Sir Joshua Reynolds could never have anticipated an edition of his letters; he once told Boswell that “If I felt the same reluctance in taking a Pencil in my hand as I do a pen I should be as bad a Painter as I am a correspondent.� Yet although his surviving letters are those of a busy man, and many are perfunctory responses or requests, they remain of considerable interest to the reader. This is the first edition of letters by Reynolds to be published since 1929. Since that date the number of known letters has almost doubled. The new volume contains a total of 308 letters by the artist to friends, family, and patrons, all of which are accompanied by detailed notes to identify the recipient and illuminate the text. Published for the Paul Mellon Center for Studies in British Art

Pedro de Mena y Medrano (1628-1688) is the most highly regarded master of Spanish Baroque sculpture, on a par with his contemporaries, the great seventeenth-century painters Velazquez, Zurbaran and Murillo. Mena's contributions to Spanish Baroque sculpture are unsurpassed in both technical skill and expressiveness of his religious subjects. His ability to sculpt the human body was remarkable, and he excelled in creating figures and scenes for contemplation. This first monograph of Pedro de Mena shows incredible details and remarkable images of his hyper-realistic sculptures, full of passion. In addition to text by curator Xavier Bray, Pedro de Mena also features important contributions by Jose Luis Romeo Torres, curator of the exhibition Pedro de Mena, to be held in Malaga in 2019.

Set against the backdrop of war, revolution, and regicide, and moving from London to Venice, Mantua, Madrid, Paris and the Low Countries, Jerry Brotton’s colourful and critically acclaimed book, The Sale of the Late King's Goods, explores the formation and dispersal of King Charles I’s art collection. Following a remarkable and unprecedented Parliamentary Act for ‘The sale of the late king’s goods’, Cromwell’s republican regime sold off nearly 2,000 paintings, tapestries, statues and drawings in an attempt to settle the dead king’s enormous debts and raise money for the Commonwealth’s military forces.

Brotton recreates the extraordinary circumstances of this sale, in which for the first time ordinary working people were able to handle and own works by the great masters. He also examines the abiding relationship between art and power, revealing how the current Royal Collection emerged from this turbulent period, and paints its own vivid and dramatic picture of one of the greatest lost collections in English history.

This lavishly produced volume presents a survey and analysis of a fascinating cabinet of curiosities established around 1750 by the Cobbe family in Ireland and added to over a period of 100 years. Although such collections were common in British country houses during the 18th and 19th centuries, the Cobbe museum, still largely intact and housed in its original cabinets, now forms a unique survivor of this type of private collection from the Age of Enlightenment. A detailed catalogue of the objects and specimens is accompanied by beautiful, specially commissioned photographs that showcase the cabinet's component elements. Reproductions of portraits from the extensive collection of the Cobbe family bring immediacy to the narrative by illustrating the personalities involved in the collection's development. Scholars contribute commentary on the significance of the objects to their collectors; also included are essays outlining, among other topics, the place of the cabinet of curiosities in Enlightenment society and the history of the Cobbe family. Extracts from the extensive family archive place the collection in its social context. Published for the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art

In 1771 the artist Luo Ping (1733–99) left his native Yangzhou to relocate to the burgeoning hub of Beijing's Southern City. Over two decades, he became the favored artist of a cosmopolitan community of scholars and officials who were at the forefront of the cultural life of the Qing-dynasty (1644–1911). From his spectacular ghost paintings to his later work exploring the city's complex history, compressed spatial layout, and unique social rituals, Luo Ping captured the pleasures and concerns of a changing world at the end of the Qing's "Prosperous Age." This study takes the reader into the vibrant artistic and literary cultures of Beijing outside the court and to the networks of scholars, artists, and entertainers that turned the Southern City into a place like no other in the Qing empire. At the center of this narrative lie Luo Ping's layered reflections on the medium of painting and its histories and formal conventions. Close reading of the work of Luo Ping and his contemporaries reveals how this generation of experimental artists sought to reform ink painting, paving the way for further developments in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Drawing on a vast range of textual and visual sources, The Ghost in the City shares groundbreaking research that will transform our understanding of the evolution of modern ink painting.

