-loving people, whose civilization peaked, and then disintegrated. Evans’s interpretations of his finds were accurate in some places, but deeply flawed in others. The Evans Archive, held by the Ashmolean, records his finds, theories and (often contentious) reconstructions. 

“I recommend to every Architect, designer and those who have a passion for New York to own this magnificent book…there is no better on the extraordinary Beaux Arts of New York.” —Lemeau, Decorator’s Insider

“This great, beautiful, glossy, polychromatic slab of a book more than does justice to an epic period in architecture when some of the world’s most luscious buildings were designed for some of the most unpleasant people in American history.” — Timothy Brittain-Catlin, World of Interiors

“New York would be little more than another faceless glass-and-steel city were it not for its Gilded Age buildings and institutions… An American Renaissance: Beaux-Arts Architecture in New York City, written by Phillip James Dodd with photography by Jonathan Wallen, is a gilded embrace of this legacy.”  — The Critic
The Gilded Age, also referred to as the American Renaissance, is an era associated with unparalleled growth, technological advancement, prosperity, and cultural change. Spanning from the 1870s to the 1930s, it marks the first time that the titans of American finance and industry had more wealth than their European counterparts. As the center of this dynamic economy, New York City attracted immigrant workers and millionaires alike. It was not enough for the self-appointed elite to just build their own grand châteaux and palazzos along Fifth Avenue—collectively they dreamed of creating a new metropolis to rival the great cultural capitals of London, Paris, and Rome. To flaunt their newly acquired wealth they needed an architecture dripping in embellishment and historical reference. Enter the Beaux-Arts.

This book, which has been painstakingly researched and beautifully photographed over many years, takes a close look at 20 of the finest examples of Beaux-Arts architecture in New York City. While showing public exteriors, its focus is on the lavish interiors that are associated with the opulence of the Gilded Age—often providing a glimpse inside buildings not otherwise viewable to the public. While some of the buildings and monuments featured are world-renowned landmarks recognizable and accessible to all, others are obscure buildings that history has forgotten.

Set amid the magnificent achievements of an American Renaissance, this book recounts not only the fascinating stories of some of New York’s most famous and significant Beaux-Arts landmarks, it also recalls the lives of those who commissioned, designed, and built them. These are some of the most acclaimed architects, artists, and artisans of the day—Daniel Chester French, Cass Gilbert, Charles McKim, Augustus Saint-Gaudens, Louis Comfort Tiffany, and Stanford White—and some of the most prominent millionaires in American history—Henry Clay Frick, Jay Gould, Otto Kahn, J.P. Morgan, John D. Rockefeller, and the ubiquitous Astor and Vanderbilt families. Names that—as Julian Fellowes (the acclaimed director of Downton Abbey) notes in the Foreword—“still reek of money.” Excerpt from the Introduction

An Overview of TCI and TIVA was written by two of the leading lights in anaesthetic pharmacology. It is an invaluable source of information on the practice of total intravenous anaesthesia (TIVA) with or without target-controlled infusion (TCI) technology. In this long-awaited third edition of their popular book they have maintained the small size while thoroughly updating it to include recent developments and insights in the field, many of which have emerged from the work of their own research group. The fine balance between the provision of practical information to promote safe and effective clinical practice, with information on the scientific and theoretical foundations, will benefit and stimulate novice and more experienced TIVA users alike.

An Overview of TCI and TIVA was written by two of the leading lights in anaesthetic pharmacology. It is an invaluable source of information on the practice of total intravenous anaesthesia (TIVA) with or without target-controlled infusion (TCI) technology. In this long-awaited third edition of their popular book they have maintained the small size while thoroughly updating it to include recent developments and insights in the field, many of which have emerged from the work of their own research group. The fine balance between the provision of practical information to promote safe and effective clinical practice, with information on the scientific and theoretical foundations, will benefit and stimulate novice and more experienced TIVA users alike.

