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In An Artist’s Journey, artist Tiny de Vries takes you around the world in search of inspiration. She starts close to home in her Utrecht studio in the Netherlands, where she shows you how to use found treasures to personalise your interior. The book is a visual journey through her world, featuring beautiful photos, artworks and personal stories. Tiny talks about how to draw inspiration from your immediate surroundings, such as nature, handmade fabrics and books. She also shows how travel provides inspiration from ‘tiny little nothings’ from all over the world. This beautifully executed look book is an ode to wonder and connection. It encourages you to look around you with an open-minded, curious and playful eye, embrace your own creativity and let go of the urge for perfection.

“I love small-scale produced, inherited, vintage and homemade objects. Unique objects made by small makers and artisans are rich in stories, with all those beautiful subtle nuances. Together, they make a space unique.” – Tiny de Vries in Art & Home Magazine

During childhood holidays by the sea, the pristine Long Beach was full of treasures from the deep, sharks and dolphins swam near the shore, and the sea and air was vibrant with life and energy. Homo Gaia is written by lifelong environmentalist and citizen scientist, who wishes to pass on a thin strand of hope to the next generation. After a five year project on nature connection at the Greenworld foundation, Thailand, where she was chairperson, was halted by Covid, Oy decided to write a book instead. Showing how others can also experience the wondrous world that surrounds us, she weaves in her own experiences with information and insights from scientists.

This luxurious photo book commemorates the 600th anniversary of KU Leuven University, Belgium, featuring the work of renowned heritage and architecture photographer Karin Borghouts. Through her lens, Borghouts offers fresh and unexpected perspectives on the university’s rich architectural heritage, capturing everything from auditoriums and laboratories to student residences, sports facilities, libraries, chapels, and more. Accompanying her striking images, historian Liesbet Nys delves into the storied history of KU Leuven. She offers an insightful narrative that complements the visual journey through one of Europe’s oldest universities.

Bristol is one of the UK’s biggest cities but is small enough to sometimes feel like a village. It is a city built on trading with much of its former maritime heritage now transformed into buzzing independent harbourside businesses in which to eat, drink and let your hair down. Both water and green spaces abound. And you’ll have to get used to hills when exploring this cosmopolitan city because like Rome, Bristol was built on seven of them. Step away from the obvious – the Clifton Suspension Bridge and the SS Great Britain (both designed by Isambard Kingdom Brunel), or the wonderful We The Curious where science and art collide – and discover unexpected treasures such as secret gardens, hidden memorials to the past and unusual modes of transport.

Journey through the old haunts of world famous pirates; past the Oscar-winning animation studio home to Morph and Wallace & Gromit; along shopping streets that sell everything from handcrafted violin bows to locally-made gin; and through an indoor market selling everything from spices to fossils. If you know where to look, Bristol will unravel its secrets in front of your eyes.

James VI & I, the only child of Mary, Queen of Scots, has often been overshadowed by the dramatic lives of his mother and son, Charles I. This book seeks to redress the balance by centering the first monarch to reign over both Scotland and England and uncovering the artistic treasures created during his extraordinary reign.

The cultural riches of James’s court are showcased, revealing his diverse roles as ruler, scholar, politician, father and patron of the arts. His court’s passion for jewellery and fine clothes is illustrated in the vivid portraits and miniatures by John de Critz and Nicholas Hilliard – just two of many artists and craftspeople who thrived in its artistic and intellectual climate.

Five richly illustrated chapters demonstrate James’s impact on early modern Britain, while reconsidering the reputation of a king traditionally presented as preferring hunting and drinking to the duties of daily governance. Packed with exquisite art works and sumptuous objects, this book brings James’s court vividly to life.

“The most exciting travel guide I’ve read in years.”Huffington Post

This classic guidebook, full of the little-known treasures of the Île de France, is now fully updated and revised, with two new chapters.

