Chinese Books
This catalogue discusses and illustrates a wide variety of Chinese books, dating from the sixth to the nineteenth century -- some very rare. More
Sam Fogg
The Chaworth Roll
48 pages, paperback, 300 x 240 mm, 42 colour illustrations
PRICE: £15.00
ISBN: 978 0 953942 20 6
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By Alixe Bovey with Olivier de Laborderie and Marigold Norbye
According to the Chaworth Roll, Egbert was ‘the first king of all England’, reigning 829–39. The Chaworth genealogical Roll of the kings of England was made in the 1320s for the Chaworth family, then it was brought up to date as far as Henry IV (1399–1413) and remained with Chaworth descendants until very recently. Such rolls were made for members of an increasingly literate aristocracy whose appetite for popular history flourished in 14th-century England.
This example provides a succinct overview of English history seasoned with tales of traitors, piety, battles, saints, sinners and incidents of divine intervention – a medieval equivalent of a popular modern television series on the monarchy. Written in Anglo-Norman French, which was still the dominant language of the aristocracy in the 1320s, its pithy and memorable texts grab the reader’s attention and summarise the highlights of each monarch’s reign.
The roll is 6.5 meters long, 24.5 cm wide and consists of nine parchment membranes glued end to end. Most of the roll is the work of a single artist, dubbed the Chaworth Master. The roll starts with an allegorical image of Dame Fortune and a map of England. Full-length seated portraits of the kings and their offspring are depicted in medallions, with accompanying text praising or utterly condemning.
Approximately thirty such genealogies produced in England in the decades between 1271 and 1327 survive. Within this group, the Chaworth Roll is especially close in style and content to three others, one in the Bodleian Library and two in Cambridge University Library, but is in far better condition.
Jean Carpentin's Book of Hours
AVAILABLE SUMMER 2010. In the 1470s, one of the most innovative artists working in Bruges illuminated a Book of Hours for Jean Carpentin, lord of Gravile and prominent citizen of Normandy. Known as the Master of the Dresden Prayer Book after one of his other masterpieces, this artist and members of his workshop enriched the pages of Carpentin’s manuscript with miniatures, historiated initials and boldly coloured borders in which human figures, monsters and monkeys are framed by twisting branches of acanthus. More
Islamic Manuscripts
The selection consists of Qur’ans, illustrated Islamic manuscripts and scientific and religious manuscripts. All are handsomely illustrated and fully discussed. The manuscripts are from all parts of the Islamic world and represent the finest achievements of the form. More
Art of Ethiopia
The unique character of Ethiopian art is the legacy of its situation high in the mountains on the Horn of Africa. Though remote and often isolated it evolved a tradition, going back to the fourth century AD, in response to contacts with Byzantine, European and Islamic cultures. More
Art of the Middle Ages
This is the catalogue to an outstanding collection of Medieval art from a private collection. Ranging from paintings and sculpture to stained glass, manuscripts and caskets, many of the objects presented here are of absolute rarity, some are previously unpublished and - until recently - unknown. More
Hakob’s Gospels: The Life and Work of An Armenian Artist of the Sixteenth Century
In the winter of 1586, Hakob Jughayets'i, one of Armenia's most celebrated illuminators, completed work on a Gospel Book with an extensive and extraordinary programme of narrative miniatures and marginal figures. More
Art of the Armenians
On the far Eastern edge of the Christian world – often isolated or overwhelmed by Christian cultures – the Armenians have produced a distinctive artistic tradition. The collection assembled here opens with the objects from the great medieval periods in Greater Armenia and the Kingdom of Cilicia. Later centuries are represented by paintings and books created in communities dominated by other cultures or far from the homeland, like the series of manuscripts here from Constantinople. More
Medieval and Later Treasures from a Private Collection
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
An Album of Medieval Art
Medieval art has been collected for at least 200 years, yet there is a perception that if it is not locked away in a monastery it has found its home in a museum long ago. Nothing could be further from the truth. It is the richness and variety of what still lies unclaimed by history that makes this material so interesting. More
Geometry in Gold: An Illuminated Mamlk Qu'ran Section
This book is devoted to a monumental and superbly illuminated very large early fourteenth-century Mamluk Qur’an in muhaqqaq script. It constitutes the final part (Juz’ 30) of a superb two-volume Qur’an of which the first volume is preserved in the National Museum in Damascus while the second volume, from which the present section originates, is widely dispersed. More
Tacuinum Sanitatis: An Early Renaissance Guide to Health
This book is a complete catalogue and commentary on a remarkable series of 130 coloured drawings executed in North Italy, almost certainly Padua, in the 1450s by a group of artists in the circle of Andrea Mantegna. The drawings illustrate subjects from the Tacuinum Sanitatis or Table of Health. Subjects touched on include medicine, sport, farming, animal husbandry, natural history, shopping, cooking and manufacturing – constituting an extraordinary record of everyday life (and life style) in early Renaissance Italy. This manuscript is one of four known series of the kind, and the only one not published. More
Islamic Calligraphy
The Islamic manuscripts and manuscript leaves gathered here are often of great antiquity, ranging from the eighth to the sixteenth century; most are in Kufic. There are also pottery, metalwork and woodwork examples bearing calligraphy. An impressive illustration of the many beauties of Islamic script. More
The Olivetan Gradual: Its Place in 15th-century Lombard Manuscript Illumination
This illuminated manuscript, a gradual of large size which the whole congregation of monks could see and read as they sang in choir (just as they are shown doing in an illustration in the manuscript itself), was previously unknown to scholars and has only recently come to light. It was clearly produced for a monastery of the Olivetan order, a branch of the Benedictines with a particular reverence for the Virgin Mary – probably Santa Maria di Baggio near Milan. More
Ink and Gold: Masterpieces of Islamic Calligraphy
Given the status of the Qur‘an as the eternal and uncreated word of Allah, the art of the pen became the focus of an extraordinary energy in the Muslim world. Ink and Gold charts the development of Islamic calligraphy – the noblest, most stylized and original of the Islamic arts – over a period of some 1200 years, from its beginnings in the Arabian Peninsula. More
Ethiopian Art
Ethiopia has often attracted attention because of its unique position as an ancient Christian culture far into Africa. Many people have been fascinated by the brilliant colours and childlike directness of recent traditional Ethiopian art. Little attention, however, has been given to the great periods that this culture has witnessed in the past. The 15th century saw a magnificent flowering of painting… More