Japan was isolated almost completely from the West for more than two hundred years, from 1641 to 1854. One of the first Westerners to penetrate that barrier and reveal fundamental information about the country – and the Far East in general – was Philipp Franz von Siebold (1796-1866), a doctor from Würzburg in Germany. He spent the period 1823 to 1829 on the small island of Dejima, a Dutch trading post in Nagasaki that was then the only point of contact between Japan and the West. Full of ambition, Siebold was sent from the Dutch East Indies to Japan with the task of gathering as much information as possible about the country, its geography, its people, religion, customs and traditional costumes. The ultimate aim was to use this information to boost Dutch trade. Working with Japanese artists including Kawahara Keiga and Hokusai, Siebold embarked on an unprecedented visual and scientific project, culminating in the book Nippon. In this publication of Nippon, we give Siebold’s work a new lease of life that lets us understand the Japan he saw. This edition includes all the original prints, with a commentary on the most compelling images. The introduction discusses the unique relationship between Japan and the Netherlands, Siebold’s life, his work on Dejima and the historical significance of Nippon. The thematic essays and image keys point out striking details and interesting stories, all with a view to achieving once again what Siebold sought to do all those years ago: let readers marvel at the incredible beauty of Japan.

“Charles Higham – rugby player, talented excavator and one of the great archaeologists of his generation – is an engaging raconteur. His fast-moving autobiography tells of the life well lived, of a world authority on Southeast Asia’s past. This is a fascinating and adventurous journey complete with academic debates, serious archaeology, its triumphs and minor disasters galore. Read this book if you aspire to be an archaeologist. It will inspire you to great deeds.” – Brian Fagan, Distinguished Emeritus Professor of Archaeology, University of California, Santa Barbara.

“Higham charts an archaeological Odyssey from Roman Britain via the Bronze Age stock-breeders of central Europe to prehistoric Thailand and the origins of Angkor. This complements a personal journey equally eventful, from a double first and rugby blue at Cambridge to building a university department in New Zealand. Here is a life laden with academic honours and the thrill of discovery on a series of digs that have transformed understanding of the human past in a hitherto-under-evaluated part of the ancient world.” – Professor Norman Hammond, Senior Fellow, McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, Cambridge University.

“Charles Higham presents a readable and often witty account of a golden age in archaeological excavation in Thailand, Neolithic to Iron Age, from his perspective as a fundamental contributor. A must-read for colleagues, students, and the interested public are like.” – Emeritus Professor Peter Bellwood, Australian National University.

In this unique memoir, Charles Higham, one of the great archeologists of his generation, describes the inside story of how his many excavations have introduced Southeast Asia’s past to a worldwide audience. For over 50 years, he and his Thai colleagues have explored the arrival of early humans, the impact of the first farmers, the remarkable rise of social elites with the spread of metallurgy and the origins of civilizations. Once seen as a cultural backwater, Southeast Asia now takes center stage in understanding the human past.

Understanding photographs has never been easy. Many photographs – including some of the best known – were not taken with a clear idea in mind. And even if they were, the idea was soon overlooked or forgotten. In this profusely illustrated book, Ian Jeffrey hands us the tools to decode key photographs. By giving the reader the necessary biographical and historical information, the author helps us to fully understand photographs by Alfred Stieglitz, Cindy Sherman, Rinko Kawauchi, Nan Goldin, Thomas Ruff, Dorothea Lange, Bill Brandt, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Paul Strand, Diane Arbus, and L.szl. Moholy-Nagy, among others. At the same time, readers explore an overview of the history of photography by looking at one image at a time. Each entry includes a concise biography along with an illuminating discussion of the works and relevant contextual information.

The Historic Center of Mexico City protects 500 years of history, and cultural and artistic wealth. In addition, it is the scene of an effervescence that keeps it alive and transforms it every day. This guide has two objectives. On one hand, the reader will find in it information to deepen their knowledge about the heart of this great city. At the same time, the guide has a practical purpose, as it contains plans, routes and useful information that will accompany the reader in his role as traveler or explorer. Whoever has this guide in their hands will discover the center of the hand of curators, music lovers, chroniclers, foodies, landscapers and amateurs, whose very different outlooks and recommendations have only one common denominator: an excessive passion for the Center.

Headrests from Southern Africa – The architecture of sleep presents the subject of southern African headrests in a fascinating new light. The book, richly illustrated – often with in situ photographs, offers unique historical and personal information collected from many of the original owners and carvers of the headrests. So, for the first time African headrests are brought to life with detailed information and the stories of their creation, ownership, use and significance.