Discover half-hidden chateaux and artists’ country houses; walk, boat or dance by the river; explore old towns and country footpaths; and eat in family-run restaurants with 1950s décor. Based on over 20 years’ experience of exploring the Paris countryside by train, each visit includes the essential historical context and practical information to help you discover places unknown to many Parisians.

Written with humour and a flair for the unusual and authentic, the text is illustrated with original photos and local maps. It includes a unique guide to using the excellent local train network.

Scenes of gardens and of love, idyllic hunting parties, picturesque farms, and lifelike animal figurines in porcelain were popular motifs in table decoration from the Baroque to the beginning of the 19th century. These ‘worlds in miniature’ were intended to initiate conversation among the table guests – and of course attest to the discerning taste of the hosts. The decorative pieces were, for all intents and purposes, part of the furnishing scheme and finished off the room’s interior as a total work of art down to the last detail. Central to this was the artisanal sophistication and the perfect mastery of the latest techniques, which breathed new life into the miniatures.

Following on from Courtly Companions: Pugs and Other Dogs in Porcelain and Faience, now Courtly Pleasures presents the most beautiful table decorations produced by a variety of manufacturers, all from the abundant treasures of a southwest German private collection.

Text in English and German.

Make the most of Norwich with this new guide to the sights and secrets of East Anglia’s premier city, from the unknown treasures of its magnificent cathedral to the legends and stories behind its historic pubs. It’s a place of numerous historical layers, with intrigue and interest lurking on every corner, from the black circus proprietor who inspired one of The Beatles’ most famous songs to remnants of England’s most notorious red-light districts. It’s eminently walkable, too, but you can also bike or even canoe your way around the centre, maybe even heading out to explore the natural beauty of Broads National Park which lies just beyond.

The catalogue is the narrative guide for the exhibition held in the Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana dedicated to cocoa – one of the most precious treasures from the New World – as described and narrated in Brother Bernardino de Sahagún’s work. According to Aztec mythology, cocoa has a divine origin, closely connected to the god Quetzalcóatl. Maps and archaeological, historical, artistic and artisan artefacts tell the story of chocolate, from the Mesoamerica of the Olmecs to the ‘bean to bar’ movement, a beacon of hope in respect to ‘the Other’.

The Bargue-Gérôme Drawing Course is a complete reprint of a famous, late nineteenth-century drawing course. It contains a set of almost two hundred masterful lithographs of subjects for copying by drawing students before they attempt drawing from life or nature. Consequently it is a book that will interest artists, art students, art historians, and lovers and collectors of drawings. It also introduces us to the work and life of a hitherto neglected master: Charles Bargue.
The Drawing Course consists of three sections. The first consists of plates drawn after casts, usually of antique examples. Different parts of the body are studied in order of difficulty, until full figures are presented. The second section pays homage to the western school of painting, with lithographs after exemplary drawings by Renaissance and modern masters. The third part contains almost 60 académies, or drawings after nude male models, all original inventions by Bargue, the lithographer. With great care, the student is introduced to continually more difficult problems in the close observing and recording of nature.
Charles Bargue started his career as a lithographer of drawings by hack artists for a popular market in comic, sentimental and soft-porn subjects. By working with Gérôme, and in preparing the plates for the course, Bargue was transformed into a spectacular painter of single figures and intimate scenes; a master of precious details that always remain observation and never became self-conscious virtuosity, and colour schemes that unified his composition in exquisite tonal harmonies. The last part of the book is a biography of Bargue, along with a preliminary catalogue of his paintings, accompanied by reproductions of all that have been found and of many of those lost.

This is the first book to explore the work of the forgotten ceramics concern – Chetham & Woolley. The original partnership of James Chetham and Richard Woolley established a factory in Longton, Staffordshire in 1795. The partnership was responsible for developing a new ceramic body – semi-transparent stoneware, properly termed Fildspathic Stoneware. In its day the Chetham & Woolley factory occupied a very important position in the Staffordshire ceramics industry. Until recent research carried out by Colin Wyman practically all memory of Chetham & Woolley had been lost. This book re-establishes the factory’s well-deserved reputation.

