This remarkable book unveils the origins of urban life in our ancient past. Over one hundred years ago, discoveries from a German archaeological dig at Uruk, roughly two hundred miles south of present-day Baghdad, sent shock waves through the scholar...

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...

Taking its inspiration from Walter Benjamin's seminal 1931 essay, the "Unpacking My Library" series charts a spirited exploration of the reading and book collecting practices of today's leading thinkers. "Artists and Their Books" showcases the person...

Theodore Rousseau (1812-1867), arguably the most important French landscape artist of the mid-nineteenth century and a leader of the so-called Barbizon School, occupies a crucial moment of transition from the idealizing effects of academic painting t...

"Under the Banyan Tree" is the first comprehensive study of the evolution and flourishing of the picturesque during the British Raj. Romita Ray argues that this concept allowed British artists and writers travelling in India to aestheticize the India...

In 1908, the American adventurer Robert Sterling Clark organized a scientific expedition to northern China to create a detailed geographical survey, photograph the region and it people, and collect samples of the flora and fauna. Inspired by this imp...

This engaging book is the first full study of the satirical print in seventeenth-century England from the rule of James I to the Regicide. It considers graphic satire both as a particular pictorial category within the wider medium of print and as a v...

Claude Monet (1840-1926) is one of the best-known and most beloved painters in the history of art, with myriad publications and exhibitions devoted to his oeuvre. And yet, there remains a previously undiscovered aspect of his career: his surprisingly...

What is a pyxis? Who was the Amasis Painter? How did Greek vases get their distinctive black and orange colours? This volume offers definitions and descriptions of these and many other Greek vase shapes, painters and techniques encountered in museum...