The 438 headrests from the collections of Bruce Goodall from Cape Town and Frédéric Zimer from Paris are presented according to 3 geographical areas: KwaZulu-Natal, Limpopo (where the Ntwane people live) and Eswatini (formerly known as Swaziland).

Since 2003, Goodall has made numerous field trips collecting, as well as interviewing and photographing the owners and carvers of headrests. In 2017, Goodall’s collection grew substantially with the purchase of a comprehensive collection of headrests from the Msinga area of KwaZulu-Natal. This collection had been assembled and meticulously documented by the late Anglican priest Clive Newman and his friend and assistant, Mavis Duma, between the late 1980s and the mid-2000s. The Zimer collection has been built up since the 1990s through his many travels in Africa, and his acquisitions from collectors and African art dealers around the world.

This publication not only offers insight into the personal and historical dimensions of this important southern African tradition through the text written about the headrests and their owners by Bruce Goodall, but includes essays by Newman, Nel and Leibhammer and a text about collecting by Duma. Together these facilitate a penetrating understanding of these valued items as well as a respectful appreciation of the cultures and individuals who made and used them.

The rose is generally seen as the most romantic flower. No other plant blooms for so long and profusely, and comes in so many different shapes, scents and colors. Roses deserve a place in everyone’s home, outside – in the garden or on the balcony – but certainly also indoors on the table. The Joy of Roses answers every question you may have about roses: from the history of the rose to applications in the home. The different types of roses are discussed in detail with descriptions of the flower, the scent, the thorns, the inflorescence and information about the best place for this specific species. The book also provides information about cultivators, which flowers go well with roses and their care. Anneke Beemer’s beautiful photos complete the book.

This monograph edited by Ilaria Bernardi is the first comprehensive examination of the oeuvre of the Italian artist Loris Cecchini, from his debut in the mid-1990s to the present.

The publication coincides with the 30th anniversary of the artist’s first inclusion in an exhibition: in three group shows in 1995. The book reviews Cecchini’s solo and group exhibitions, providing information on awards, residencies and lectures, as well as extensive commentary on his most distinctive works.

Alternating between photography, sculpture, drawing, digital processing and environmental installations, Cecchini’s aim is to shape real space by means of innovative materials, focusing on how matter holds together and the aesthetic, architectural, organic, and structural processes associated with it. He has a particular interest in industrial materials such as rubber, resin and steel. His work explores the sense of the real, in a perspective suspended between the natural and the man-made that challenges the viewer’s perception.

This book reconstructs the trajectory of Cecchini’s personal and creative life by interweaving biographical information, historical background and an ample selection of works, thus providing a unique contribution to the literature devoted to the artist.

Text in English and French

Horological trends flit by faster than ever in today’s fast-paced society. But Rolex does not rely on gimmicks; theirs is a more perennial allure, with a reputation built on traditions and hard-earned skill. A company that innovates while paying homage to their roots, every Rolex is the culmination of centuries of watchmaking expertise. Within this bestselling book you will find explanations of the making process, descriptions of the materials involved and expert commentary on what makes each Rolex wristwatch unique.
This new revised edition of The Book of Rolex has been brought right up to date since it first published in 2015, to include all the latest information on this most desirable of watch brands along with many new images. Demonstrating how each model fits its social milieu, present and past, this book also addresses the multitude of fakes on the market, including the so-called ‘Frankensteins’ – watches made from a mixture of real parts and forgeries, which are notoriously hard to spot – imparting all the skills needed to pick counterfeits out of a line-up. A holistic view of Rolex watches, this book promises to be as timeless as the brand itself. Should you be considering a Rolex, this book will convince you of its worth as an investment. 

In 1947 and 1948, Van Johnson was MGM’s top male box office draw. “On screen he was the Pied Piper; Elizabeth Taylor’s lover, he was a war pilot with Spencer Tracy,” writes his friend and decorator Carleton Varney in the introduction for Van Johnson’s Hollywood: A Family Album.
Along the way, his wife, Evie Wynn Johnson, an amateur shutterbug captured behind- the-scenes images of their friends, some of Hollywood’s most famous stars, such as Gary Cooper, Judy Garland, and Humphrey Bogart on the road, on the set, around the pool, and at their Hollywood home. She put together these casual and candid images in a family album that has never been published before. Their daughter, Schuyler adds her memories to this unique document of Hollywood’s Golden Age.

