Böcker utgivna av Ad Ilissum

A study of a private collection of European porcelain and the history of porcelain more broadly. Brittle Beauty presents a superlative private collection of European porcelain--radical, rare, and in many cases, unique pieces assembled over thirty years. Lavishly illustrated and insightfully researched, the book showcases eighty vessels and sculptures and includes accounts of their patrons and former owners, many as eccentric as the works themselves. One striking attribute of porcelain is its reflective glaze. Mirror-like in a wider sense, Brittle Beauty: Reflections on 18th Century European Porcelain examines the context in which this porcelain was created--including cultural, political, topographical, and ceremonial aspects. It also looks at related materials such as silver, textiles, and glass. The 18th century was the golden age of porcelain in Europe, which had previously been dependent on precious imports from the Far East. The discovery of the formula for hard-paste porcelain in Dresden in 1709 inspired the establishment of manufactories throughout the Continent and became a symbol of Enlightenment culture for every princely court. Featuring essays from several eminent scholars, this book features essays from several eminent scholars. It also showcases a wealth of stunning imagery from Sylvain Deleu, who expertly photographed the pieces, many for the first time.

A stunning catalog of an exceptional collection of rare Burmese silver. What is the best way to understand Burmese silver? Many publications focus on names, dates, places, and stories that identify the who, when, where, and what. Southeast Asian art specialist Alexandra Green argues, however, that too few pieces provide reliable information about silversmiths, production locations, and dates to allow for a comprehensive understanding of the subject. Instead, Green's close examination of silver patterns reveals strong links with Burmese art history, connections with contemporary artistic trends, and participation within the wider world of silversmithing reaching as far back as the Bagan period in the eleventh to thirteenth centuries. Many studies of Burmese silver have been plagued by a lack of understanding of the Burmese context. In contrast, Green examines silver from a local perspective, drawing on Burmese texts and information that allows for a nuanced view of the motifs, designs, and patterns that appear repetitively on silver pieces. Accompanied by detailed photographs and explanatory texts, this groundbreaking volume proposes a new way of looking at Burmese silver.

A beautifully illustrated study of rare and unique Siamese manuscripts. This book is a fascinating exploration of rare Siamese illuminated manuscripts of two kinds: biological and cosmological. Beautiful in themselves, they are produced under unusual conditions, and though they draw on a common pool of rituals, actions, and stories, each is unique. This book examines and contextualizes fourteen of the most striking and visually distinctive manuscripts of this kind known to exist, in or outside Thailand. These manuscripts are religious in nature, containing several genres of Buddhist texts, and particularly strong in the realms of medical, biological, and cosmological Thai thought. A number of rare medical manuscripts produced in Siam (as Thailand was then known) in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries reveal how mythology, biology, astrology, physiognomy, and pharmacology were blended together in the pre-modern Siamese/Thai tradition. These and other such illuminated manuscripts, amassed in this volume with a discerning eye, are presented here with explanations to place them in their proper historical context and a fascinating introductory essay detailing the belief systems and activities they represent.

The distinguished private collection, known as the Griffin Collection, comprises in its entirety examples of every category of ring -- signet, devotional, memorial, decorative -- dating from antiquity to modern times. This catalogue, focusing on about 150 rings in the collection, is concerned with perhaps the most personal rings of all, those associated with love and marriage. Some can be recognised by the figure of Cupid armed with his quiver of golden arrows, others by the symbols of heart and clasped hands. However, the majority are gold bands, sometimes plain and occasionally decorated, that are inscribed with mottoes in English expressing the admiration, affection, and pledges of fidelity which bind humankind together. Known as posies or little poems because they often rhyme, these mottoes were current on rings from the late Middle Ages until the middle of the 19th century. Through these rings, Ms. Scarisbrick engagingly tells the long story of the relations between the sexes from the fifteenth century, when the cult of courtly love was superseded by an idealization of monogamous marriage, to an end in the twentieth century as a result of a different moral outlook.

This stunning two-volume publication introduces readers to one of the largest private collections of architectural drawings in the world. Showcasing drawings and related models and artifacts dating from 1691 to the mid-twentieth century, this lavish tome provides a fascinating look at these often beautiful byproducts of architectural training and practice. The collection, assembled over a thirty-year period by investor and philanthropist Peter May, comprises more than six hundred architectural sheets, all carefully preserved and handsomely framed. Arranged by category, the sheets are primarily nineteenth and early twentieth-century competition or certification drawings by design students, as well as presentation drawings for public commissions, reconstruction studies, and interior designs. An introduction by the collector Peter May, afterwords by Mark Ferguson and Bunny Williams, and essays by leading authorities in the field--including Maureen Cassidy-Geiger, Charles Hind, Basile Baudez, Matthew Wells, and more--provide historical context for the drawings.

