In the late 1700s, as the events of the French Revolution roiled France, London displaced Paris as the primary hub of international art sales. Within a few decades, a robust and sophisticated art market flourished in London. "London and the Emergence...

Illuminated manuscripts and illustrated or decorated books – like today's museums – preserve a rich array of information about how premodern peoples conceived of and perceived the world, its many cultures and everyone's place in it. Often a Eurocentr...

"I am convinced that the true collector does not acquire objects of art for himself alone. His is no selfish drive or desire to have and hold a painting, a sculpture, or a fine example of antique furniture so that only he may see and enjoy it. Apprec...

Barbara Furlotti presents a dynamic interpretation of the early modern market for antiquities, relying on the innovative notion of archaeological finds as mobile items. She reconstructs the journey of ancient objects from digging sites to venues wher...

Brimming with lively animals both real and fantastic, the bestiary was one of the great illuminated manuscript traditions of the Middle Ages. Encompassing imaginary creatures, such as the unicorn, siren and griffin; exotic beasts, including the tiger...

The name Manet often evokes the provocative, heroically scaled pictures he painted in the 1860s for the Salon, but in the late 1870s and early 1880s the artist produced quite a different body of work: stylish portraits of actresses and demimondaines,...

As the discipline of art history has moved away from connoisseurship, the notion of beauty has become increasingly problematic. Both culturally and personally subjective, the term is difficult to define and nearly universally avoided. In this insight...

The Livre des faits de Jacques de Lalaing (Book of the Deeds of Jacques de Lalaing), a famous Flemish illuminated manuscript, relays the audacious life of Jacques de Lalaing (1421-1453), a story that reads more like a fast-paced adventure novel. Prod...

Reflecting an era when Europe looked to both the classical past and a global future, this volume explores the emergence and acceptance of the nude as an artistic subject. It engages with the numerous and complex connotations of the human body in more...

What is a historiated initial? What are canon tables? What is a drollery? This revised edition of Understanding Illuminated Manuscripts: A Guide to Technical Terms offers definitions of the key elements of illuminated manuscripts, demystifying the te...