“This exhaustive study will be an invaluable tool in identifying not only where a piece was made and when, but in understanding the processes of its manufacture” The Regional Furniture Society
“Cataloguers now have an impressive volume of new information to draw on when describing anything from a simple tea tray to those suites of papier mâché furniture which remain as impressive today as when they dazzled visitors at the great international exhibitions of the 19th century” Antiques Trade Gazette
As one of the few decorative arts about which little has been written, japanning is today fraught with misunderstandings. And yet, in its heyday, the japanning industry attracted important commissions from prestigious designers such as Robert Adam, and orders from fashionable society across Europe and beyond. This book is a long overdue history of the industry which centered on three towns in the English midlands: Birmingham, Wolverhampton and Bilston. It is as much about the workers, their skills, and the factories and workshops in which they labored, as it is about the goods they made. It tells of matters of taste and criticism, and of how an industry which continued to rely so heavily upon hand labor in the machine age reached its natural end in the 1880s with a few factories lingering into the late 1930s. Richly illustrated, it includes photographs of mostly marked, or well-documented, examples of japanned tin and papier mâché against which readers may compare – and perhaps identify – unmarked specimens. Japanned Papier Mâché and Tinware draws predominantly upon contemporary sources: printed, manuscript and typescript documents, and, for the period leading up to the closure of the last factories in the 1930s, the author was able to draw on verbal accounts of eyewitnesses. With a chapter on japanners in London, other European centers, and in the United States, together with a directory of japan artists and decorators, this closely researched and comprehensive book is the reference work for collectors, dealers and enthusiasts alike. Contents: From Imitation to Innovation; Enter the Dragon!; The Lion of the District; Japanning & Decorating; Not a Bed of Roses!; Clever Accidents?; Decline of the Midlands Japanning Industry; The Birmingham Japanners; The Wolverhampton Japanners; The Bilston Japanners; Japanners in London and Oxford; Products; Other Western Japanning Centres; Appendices.

This beautifully presented monograph features the outstanding architectural and planning design work of Washington D.C.–based David M. Schwarz Architects, a firm with a significant focus on how buildings relate and contribute to their surroundings. Featuring 40 projects across the United States, the range of work in this book is extensive and includes cultural, sports and entertainment, office and residential, mixed-use, retail, hospitality, civic, healthcare, and education projects. 

Each project is richly photographed in lavish full color, with text commentary by Craig P. Williams, who has been associated with David M. Schwarz Architects for nearly forty-five years. All essays in this volume are based either on Craig P. Williams’s firsthand recollections or direct conversations with his colleagues who worked on those projects.

This major work, first published in 1950, is still considered the classic book on the subject. It provides a comprehensive, critical and well-illustrated survey of the portrayal of plants across over three thousand years, at a more compact size.

Of the first edition, the poet and gardening writer, Vita Sackville-West said: “Let no one think this is a book only for the specialist. It is essential for the specialist, certainly, but it is also for all the flower-lovers and all those who enjoy the by-ways of biography and the added attraction of good writing”.

This edition contains 123 color plates (more than twice as many as the first edition), alongside 148 black-and-white illustrations. It invites the reader to appreciate the works of the greatest botanical illustrators both past and present.