"Pevsner calls it 'marvellous'. Yet the reredos of the fifteenth-century chapel of All Souls College, Oxford, with its combination of medieval niches and statuary by George Gilbert Scott, has remained one of the unsung glories of both medieval perpendicular architecture and Victorian restoration. Informed by recent scientific investigation of its stonework and its surviving medieval polychromy, this volume traces for the first time the entire history of the reredos in its architectural and religious context -- from the phases of its medieval and early Tudor construction, through its covering up with a succession of baroque and neoclassical decorative schemes, to its uncovering and restoration in the 1870s." --

This new edition publishes the letters adressed by Édouard Manet (1832-1883) to his friend, the artist Félix Bracquemond (1833-1914).

Recently discovered documents show that Giambologna, the great sculptor at the court of the Medici whose bronzes delighted all Europe, made six large garden sculptures for King Henri IV of France, otherwise unknown. This book describes the garden project and discusses three bronzes identified as from the project, in particular a hitherto unknown Venus. Ferdinando I de¿ Medici, Grand Duke of Florence, built up his relationship with the French crown with numerous diplomatic gifts, including the creation of new gardens at St-German-en-Laye laid out for the King of France by the engineer and designer Tommaso Francini, who had designed and built Ferdinando¿s own Pratolino gardens, and sculptures by Giambologna that would adorn them. This was in the years 1597¿1600, and preparatory to the marriage of his daughter Maria to Henri IV in 1600 in the most spectacular wedding celebrations ever seen in Europe. Blanca Troyols describes the nature of Henri IV¿s beauitiful gardens ¿ in the latest Mannerist style, using a host of materials (stone, shell, crystal) and rare plants, the extravagant water features in which Francini was a specialist, and an array of statuary. She places this important garden in context and also discusses the diplomatic manoeuvring between the respectively larger and poorer and smaller and richer states of France and Tuscany. Alexander Rudigier examines the surviving works by Giambologna associated with the gardens, including a hitherto unknown Venus in a private collection that has been the object of some controversy. He compares this to the Mercury in the Louvre and the Triton in the Metropolitan Museum in New York also originally for the gardens, as well as with Giambologna¿s work as a whole. He shows that probably Giambologna¿s pupil Hans Reichle was his major assistant, and traces the career of the German founder, Gerhard Meyer, working in Florence, who signed the Venus. This leads to an important discussion of Gimabologna¿s late work in general. Lars Olof Larson provides a technical report on the new Venus. The distinguished bronze specialist Bertrand Jestaz provides an introduction and overview.

Roger Fry (1866¿1934) is best known as a champion of Post-Impressionism and a pioneer of Modernist art criticism. But his fi rst love was early Italian painting, on which he became a recognized authority, publishing a monograph on Giovanni Bellini in 1899. Even after the Post-Impressionist exhibitions in 1910 and 1912 and the foundation of the Omega Workshops, Fry continued to write and lecture on Italianart right up until his death. He looked at modernism through Quattrocento eyes rather than the other way around, as is often wrongly assumed. It is impossible not to be struck by how fresh and immediately readable his writings are, how pioneering in some ways his approach remains. His work on Italian art modifi es the received view of him as a pure formalist. Apart from a famous article on Giotto which Fry republished in Vision and Design (1920), the writings on Italian art are relatively little known, and a selection of the best of them is republished here, thus introducing an important aspect of Fry¿s many-sided work to a new audience. The fi rst part of the book sets Fry¿s writing on Italian art into context by combining intellectual biography with the history of art history, art criticism and art institutions. It draws on new documentary material, including Fry¿s travel notebooks, which contain sketches and brilliant observations taken down in front of works of art. By exploring the whole range of Fry¿s published and unpublished writings, theauthor is able to refute erroneous received ideas ¿ that he was uninterested in colour, for example. The infl uence of his Italian lectures and publications on such fi gures as E.M. Forster, Kenneth Clark and Michael Baxandall is also examined. The second part consists of writings by Fry ¿ each with an introductory text by the author and fully illustrated in colour. Included in this volume are some of the unpublished lectures that his biographer Virginia Woolf suggested would make a fascinating book of extracts. Four long pieces are of outstanding interest ¿ on Uccello, Piero della Francesca, Baldovinetti and Piero di Cosimo, all artists whose critical status was radically re-examined in the twentieth century. Fry had a close and lifelong connection with The Burlington Magazine, as cofounder, contributor, saviour-fundraiser, editor (1909-1919) and adviser. Roger Fry and Italian Art is appropriately the fi rst in a series of books on art history to be published by The Burlington Magazine and Ad Ilissvm in association - to be announced in due course.