“When one is tired of London, one is tired of life.” – Samuel Johnson London has long been a centre of the literary world. From Shakespeare to Amis, Byron to Blake, Plath, Thomas, Christie and Rowling; many of the greatest names in literature have made this metropolis their home. Writers’ London guides the reader through homes, bookshops, pubs and cemeteries, in search of where literary greats loved and lost, drank and died. Discover the Islington building where Joe Orton was murdered by his lover, the Soho pub where Dylan Thomas left his manuscript, the Chelsea hotel where Oscar Wilde was arrested, and the Bank of England where Kenneth Graham was shot at (and missed) three times. Gathering hundreds of famous and less-well-known anecdotes, this meticulously researched volume will entertain any lover of literature. Also in the series: Vinyl London ISBN 9781788840156 Rock ‘n’ Roll London ISBN 9781788840163 Art London ISBN 9781788840385 London Peculiars ISBN 9781851499182

The wee folk have returned! Uncover the mystery of who they are and why they are here in the first book of the Vinetrope Adventures. Following a young girl, Sara, who has recently lost her mom to cancer, Return of the Vinetropes tells the story of a remarkable fairy-like creature found in Sara’s back yard. Lucinda Vinetrope: born wise, full-grown, and all alone. She may only be 12 inches high, but her personality is huge! Her arrival signifies the return of the Vinetrope nation, but also the return of their evil counterparts, the Chargons and the Vinkali. Joined by a supporting cast of comedic characters, animal and human alike, Sara and Lucinda set off on their quest to find the other Vinetropes and protect their world from danger.

Jean-Leon Gérôme has become a popular artist. Progressively more young people are showing interest in his work, and collectors worldwide are hunting down pieces of ever increasing value. Lost works are appearing on the market, and galleries are showcasing all they own.
This volume is a condensed presentation of his monographs together with a catalogue raisonné. It comprises a complete overview of Gérôme’s life and long career.
When the British colonial power in the nineteenth century extended its influence to the mountainous borderland between India and Burma, it brought about an era of fundamental cultural changes for the native Naga tribes. The guns of the conquerors were followed by the dogmas of the missionaries, as well as the drawing pens and cameras of the documentarians. Their pictures and artefacts soon found their way onto the tables of parlours and into Europe’s museums.
The spectacular material culture with its individualistic aesthetics, along with the fascination of headhunting, soon led to the Naga being stylised as the epitome of ‘noble savages’. The pictorial documentation of the tribe reached its peak in the 1930s, following the research expeditions by the Austrian ethnologist Christoph von Fürer-Haimendorf and his German colleague Hans-Eberhard Kauffmann.
The photographic heritage of Kauffmann, believed to be lost and then rediscovered by the author, is the focus of this publication. It attempts, by means of a detailed pictorial ethnography, to reconstruct the aesthetic and cultural reality of the Nagas in the 1930s, through the ethnographer’s lens. This is contextualised by Fürer Haimendorf’s photographs, alongside other sources.
A detailed introduction presents the working practices and analyses the biographies of the two ethnographers and their political and ideological entanglements.

2018 marks the fiftieth anniversary of the first international symposium of silver jewellery Jablonec ’68. Thanks to the liberalisation endeavours as part of the ‘Prague Spring’, European jewellery artists from East and West came together for a ‘summit’ at the invitation of the Czech artists’ association in Jablonec, northern Bohemia. On the guest list were such renowned names as Anton Cepka, Hermann Junger and Bruno Martinazzi – artists celebrated today as the founders of studio jewellery. The jewellery pieces that developed at that time have remained in the Muzeum skla a bizuterie in Jablonec nad Nisou and to this day have lost nothing of their exceptional and pioneering aura. This publication – which contains a reprint of the original catalogue from 1968 – makes these pieces accessible to a wider audience for the very first time. A document that in a wholly authentic way allows the reader to experience this unique historical moment in the history of the international studio jewellery scene.