The Leiden-born artist Jan Steen (1626-1679) is widely admired as one of the most engaging and technically brilliant painters of the Dutch Golden Age. This volume accompanies an exhibition that will be the first in the UK devoted to Steen's Old Testament subjects. The focal point will be his magnificent Wrath of Ahasuerus (c.1668-69), one of the highlights of the Barber's collection, which will be joined by a number of other paintings by Steen from private and public collections across the world. Three essays will examine the core themes of the show - the role of Jewish history in Steen's Old Testament scenes; the infl uence of Dutch theatre on his work; and the critical response to his Old Testament paintings from the 17th century to date. Robert Wenley (Barber Institute of Fine Arts) will look at how the Dutch nation established its identity in part by associating its people with the Biblical Israelites, seeing themselves as persecuted by the Spanish for their faith. He will explore the popularity of the story of Esther and other Old Testament subjects in Dutch culture - in plays as well as paintings - and the possibility of Jewish patrons for Steen's Old Testament paintings. Nina Cahill (University of Kassel) will put forward new research about how Steen adopted the gestural language of contemporary Dutch theatre, amateur and professional, in order to represent the key fi gures in these scenes and to convey the pivotal dramatic moments. In some instances, Steen may have been quoting from an actual production of a play based on the Biblical story. Rosalie van Gulick (Utrecht University) will consider how Steen's Old Testament scenes have been received and understood over the years. She will investigate how the apparent farcical character of these scenes has been understood over the centuries and why they have prompted adversely critical responses from some modern art historians.

A revised survey of Rembrandt’s complete painted oeuvre. The question of which 17th-century paintings in Rembrandt’s style were actually painted by Rembrandt himself had already become an issue during his lifetime. It is an issue that is still hotly disputed among art historians today. The problem arose because Rembrandt had numerous pupils who learned the art of painting by imitating their master or by assisting him with his work as a portrait painter. He also left pieces unfinished, to be completed by others.  The question is how to determine which works were from Rembrandt’s own hand. Can we, for example, define the criteria of quality that would allow us to distinguish the master’s work from that of his followers? Do we yet have methods of investigation that would deliver objective evidence of authenticity?  To what extent do research techniques used in the physical sciences help?  Or are we, after all, still dependent on the subjective, expert eye of the connoisseur? The book provides answers to these questions. Prof. Ernst van de Wetering, the author of our forthcoming book which deals with these questions, has been closely involved in all aspects of this research since 1968, the year the renowned Rembrandt Research Project (RRP) was founded. In particular, he played an important role in developing new criteria for authentication. Van de Wetering was also witness to the way the often overly zealous tendency to doubt the authenticity of Rembrandt’s paintings got out of hand. In this book he re-attributes to the master a substantial number of unjustly rejected Rembrandts. He also was closely involved in the (re)discovery of a considerable number of lost or completely unknown works by Rembrandt. The verdicts of earlier specialists – including the majority of members of the original RRP (up to 1989) – were based on connoisseurship: the self-confidence in one’s ability to recognise a specific artist’s style and ‘hand’. Over the years, Van de Wetering has carried out seminal research into 17th-century studio practice and ideas about art current in Rembrandt’s time. In this book he demonstrates the fallibility of traditional connoisseurship, especially in the case of Rembrandt, who was par excellence a searching artist. The methodological implications of this critical view are discussed in an introductory chapter which relates the history of the developments in this turbulent field of research. Van de Wetering’s account of his own involvement in it makes this book a lively and sometimes unexpectedly personal account. The catalogue section presents a chronologically ordered survey of Rembrandt’s entire painted oeuvre of 336 paintings, richly illustrated and annotated. For all the paintings re-attributed in this book, extensive commentaries have been included that provide a multi-facetted new insight into Rembrandt’s world and the world of art-historical research.  Rembrandt’s Paintings Revisited is the concluding sixth volume of A Corpus of Rembrandt Paintings (Volumes I-V; 1982, 1986, 1989, 2005, 2010). It can also be read as a revisionary critique of the first three Volumes published by the old RRP team up till 1989 and of Gerson’s influential survey of Rembrandt’s painted oeuvre of 1968/69. At the same time, the book is designed as an independent overview that can be used on the basis that anyone seeking more detailed information will be referred to the five previous (digital versions of the) Volumes and the detailed catalogues published in the meantime by the various museums with collections of Rembrandt paintings.  This work of art history and art research should belong in the library of every serious art historical institute, university or museum.         