The Chester Beatty Library¿s 16th-century Ruzbihan Qur¿an¿produced in the city of Shiraz in southwest Iran¿is one of the finest Islamic manuscripts known. In terms of both materials and workmanship, it is exquisite: lapis lazuli and gold, the two most expensive pigments available, are used on every page, while the rendering of the decoration is exceptionally fine. This is the most detailed and comprehensive study of any Islamic manuscript¿and it is well worthy of such scrutiny. Praised in a 16th-century account as one of the finest calligraphers of his time, Ruzbihan Muhammad al-Tab¿i al-Shirazi would have produced numerous Qur¿ans during the course of his career, but only five signed by him have survived. Much of the study of this, surely his finest manuscript, is focussed on understanding the processes and procedures involved in the production of the manuscript and thus on gaining an insight into the problems faced by Ruzbihan and the other artists and how they resolved them. Certain surprising and never-before-seen techniques of production and ¿tricks-of-the trade¿ have been uncovered. A large portion of the information presented is the result of very close examination, under high magnification, of the manuscript¿s 445 folios (890 pages). Many of the reproductions included are of minute details of the decoration that are difficult, or even impossible, to see with the unaided eye. The book follows the order in which work on the manuscript would have progressed, beginning with an examination of Ruzbihan¿s calligraphy, the various scripts he used to copy the text and the problems he faced, such as the spacing of the text and his errors and omissions. Additions, such as marginal notations, recitation marks and decorative devices indicating the divisions of the text, all of which guide the reciter in his reading of the Qur¿an, are also considered. Although the manuscript¿s renown has traditionally rested with the name of its calligrapher, it is equally the quality, extent, diversity and complexity of its superb decorative programme¿the work of a team of highly skilled, yet anonymous artists and artisans¿that sets the manuscript apart from most other 16th-century Persian Qur¿ans. Fittingly, therefore, the bulk of the study focuses on this aspect of the manuscript. Major aspects of the illumination, such as its lavish beginning, middle and end illuminations, are examined as well as more minor elements such as the ¿rays¿ that emerge from the frontis- and finispiece; even the tiniest of details are revealed, such as what are, in the book, termed ¿squiggles and eyes¿, hidden amongst the illuminations and a challenge to find for the even the most eagle-eyed viewer. However, while many of the secrets of the production of the manuscript were revealed, many mysteries remain. Chief among these is the startling change in aesthetic evident in the illuminations of the final ten openings of the manuscript. Why such as change was undertaken¿and then halted¿is not known. As was increasingly revealed as study of the manuscript progressed¿and as the reader of the book will quickly come to realise¿Chester Beatty¿s Ruzbihan Qur¿an is an intriguing and very special manuscript.

Kokusai lived in a time of immense social, cultural and artistic change, and his work ¿ and indeed his own person ¿ captures its contradictions. The Edo period was ending, the last breath of feudal Japan, and the Meiji Restoration launched the new nation into a dramatic, Westernized and industrialized modernity. Kokusai was a radical interpreter of this world, holding up a mirror to the rich culture vanishing before his eyes. A modernist who yet stubbornly adhered to ancient, simple values, he carved humble, personal truths into the most intractable of materials while simultaneously enjoying a life of wild excess and lavish beauty. This beautifully illustrated set of three volumes ¿ titled Precursors, Kokusai and Followers ¿ includes catalogue entires for 608 objects as well as a number of sub-entries. Also included are essays on Kokusai¿s life, carving techniques, materials and followers ¿ the latter of which demonstrates his extraordinary and lasting influence. Most objects are illustrated at size and are augmented by additional and lavish detail photography. Many of the larger objects, such as staffs and sceptres, are illustrated with luxurious fold-out pages.