In his joint capacities of Premier peintre du roi, director of the Gobelins manufactory and rector of the Academie royale de peinture et de sculpture, Le Brun exercised a previously unprecedented influence on the production of the visual arts – so mu...

The prowess of Chinese creative abilities in the decorative arts in the 19th and early 20th centuries was well known globally, but, while much has been written about Chinese textiles and on the influence of the East on European styles of the time, th...

The rich variety of languages, religious traditions and schools of art of the Indian subcontinent are brought together in this exceptional library of Indian manuscripts. Religious and philosophical texts from Buddhist, Hindu, Islamic, Jain, Sikh and...

Focusing on the prolific trade, transport and consumption of Chinese silk and porcelain, and Japanese lacquer abroad between 1500 and 1644, this groundbreaking book will show how the material cultures of late Ming China and Momoyama/Early Edo Japan o...

"Rodin and Dance: The Essence of Movement" is the first serious study of Rodin's late sculptural series known as the Dance Movements. Exploring the artist's fascination with dance and bodies in extreme acrobatic poses, the exhibition and accompanying...

Hans Memling was one of the most important, prolific and versatile painters active in 15th-century Bruges, and one of the leading artists of the Early Netherlandish School. Commissioned by Abbot Jan Crabbe, one of Memling's most signifcant and erudit...

There was a time when museums might have been regarded as rather forbidding and austere centres of learning, but today they are more likely to position themselves firmly within the tourism and leisure industry with all manner of food, fun and family...

A Dutch Italianate, Adriaen Van de Velde represents a point of artistic crosscommunication across borders, fusing agricultural landscapes in Holland with mythological Arcadian scenes in Italian settings. He died at the early age of 35, and yet he pro...

This lively, lavishly illustrated volume presents rare decorative arts from Asia – all of exceptional quality – from ornate handled daggers and exquisite silver fi ligree boxes to diamond-studded jewels, magnifi cent embroidered silk and divination b...

When English naturalist Joseph Banks (1743-1820) accompanied Captain James Cook (1728-1779) on his historic mission into the Pacific, the Endeavour voyage of 1768-1771, he took with him a team of collectors and illustrators. Banks and his team return...