Lucca's location has meant the city has always been able to adapt itself to the various historical cycles. Though undoubtedly affected by the spirit of each age, Lucca's culture and institutions remain deeply rooted in the traditions and character of its people. More
Makoure Scott is a young New Zealand artist who is rapidly establishing an international reputation. This, his first book, presents a selection of his work today, featuring in particular his Synapse series, in which primary geometric forms 'synapse' in various crossroads, intersections and parallels mirroring the tension and fusion of nature and spirit. Via strong geometric forms Arohanui attempts to capture the principles of the Maori spiritual term arohanui, its intersection with colonial beliefs and the resulting tension. Dream Waka presents a series of textural winter northland landscapes, attempting to capture the various cultura parallels of Maori and Pekeha influences. More
Oriental manuscripts were produced literally in hundreds of languages and scripts, on a wide range of materials. These range from modest palm-leaf books to grand volumes published on paper produced for the Mughal Emperors. Among the many items included in this catalogue is a complete Tibetan scroll of the early 8th century from the Dun Huang, a Devimahatmya of the eleventh century, perhaps the oldest copy of this celebrated text to survive... More
For more than a thousand years, the paths of the Silk Road joined the distant empires of East Asia and the Mediterranean, forming a complex web of trade, pilgrimage and intellectual exchange between China, Central Asia, Persia, Tibet, India, the Near East and Europe. The manuscripts collected in this book provide a sense of the fruitful exchanges as well as bitter struggles in these regions over the centuries. More
The Wallace Collection's assembly of European arms and armour sits comfortably amongst the most significant collections of its kind in the UK. Accordingly, the book 'Masterpieces of European Arms and Armour...' draws attention to a selection of the most refined and tantalising pieces examining them in an "armoury historical" context. Particularly noteworthy are a medieval "Viking age" sword, a golden tournament helmet of Emperor Ferdinand I (1555), and a flint-lock pistol c. 1738-44 of Prince Louis, Dauphin of France. More
Published on a USB drive, the Complete Digital Catalogue presents all the arms and armour held by the Wallace Collection in more than 7000 photographs, ranging from whole pieces to close details and presenting them from many angles. This magnificient and visually stunning resource is both rapidly searchable and is fully comprehensive, containing the texts of Sir James Mann's 1962 catalogue of Europena arms and amour, A.V.B. Norman's 1986 Supplement and every catalogue going back to 1900. More
This book is about a family tree: the line of descent that can be traced from Perugino in Italy in the fifteenth century to Edouard Manet in France in the nineteenth. It is not the usual kind of genealogy, of those connected by blood, more an ‘apostolic succession’, following the way in which art in Europe was taught, from one generation to the next, from 1480 to 1880. More
Accompanying an exhibition that promises to be the most comprehensive survey of Indian painting that the West has ever seen, this beautiful two volume catalogue spans 800 years of Indian painting, and some 240 masterpieces by more than 40 artists. These great Indian masters are unquestionably the equals of Dürer, Michelangelo or Vermeer. More
These works of museum quality, from an anonymous collection (one of the most important currently in private hands), were exhibited at the Victoria and Albert Museum in 2005. Many of the objects in the catalogue will be well known to those familiar with the specialist literature, even if they were unaware of their whereabouts. More
The Thomson collection contains examples of the highest quality of most types of medieval ivory carving, both secular and religious. These include large statuettes of the Virgin and Child intended to stand on altars in chapels, small versions for private use in the home and folding tablets or diptychs with scenes from the life of Christ carved in relief. More