Text in English and German.

Accompanies the exhibition at Die Neue Sammlung The Design Museum, Munich (DE), 10 March-3 June 2018.

Photographs taken in Japan between the late Edo period and early Meiji periods found their way overseas, and played a major role in forming Westerners’ image of Japan. Among these collections, the pictures gathered by the Swiss diplomat Aimé Humbert (1819-1900) in the 1860s were crucial in building lasting representations of the island nation: many of these, mainly collected in 1863/64 during a sojourn in Yokohama and Edo, were used as sources for the well-known and largely distributed engravings of his famous book Le Japon illustré, published in Paris in 1870. Belonging to the collection of the MEN, these beautiful and well-preserved photographs are published here for the first time. Presented by Japanese and Swiss scholars before the narrative backdrop of their acquisition and application by foreigners, they offer a striking view of a lost world.

By radically turning his back on the crystal cutting technique that was prevalent worldwide at the time, Bernd Munsteiner started to revolutionise the shaping of gemstones in the 1970s. For him, the aesthetic quality of the gemstones represented a rediscovery and it formed the basis of his worldwide success. Since 1997, his son Tom and daughter-in-law Jutta have taken over the atelier in Stipshausen near Idar-Oberstein. Over the past 15 years, ‘The Young Generation’ have developed their own very characteristic form language, based on Bernd Munsteiner’s work, which makes the virtual interior space of the cut gemstone the focus of aesthetic contemplations. Tom Munsteiner is a gemstone designer, Jutta Munsteiner is a jewellery and gemstone designer and goldsmith. This richly illustrated book presents a comprehensive overview of Tom and Jutta Munsteiner’s artistic creations. It provides not only a deep insight into the crystalline world of gemstones, but also shows that crystals have lost nothing of their centuries-old fascination as an artistic material. Text in English and German. Contents: Wilhelm Lindemann – Introduction; Artworks – Tom Munsteiner: Magic Eye; Ritmo; Prisma; Spirit of Nature; Imagination; Mantis; Kaskaden; Hexagonal; Sculptures and Objects; Special unique Stone Objects; Art Objects; Jutta Munsteiner: Onda; Personalities; Tom + Jutta Munsteiner: Twins; Ikarus; Extensions; Unique Pieces; Biography of the Artists.

From the latter half of the nineteenth century, Idar-Oberstein developed into an important centre of costume jewellery production. Numerous factories, large and small, produced costume jewellery for the world into the 1980s although today this trade has virtually lost its former significance. During that long time span, Idar-Oberstein was one of the four major German jewellery centres along with Pforzheim, Schwäbisch Gmünd and Hanau.
Idar-Oberstein costume jewellery reflects each of the prevailing fashions in turn: Historicism, Jugendstil/Art Nouveau, Art Déco – to 1960s and 1970s Informel and Zero. Innovative handling of simple (inexpensive) materials soon led to an aesthetic that stood on its own merits, independently of “real” jewellery. Here the Bengel company – with its sophisticated Art Déco jewellery – exemplifies innovative models and business policy.
The author was able to study many early documents and photographs in Idar-Oberstein archives as well as pieces of jewellery that, taken together, are highly instructive on the history of costume jewellery. A vivid image of twelve jewellery manufacturers is evoked; proprietors and employees, production conditions, models policy, pieces of jewellery in each period style and worldwide marketing and distribution. Costume jewellery from Idar-Oberstein was not usually marked (stamped) because it was sold through wholesalers; this is what makes attribution to specific makers quite difficult today.
Text in English & German.

