Old Masters

ENGLISH EDITION OUT-OF-STOCK. ITALIAN EDITION AVAILABLE (9781903470909)

The Olivetan Gradual: Its Place in 15th-century Lombard Manuscript Illumination

64 pages, paperback, 280 x 240 mm, 50 colour illustrations
PRICE: £15.00
ISBN: 978 1 903470 879

 

Customers in the US or Canada, CLICK HERE

By Milvia Bollati

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.


It contains fine miniatures which can be attributed to Girolamo da Milano (died 1449), otherwise known as the 'Olivetan Master'. Indeed the manuscript sheds considerable light on the oeuvre and style of this master, otherwise a shadowy figure known chiefly for illuminations on detached leaves or cuttings. This important new discovery is discussed by the Italian scholar Milvia Bollati, who uses it to throw further light on Girolamo, on the Olivetans and on manuscript illumination in the period between late ('International') Gothic and Early Renaissance.

 

In association with Sam Fogg and Les Enluminures


The Noble Art of the Sword: Fashion and Fencing in Renaissance Europe 1520–1630

Accompanying a major international exhibition at the Wallace Collection (17 May – 16 September 2012), this book celebrates the artistic and cultural importance of the sword, as a symbol of power and prestige, as a flamboyant fashion statement and as an icon of the Age of Discovery. More

My Highest Pleasure: William Hunter's Art Collection

Celebrating the 250th anniversary of the opening of the Hunterian Museum in Glasgow in 2007, this book provides a full study both of William Hunter - the many-faceted surgeon/connoisseur - and of his collection of art, which not only contains a number of outstanding masterpieces, such as a Rembrandt, but also provides a revealing snapshot of the taste of the period. While illuminating this crucial transitional period in British art, the book is at the same time a catalogue of the Hunterian collection. More

Masters and Pupils: The Artistic Succession from Perugino to Manet 1480–1880

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

Masters of Indian Painting, 1100–1900

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

French Bronzes in the Wallace Collection

The group of about one hundred French bronzes in the Wallace Collection is justly considered one of the finest such collections in the world. Fifty-one of the best are featured in this book, the first in-depth study of the subject in English. More

Catalogue of Paintings at the Wellington Museum, Apsley House

Seldom has there been a gift of equal magnificence. In 1947 the 7th Duke of Wellington presented to the nation his London residence – Apsley House – together with a large part of its contents, the collection of the 1st Duke. Among the paintings are some of the finest canvases from the Spanish Royal Collection, captured by the 1st Duke of Wellington from Joseph Bonaparte in 1813. There are also important seventeenth-century Dutch paintings bought by the 1st Duke himself, as well as a series of French and British portraits of his illustrious contemporaries and depictions of battle scenes, which provide a visual record of the Napoleonic period. More

Samuel Beckett: A Passion for Paintings

Celebrating the Beckett Centenary. Awarded third prize by The Art Newspaper/Axa Art Prize for best catalogue of the year published in the UK - "admired for the quantity of new material it presented about Beckett himself and the worlds of literature and visual arts". More