A Guide to Eighteenth-Century Art offers an introductory overview of the art, artists, and artistic movements of this exuberant period in European art, and the social, economic, philosophical, and political debates that helped shape them. * Covers both artistic developments and critical approaches to the period by leading contemporary scholars * Uses an innovative framework to emphasize the roles of tradition, modernity, and hierarchy in the production of artistic works of the period * Reveals the practical issues connected with the production, sale, public and private display of art of the period * Assesses eighteenth-century art s contribution to what we now refer to as modernity * Includes numerous illustrations, and is accompanied by online resources examining art produced outside Europe and its relationship with the West, along with other useful resources

This meticulously researched catalogue presents an authoritative assessment of the works of Pompeo Batoni (1708-1787), one of the 18th century's most celebrated painters. Born in Lucca, Batoni established himself in Rome and received commissions from popes, princes, and British aristocrats on the Grand Tour. Batoni was highly sought after for his theatrical yet incisive-and often flattering-portraits. Connoisseurs and cognoscenti also prized his learned and technically brilliant allegorical, religious, and mythological compositions. With entries on more than 480 paintings and 250 drawings, this magnificent two-volume set provides the most complete examination to date of Batoni's entire oeuvre. Featuring beautiful, high-quality reproductions, the book provides thorough details on provenance and exhibition history as well as biographies of the portrait sitters. New analysis of the works, resulting from decades of research, reinterprets some of Batoni's iconography, identifies new textual and visual sources of his imagery, and reveals insights gleaned from unpublished archival materials. Published for the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art in association with the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston

Johannes Vermeer's luminous paintings are loved and admired around the world, yet we do not understand how they were made. We see sunlit spaces; the glimmer of satin, silver, and linen; we see the softness of a hand on a lute string or letter. We recognise the distilled impression of a moment of time; and we feel it to be real. We might hope for some answers from the experts, but they are confounded too. Even with the modern technology available, they do not know why there is no evidence of any preliminary drawing; why there are shifts in focus; and why his pictures are unusually blurred. Some wonder if he might possibly have used a camera obscura to capture what he saw before him. The few traces Vermeer has left behind tell us little: there are no letters or diaries; and no reports of him at work. Jane Jelley has taken a new path in this detective story. A painter herself, she has worked with the materials of his time: the cochineal insect and lapis lazuli; the sheep bones, soot, earth, and rust. She shows us how painters made their pictures layer by layer; she investigates old secrets; and hears travellers' tales. She explores how Vermeer could have used a lens in the creation of his masterpieces. The clues were there all along. After all this time, now we can unlock the studio door, and catch a glimpse of Vermeer inside, painting light.

As an aesthetic ideal, classicism is often associated with a conventional set of rules founded on supposedly timeless notions such as order, reason, and decorum. As a result, it is sometimes viewed as rigid, outdated, or stodgy. But in actuality, classicism is far from a stable concept throughout history, it has given rise to more debate than consensus, and at times has been put to use for subversive ends. With contributions from an interdisciplinary group of scholars, this volume explodes the idea of classicism as an unchanging ideal. The essays trace the shifting parameters of classicism from antiquity to the twentieth century, documenting an exhibition of seventy objects in various media from the collection of the Smart Museum of Art and other American and international institutions. With its impressive historical and conceptual reach from ancient literature to contemporary race relations and beyond this colorfully illustrated book is a dynamic exploration of classicism as a fluctuating stylistic and ideological category.

Rembrandt, Hals and Vermeer are still household names, even though they died over three hundred years ago. In their lifetimes they witnessed the extraordinary consolidation of the newly independent Dutch Republic and its emergence as one of the richest nations on earth. As one contemporary wrote in 1673: the Dutch were 'the envy of some, the fear of others, and the wonder of all their neighbours'. During the Dutch Golden Age, the arts blossomed and the country became a haven of religious tolerance. However, despite being self-proclaimed champions of freedom, the Dutch conquered communities in America, Africa and Asia and were heavily involved in both slavery and the slave trade on three continents. This substantially revised second edition of the leading textbook on the Dutch Republic includes a new chapter exploring slavery and its legacy, as well as a new chapter on language and literature.

