18th century

Thomas Banks 1735-1805 Britain's first modern sculptor

64 pages, paperback, 283 x 210mm, 125 illustrations
PRICE: £19.95
ISBN: 978 0 954904 10 4

By Julius Bryant and Helen Dory

This is the only mongraph on the British sculptor Thomas Banks (1735–1805): it covers his entire oeuvre and is richly illustrated with new photographs of his remarkably accomplished sculpture.

Eighteen sculptures which Soane acquired during his close friendship with Thomas Banks accompany drawings, photographs, 'The Falling Giant' (loaned from the Royal Academy) and 'Thetis dipping Achilles into the river Styx' (loaned from the V&A). This catalogue celebrates the first exhibition of the work of one of Britain's greatest sculptors.

Though this is firmly classical in form, Banks was a mamber of the avant-garde circle in Rome around Henry Fuseli, an early manifestation of the Romantic movement. Indeed his politicas were as radical as William Blake's. His range as a sculptor included 'history' compositions, vigorous portraits, fireplaces, tombas and memorials.

Julius Bryant is Keeper of the Word and Image Department at the Victoria and Albert Museum

Distributed for Sir John Soane's Museum

Paths to Fame: Turner's Watercolours from the Courtauld OUT OF PRINT

This catalogue accompanies an exhibition at Dove Cottage, Grasmere, and The Courtauld Gallery, London, which will be the first full display of the Courtauld’s outstanding collection of watercolours by J.M.W. Turner (1775–1851). The collection spans the artist’s career, ranging from an important early view of the Avon Gorge, Bristol, made when Turner was just sixteen years old, to examples of the monumental highly finished watercolours of his maturity and the celebrated expressive late works. More

Theatres of Life: Drawings from the Rothschild Collection at Waddesdon Manor

This catalogue accompanies the first ever loan exhibition of drawings from Waddesdon Manor, the house that was built and furnished by Ferdinand de Rothschild (1839-1989) to show off his works of art and to entertain the fashionable world. More

A Time and a Place

‘A Time & a Place: Two centuries of Irish social life' focuses, through the art of their time, on Irish people engaged in recreational activities across the last two centuries. The book is arranged thematically, covering areas and subjects such as sport, music and dance, visits to the beach, religious observance and pilgrimage, theatre, circus, calendar customs, fairs and markets, pubs, clubs and parades. More

The Spooner Collection of British Watercolours

The Spooner collection of British watercolours is one of the finest of its kind, featuring all the leading artists of the period 1750–1850. Among the fine sheets included are watercolours of the Lake District by John White Abbott, and rural scenes by several artists – Gainsborough, Turner, Cozens, Rowlandson, Francis Towne, Samuel Palmer. Architecture dominates the setting in works by Girtin, Cotman and Sandby. More

The Soane Hogarths

A Rake’s Progress (1734-5) and An Election (1755) are the most famous of William Hogarth’s series of ‘modern moral subjects’. Hazlitt described Hogarth’s paintings as ‘A perpetual collision of eccentricities, a tilt and tournament of absurdities, the prejudices and caprices of mankind let loose’ and they still delight, interest and amuse as much today as two hundred years ago and the biting quality of their moral satire is undiminished. More

Johan Zoffany: Artist and Adventurer (Paperback)

This beautifully designed and illustrated publication is the first comprehensive biography of the portrait painter Johan Zoffany (1733–1810), one of the leading figures of eighteenth-century British art. ALSO AVAILABLE IN HARDBACK. More

François Boucher: Seductive Visions

The first monograph to appear on Boucher in English for nearly twenty years, this book is an invaluable contribution to the study of eighteenth-century art. Boucher has cried out for reassessment, and here at last, following the tercentenary year of his birth, his work is seen at its very best in numerous beautiful reproductions. More

Pomp and Power: Drawings from Versailles

This lavish and beautiful catalogue illustrates and discusses fifty-two French drawings dating from the late seventeenth century to the early nineteenth century, all from the Chateau de Versailles, which owns one of the finest collections of French drawings in the world. The catalogue has been prepared to accompany their exhibition at the Wallace Collection in autumn 2006. This is the only venue, and the drawings have never been discussed as a group. More

The Soane Hogarths New Revised Edition

Hogarth, France and British Art

"[the book] has the air of brilliant performance about it, of the excitement of meticulous research and proved discovery [...] Simon has written with pace and passion the best book yet on Hogarth, encyclopaedic in its range of enquiry, utterly free of the jargon and nonsense of so much new art history." Brian Sewell, Evening Standard More

Boucher and Chardin: Masters of Modern Manners

Almost 200 years ago, William Hunter (1718–1783), founder of the Hunterian Museum, Glasgow, was one of a small number of British art collectors to acquire works by his contemporary Jean-Siméon Chardin. Among these, Woman taking Tea (1735) has become something of an iconic image of French art from this period. It has a pair in a near contemporary painting Madame Boucher (1743) by François Boucher in the Frick Collection, New York. Accompanying an exhibition at the Wallace Collection, this catalogue will seek to examine relationships between these two works and their creation... More

Flaxman: Master of the Purist Line

The sculptor and draughtsman John Flaxman (1755-1826) is here celebrated and described in six essays followed by a catalogue illustrating the various directions of his work. More

Johan Zoffany: Artist and Adventurer (Hardback)

Paintings for the Planet King: The Decoration of the Buen Retiro Palace

Philip IV of Spain (ruled 1621-1665) was known as the 'Planet King', shining brightly in the universe of the arts even if the Golden Age of Spanish painting coincided with imperial decline. The Buen Retiro Palace surpassed any palace ever built in Europe for the collection of paintings it contained - Velázquez, Zurbarán, Rubens, Claude, Poussin.< More

PHP

Paul Holberton Publishing