The first modern history of St James's Palace, shedding light on a remarkable building at the heart of the history of the British monarchy that remains by far the least known of the royal residences In this first modern history of St James's Palace, the authors shed new light on a remarkable building that, despite serving as the official residence of the British monarchy from 1698 to 1837, is by far the least known of the royal residences. The book explores the role of the palace as home to the heir to the throne before 1714, its impact on the development of London and the West end during the late Stuart period, and how, following the fire at the palace of Whitehall, St James's became the principal seat of the British monarchy in 1698. The arrangement and display of the paintings and furnishings making up the Royal Collection at St James's is chronicled as the book follows the fortunes of the palace through the Victorian and Edwardian periods up to the present day. Specially commissioned maps, phased plans, and digital reconstructions of the palace at key moments in its development accompany a rich array of historical drawings, watercolors, photographs, and plans. The book includes a foreword by His Royal Highness The Prince of Wales. Published in association with Royal Collection Trust

This is a new release of the original 1924 edition.

Michael Jacobs was haunted by Velazquez's enigmatic masterpiece Las Meninas from first encountering it in the Prado as a teenager. In Everything is Happening Jacobs searches for the ultimate significance of the painting by following the trails of associations from each individual character in the picture, as well as his own memories of and relationship to this extraordinary work. From Jacobs' first trip to Spain, to the complex politics of Golden Age Madrid, to his meeting with the man who saved Las Meninas during the Spanish Civil war, via Jacobs' experiences of the sunless world of the art history academy, Jacobs' dissolves the barriers between the past and the present, the real and the illusory. Cut short by Jacobs' death in 2014, and completed with an introduction and coda of great sensitivity and insight by his friend and fellow lover of art, the journalist Ed Vulliamy, this visionary, meditative and often very funny book is a passionate, personal manifesto for the liberation of how we look at painting.

"A beautiful, intricate meditation on creativity and discovery, on fire and rebirth." --Elizabeth Gilbert

Awestruck at the sight of a Grinling Gibbons carving in a London church, David Esterly chose to dedicate his life to woodcarving--its physical rhythms, intricate beauty, and intellectual demands. Forty years later, he is the foremost practitioner of Gibbons's forgotten technique, which revolutionized ornamental sculpture in the late 1600s with its spectacular cascades of flowers, fruits, and foliage.

After a disastrous fire at Henry VIII's Hampton Court Palace, Esterly was asked to replace the Gibbons masterpiece destroyed by the flames. It turned out to be the most challenging year in Esterly's life, forcing him to question his abilities and delve deeply into what it means to make a thing well. Written with a philosopher's intellect and a poet's grace, "The Lost Carving" explores the connection between creativity and physical work and illuminates the passionate pursuit of a vocation that unites head and hand and heart.

This new series examines several highly regarded masterpieces in an attempt to unravel the mysteries that surround them. Through an innovative concept and a fresh approach, 'Art Mysteries', edited by Marco Carminati and Stefano Zuffi, presents an up-to-date and spectacular reading of famous paintings, investigating key clues that suggest previously unknown background information. 'The Stories of St Matthew' marked a turning point in Caravaggio's career, and in the history of painting itself. Behind their mystery lies an unprecedented creative process, characterised by choices and pentimenti revealed by detailed analyses. At the time, Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio was an unruly thirty-year-old painter of small to medium-sized works,commissioned privately. Although at first Cardinal Mathieu Cointrel had no intention of involving Caravaggio in the decoration of his family chapel in the Church of San Luigi dei Francesi in Rome, fate (a positive fate in the light of art history) offered the painter, through a series of contretemps and coincidences, the chance of a lifetime to become a publicly acclaimed master.

Artemisia Gentileschi is one of the most fascinating artists in history. Apprenticed at an early age to her father, the seventeenth-century painter Orazio Gentileschi, she rapidly became more famous than he was, for her rich, dramatic canvases. But her fame was tarnished by scandal. At the age of seventeen, she was violently raped by Agostino Tassi, an artist friend of Orazio's. On discovering Tassi's betrayal, Orazio took the case to court and there followed, in 1612, eight months of humiliation for Artemisia as the inhabitants of Rome's colourful artist's quarter came to give evidence. Their testimony - frank, partial, often cruel - in this first rape trial ever to be fully documented, made Artemisia and her father notorious.

This new title in the highly regarded Art & Ideas series presents a thorough introduction to the Baroque and Rococo styles. Encompassing architecture, interior design, furniture, ceramics, garden landscaping and theatrical spectaculars, as well as the masterpieces of this prolific period in the Fine Arts, these styles were global and had enormous impact on the history of art. Gauvin Bailey clarifies the essence of the styles and examines their complexities and contradictions, and their applications against the backdrop of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Europe, Latin America and Asia. With 250 illustrations, well-known sculptures by Bernini, paintings by Caravaggio and Rembrandt, and some of the most famous buildings in the world are set in their creative milieu with succinct analysis and broad clarity. Lesser known examples from across the world demonstrate how the aesthetic trends of the styles were concurrent throughout continents, and enlightens and refreshes the implications of the terms.

The Persistence of Presence analyzes the relationship between emblem books, containing combinations of pictures and texts, and Spanish literature in the early modern period. As representations of ideas and ideals, emblems are allegories produced in a particular place and time, and their study can shed light on the central cultural and political activities of an era. Bradley J. Nelson argues that the emblem was a primary indicator of the social and political functions of diverse literary practices in early modern Spain, from theatre to epic prose. Furthermore, the disintegration of a unified medieval world view left many seeking the kinds of deep knowledge that could be accessed through symbolic pictures, increasing their cultural significance. In this detailed examination of emblem books, sacred and secular theatre, and Cervantes' critique of baroque allegory in Los trabajos de Persiles y Sigismunda, Nelson connects the early history of emblematics with the drive towards cultural and political hegemony in Counter-Reformation Spain.