The global porcelain scene is celebrating the 40th anniversary of the International Ceramics Fair and Seminar, which was founded by Brian Haughton and his wife, Anna, in London in 1982. That was just the beginning: further fairs and accompanying symposia on design, jewellery, and antiques in New York and Dubai were to follow, becoming important venues of exchange, not just for trade but for the academic world too. To mark this anniversary, more than 40 renowned scholars were asked to write about selected European ceramics that had been traded in Brian Haughton's gallery and that he had been particularly passionate about. This publication is a wonderful kaleidoscope of unique ceramics from the 18th and 19th centuries, released as a homage to Brian Haughton, The Man with the Butterfly Tie.

Descartes believed that his analytic model applied to all fields of research and that all branches of science lead to truth. His many analogies with literature and art notwithstanding, Descartes offers an entry into knowledge that fails nevertheless to take into account how in the seventeenth century Dutch painters such as Vermeer similarly order a view of the world by concentrating on the properties of individual objects. Descartes's celebrated scientific method offers a protocol for conducting experiments; Harriet Stone argues that this method can also serve as a guide for classifying the findings obtained from experiments. Tables of Knowledge shows that Dutch genre paintings and still lifes enact in visual form a process of recording information similar to that of science, with intriguing results.Stone investigates such diverse topics as seventeenth-century advances in optics and the attendant explosion of data about the natural world; the proliferation of material goods in prosperous Dutch homes; and the compelling realism of Golden Age paintings. Vermeer and his contemporaries, she contends, transform a potentially threatening consumerism into the viewer's aesthetic pleasure. The artists' depictions of rooms where framed images and maps adorn walls and where fruit, shimmering glassware, gold pieces, and other precious items are set out on tables constitute an inventory of middle-class life. Appealing to both the eye and the mind, Dutch paintings convey meaning by accentuating the luxury of objects displayed in all their specificity. While not without its voyeuristic, sensual, and even lascivious overtones, art offered the Dutch, who labored under the moral austerity of the Protestant Church, a way of bearing witness to ordinary experience that was unmistakably satisfying and surprisingly Cartesian.Illustrated with sixteen pages of color reproductions of Dutch masterworks, as well as five black-and-white images, Tables of Knowledge will interest intellectual and cultural historians of the early modern period, art historians, and historians and philosophers of science.

Every painted work that is on display in the Uffizi Gallery, The Pitti Palace, the Accademia, and the Duomo is included in the book, plus many or most of the works from 28 of the city's other magnificent museums and churches. The research and text are by Ross King (best-selling author), Anja Grebe (author or The Louvre and The Vatican), Cristina Acidini (former Superintendent of the public museums of Florence) and Msgr. Timothy Verdon (Director of the artworks for the Archdiocese of Florence).

This collection of writings by specialists from many disciplines explores a wide range of topics relating to English painter George Romney (1734-1802). The contributors to the book address not only Romney's personality and artistic practice, but also aspects of the cultural context of his work, such as its relation to theater and its diffusion through prints. Key essays discuss the central themes of the artist's work, his rivalry with Sir Joshua Reynolds, and his painting technique. Alex Kidson offers in the introduction a survey of previous writings about Romney and their impact on the artist's reputation two centuries after his death. Published for the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art

French painting of Louis XV's reign (1715-74), generally categorized by the term rococo, has typically been understood as an artistic style aimed at furnishing courtly society with delightful images of its own frivolous pursuits. Instead, this book shows the significance and seriousness underpinning the notion of pleasure embedded in eighteenth-century history painting. During this time, pleasure became a moral ideal grounded not only in domestic life but also defining a range of social, political, and cultural transactions oriented toward transforming and improving society at large. History, painting, and the seriousness of pleasure in the age of Louis XV reconsiders the role of history painting in creating a new visual language that presented peace and happiness as an individual's natural rights in the aftermath of Louis XIV's bellicose reign (1643-1715). In this new study, Susanna Caviglia reinvestigates the artistic practices of an entire generation of painters born around 1700 (e.g. Francois Boucher, Charles-Joseph Natoire, and Carle Vanloo) in order to highlight the cultural forces at work within their now iconic images.

