Rembrandt van Rjin (1606-1669) was among the few celebrated old masters who enjoyed considerable freedom in his choice of subject matter. Living and working in the Protestant Netherlands, he painted largely for private patrons and the open market, se...

This book is the first comprehensive survey of aristocratic art-collecting and patronage in Elizabethan England, as seen through the activities of Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester (ca. 1532-1588). One of the most fascinating and controversial people...

Rene Lalique, a master artist and designer of early 20th-century France, initially achieved fame for his jewellery creations that were widely admired and collected. He began experimenting with glass in the 1890s, and was so captivated by the material...

It sounds like the stuff of a fiction thriller: two revolutions, a massacre of unarmed civilians, a civil war, a drug-smuggling highway, brazen corruption schemes, contract hits, and larger-than-life characters who may be villains... or heroes... or...

Richard Estes (b. 1932) is one of the most celebrated adopters of photorealism; his paintings are characterized by painstaking detail that mimics the clarity and accuracy of photographs. Estes' most famous canvases from the 1970s depict New York's ur...

In 1798 Robert Morris – 'financier of the American Revolution', confidant of George Washington, former U.S. senator – plunged from the peaks of wealth and prestige into debtors' prison and public contempt. How could one of the richest men in the Unit...

Sir Joshua Reynolds, the first President of the Royal Academy of Arts in London, was the most celebrated and innovative British portraitist of the eighteenth century. He was acclaimed for transforming portraiture into an art form that had all the amb...

Examining and interpreting recent spectacular fossil discoveries in China, paleontologists have arrived at a prevailing view: there is now incontrovertible evidence that birds represent the last living dinosaur. But is this conclusion beyond dispute?...

This catalogue presents over fifty works in different media – most notably sculpture, painting and ceramics – assembled together for the first time to convey the impressive variety of Japanese art from the late 19th and early 20th centuries. These wo...

In a new addition to the Pelican History of Art series, leading architectural historian Eric Fernie presents a fascinating chronological survey of Romanesque architecture and the political systems that gave rise to the style. It is known for its mass...