Rembrandt van Rijn married Saskia van Uylenburgh, the love of his life, in Friesland (the Netherlands) in 1634. The famous painter came to know her when she visited her cousin in Amsterdam, Hendrick van Uylenburgh, Rembrandt’s art dealer. This book, the catalogue for a traveling exhibition, sketches a picture of marriage in the time of Rembrandt and Saskia. Their story is the tale of a high society marriage in seventeenth century Holland, from courtships to weddings to daily married life and funerals. The show follows Rembrandt and Saskia from their meeting to her untimely early death after 10 years of marriage. Paintings, drawings, and etchings by Rembrandt, as well as letters and poetry, are featured alongside wedding portraits, objects, and jewelry from the period, offering insight into what weddings and married life meant in the Golden Age of 17th century Holland.

“This book takes in his introduction to wine – at the age of three! – through his continued travels and championing of New World wines when they were less fashionable.” – Matthew Nugent, The Irish Sun

“You can feel Oz Clarke’s expansive, chatty presence in every sentence” – Telegraph

“Reading Clarke may be the closest we’ll come to sharing a glass of sack with the Bard himself.” —David McIntyre, Washington Post
“Frankly, it’s the best and most entertaining wine read I’ve had in years.” —Tom Doorley, The Irish Mail

“You can never have too much of his captivating enthusiasm and rich knowledge and this is him at his best.” — Waitrose magazine

“A rollicking good read.” — Sommelier India

There have never been so many delicious and original wines in the world, and to discover them, all you need is a glass in your hand and Oz Clarke – the ideal wine companion. With his inimitable sense of adventure and fun, Oz explains how his fascination with flavor led him to abandon a promising acting career and follow his heart from Chablis to ‘the lost Himalayan valleys of Yunnan’ in pursuit new taste experiences and wine thrills. He found them! Oz Clarke On Wine takes us on a fast-paced, witty romp around the grape varieties key to the world’s major wine styles, then explores the vineyards and regions where a vast trove of wine treasure lies waiting for discovery. Oz’s passion for sharing, his deep wine knowledge, and his ability to conjure up the wine world’s most beautiful landscapes, make this book the most unputdownable wine read this century.

Includes:

• How Oz fell in love with wine: from his first dramatic encounter on a river-bank (aged three), to his post-performance tasting tales (after ‘governing Argentina’ as General Perón in the hit show Evita
• Oz explains how global warming affects what we drink today, and the new styles we can expect ‘tomorrow’
• Organic and Biodynamic wines, Oz’s favorite fizz
• The world’s best-tasting wines, from Aconcagua to Okanagan, from Patagonia to east Yorkshire…, and wines to enjoy, from budget to blue chip… For sipping and savoring now. Or to age and enjoy in 10, 20, 30-years’ time…

These pages tell the story without words of a journey through Spain in which the author, the photographer Fernando Manso, visited unknown and hidden corners and captured them on the plates of his large-format camera. From the remotest parts of Galicia to those of Almería, he passed through coasts, deserts and mountains, stopping at old churches, ghostly castles or majestic cathedrals, in forests and gorges, at natural pools and salt mines, and at cemeteries, Arab baths and hermitages carved out of the rock.

Fernando has made the light of these places into the leading figure of his journey. His is a different light, as he has relinquished blue skies and brilliant sunshine, often the stuff of clichés, to make way for visions of places that appear to us with such intimate truth that even if we know them, we can barely recognize them. This is thanks to his technique, his art and the patience with which he waits for the light.

Fernando’s luxury is being able to use all the time in the world to draw us into an artistic heritage that is sometimes secret and hard to reach, and which the viewer has to know how to see. He reveals these places, often in danger of disappearing, after detailed investigation. Both architecture and landscape – for he knows that natural scenery is also a major patrimony that has to be affectionately preserved and protected from speculation – belong to all of us, and we are responsible for their care. We must be aware of this.

The result of that trip is this publication, with beautiful images in reproductions of exceptional quality that present us with a vision of Spain in a different light.

Academics, designers and managers in the nonprofit sector, provide valuable information to students of historic preservation and landscape history, and to a more general public that, as editor Charles Birnbaum says, must be educated about the value of modern landscape design.