Also available:
Bengel Art Deco Jewellery 9783897902718
Interviewing nearly 30 of the Aldermaston potters, many of whom have written some fascinating submissions about this incredible workshop. The book features a wonderful, previously unpublished, account from Geoffrey Eastop’s memoirs, about how he came to Aldermaston and helped to establish the pottery with Alan Caiger-Smith in the mid 1950s. The book tells the story of the 51 years of the Aldermaston Pottery, through the words and experiences of as many of the potters as possible, whilst also chronicling Alan’s own achievements over the decades. The images also play an important part in telling the story. The book also follows the subsequent careers of the potters, and tell how they went on to make a difference, and to sustain the maiolica tradition, all over the world.
As there has never been a book published that has traced the career of this important figure or the life of the pottery, or the 60 people who worked and trained there, and there are very few photographic records of this lost way of working, this book will fill that gap in the history of 20th century studio pottery.

The retail world must keep up with digitization. Shops compete with online stores that operate in an augmented or virtual reality. However, despite the recent boom in internet shopping, the tangible human component has never quite lost its appeal. This standard work about the retail sector shows how new forms of spatial expression can be created to appeal to all the senses. It provides an overview of innovations in multi-channel and omni-channel commerce, from pioneering in-store technology to new products. Around 50 current best-practice examples, from temporary pop-up stores to avant-garde brand worlds and hybrid retail centres, offer an inspiring cross section of retail designs from around the world.

“‘Globalization’, a commonly used word these days, is the reason of changing global landscapes. Larger firms buy small, authentic companies, the small companies that want to keep doing what they do, and don’t want to be bought by larger firms, struggle to compete, eventually they disappear. My view on this phenomenon is displayed in my first book Bus Stop. For decades, sons and daughters kept alive the bus company started by their mothers and fathers. These past 2 years I travelled through Belgium to document their activities, to feel the atmosphere on board and to show who they are. What’s evolving and what could be lost in a few years.” – Nick Claeskens. Text in English and Dutch.

In this book of poignant and expressive images, Stockholm-based photographer Christer Löfgren captures the fundamental humanity of people from around the world. He addresses the credibility of documentary photography, which many believe was lost with the advent of Photoshop. The widespread practice of manipulating photos makes it difficult to judge their authenticity. In these images, the artist asserts that documentary photography has not drowned in the world of Photoshop, and addresses the importance of the ‘uncensored’ image.

On July 21, 1969, the first man set foot on The Moon. When Neil Armstrong was asked if this made him feel big, he answered: “No, it made me feel really, really small.” 50 years later, this publication celebrates that special moment that put life on earth into a totally different perspective. It collects pictures of the world’s best photographers from the 1840s until today. Next to historical photographs and imagery printed in media, the publication features many artists that each in their own way reflect on this mystical celestial body, we call ‘moon’. The book shows the diversity of meanings of The Moon, it’s relation to mankind and to nature. The Moon has always both attracted and scared people around the world. It is our everyday connection to the unfathomable universe. Since time immemorial it is revered for its beauty, its stillness and mysterious appearance and yet also feared for its supernatural-seeming qualities. In mythology The Moon has always been given a central place. With its magnetic forces it changes the tides and has a direct and uncontrollable impact on mankind from above. In 1840, barely three years after the invention of photography, J.W. Draper makes the first picture ever made of The Moon and since that day photographers have never stopped following his example. The paradoxical aspects of the moon continue to fascinate and inspire. Like a photograph The Moon depends on sunlight to be visible. It has no light of its own and no apparent strength to resist our nightly city lights either. Photographers feel this close connection to The Moon’s characteristics and find the perfect object in its aesthetics. The landing on The Moon was a culmination point of the1960’s Space Race between the United States and the Soviet Union, which quickly became a symbol of the Cold War. The images of the landing became the bearer of values and symbols of the United States and were widely spread through various media. In 1973 NASA abolished its moon program. The Moon had been conquered and the public seemed to have had lost interest. However, today people still find The Moon fascinating, and humanity continues to dream about setting foot on the sun’s shadow.