"Seventeenth-Century European Drawings in Midwestern Collections: The Age of Bernini, Rembrandt, and Poussin" brings together more than one hundred treasures of the Baroque age from museum collections throughout the Midwest. The volume presents a fascinating and representative selection of Italian, Dutch, Flemish, and French drawings in Midwestern repositories, offering new insights on many of these works of art. Many are relatively unknown, and some have never before been published.
Authored by major scholars in the field, the catalogue presents each drawing along with a concise description with full scholarly apparatus. Four essays, written by Babette Bohn, George S. Keyes, Kristi A. Nelson, and Alvin L. Clark, Jr., respectively, introduce the Italian, Dutch, Flemish, and French schools. The catalogue's introductory essay, by Shelley Perlove, places these works within the historical, iconographic, and stylistic currents of seventeenth-century art. The catalogue is designed to have widespread appeal for art historians, curators, artists, collectors, students, and general readers interested in art and cultural history. Moreover, "Seventeenth-Century European Drawings in Midwestern Collections "highlights the surprising number of institutions throughout the Midwest that have acquired distinguished European drawings from the seventeenth century worthy of full recognition by collectors and connoisseurs.

This book is about Welsh pictures painted between the eighteenth and the twentieth centuries, and why they matter today. It mainly concerns how pictures are understood by the people who use them - patrons, museum curators, and the general public - rather than by the painters who paint them. It consists of a series of chapters on different aspects of painting, which are unified by a common theme. Individual chapters discuss an eighteenth-century painting, a nineteenth-century genre, a twentieth-century painter, how pictures are valued by museums and the art market, and how, since the 1980s, the Welsh art establishment has fought a reactionary battle against the New Art History movement. The chapters are unified by their concern with the question of how a tradition of art is created, and what effect a tradition has on how a nation sees itself - and is seen by others. The pictures and painters are discussed in the context of contemporary literature, and the social and political circumstances of their period. Comparisons are made with the experience of other cultures, notably the United States and Ireland.

That Ireland is picturesque is a well-worn cliche, but little is understood of how this perception was created, painted, and manipulated during the long 18th century. This book positions Ireland at the core of the picturesque's development and argues for a far greater degree of Irish influence on the course of European landscape theory and design. Positioned off-axis from the greater force-field, and off-shore from mainland Europe and America, where better to cultivate the oblique perspective? This book charts the creation of picturesque Ireland, while exploring in detail the role and reach of landscape painting in the planning, publishing, landscaping and design of Ireland's historic landscapes, towns, and tourist routes. Thus it is also a history of the physical shaping of Ireland as a tourist destination, one of the earliest, most calculated, and most successful in the world. Published for the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art

Rembrandt van Rjin (1606-1669) was among the few celebrated old masters who enjoyed considerable freedom in his choice of subject matter. Living and working in the Protestant Netherlands, he painted largely for private patrons and the open market, selecting his own subjects in the hope of finding buyers. Although he depicted biblical, historical, and mythological themes in emulation of the great artists of the past, his subjects often focus on fundamental human experiences and emotions that transcend their literary sources. Even when working within the confines of specific commissions, Rembrandt managed to imbue his paintings with deeper, personal meanings. These works reveal the artist's profound humanity and at times reflect the circumstances of his life. This illuminating study explores some of the central themes of Rembrandt's paintings, drawings, and etchings: grand - love, sin, repentance and forgiveness, adultery, fatherhood, and the conflict between the generations - as well as mundane and idiosyncratic. It demonstrates how Rembrandt's subjects can offer new revelations about this complex artist.

One of the most imaginative and fascinating artists of eighteenth-century France,Edme Bouchardon (1698-1762) was instrumental in the transition from Rococo to Neoclassicism and in the artistic rediscovery of classical antiquity. Much celebrated in his time, Bouchardon created some of the most iconic images of the age of Louis XV. His oeuvre demonstrates a remarkable variety of themes (from copies after the antique to subjects of history and mythology, portraiture, anatomical studies, ornament, fountains and tombs), media (drawings, sculptures, medals, prints), and techniques (chalk, plaster, wax, terracotta, marble, bronze).With five essays by experts on Bouchardon's sculpture and graphic arts, more than 140 catalogue entries, and a detailed chronology, this book aims to demonstrate the originality of Bouchardon's art within the cultural and social context of the period, while suggesting the subtle relationship between, as well as the relative autonomy of, the artist's two careers as a sculptor and a draftsman.This lavishly illustrated publication represents anunprecedented and thorough survey on this major andunique artist from the Age of Enlightenment, offering in-depth scholarship based on unpublished material detailingthe subtle relationship between, as well as the relative autonomy of, the artist's two careers as a sculptor and a draftsman.