"The Alchemy of Paint" is a critique of the modern world, which Spike Bucklow sees as the product of seventeenth-century ideas about science. In modern times, we have divorced color from its origins, using it for commercial advantage. Spike Bucklow shows us how in medieval times, color had mystical significance far beyond the enjoyment of shade and hue.

Each chapter demonstrates the mindset of medieval Europe and is devoted to just one color, acknowledging its connections with life in the pre-modern world. Colors examined and explained in detail include a midnight blue called ultramarine, an opaque red called vermilion, a multitude of colors made from metals, a transparent red called dragonsblood, and, finally, gold.

Today, "scarlet" describes a color, but it was originally a type of cloth. Henry VI's wardrobe accounts from 1438 to 1489 show that his cheapest scarlet was 14.2s.6d. and that scarlets could fetch up to twice that price. In the fifteenth century, a mid-priced scarlet cost more than two thousand kilos of cheese or one thousand liters of wine. This expense accounts for the custom of giving important visitors the "red carpet treatment."

The book looks at how color was "read" in the Middle Ages and returns to materials to look at the hidden meaning of the artists' version of the philosopher's stone. The penultimate chapter considers why everyone has always loved gold.

Spike Bucklow is a conservation scientist working with oil paintings at the Hamilton Kerr Institute in Cambridge.

Children of Mercury is a bold new account of the lives of pre-modern painters, viewed through the lens of The Seven Ages of Man, a widespread belief made famous in the 'All the world's a stage' speech in Shakespeare's As You Like It. Spike Bucklow follows artists' lives from infancy, through childhood, adolescence and adulthood, to maturity, old age and death. He tracks how lives unfolded for both male and female painters, from the famous, like Michelangelo, through Artemisia Gentileschi and Mary Beale to those who are now forgotten, like Jehan Gillemer. The book draws on historic biographies, artists' own writings and, uniquely, the physical evidence offered by their paintings.

Perhaps the most prolific artist of the nineteenth century, Sir John Gilbert (1817-97) was President of the Royal Watercolour Society, a regular exhibitor at the Royal Academy and illustrator for numerous illustrated papers, novels and children's books. Yet despite his impressive list of achievements, his name has become lost among figures such as Leighton, Watts, Millais and Burne-Jones who dominated the Victorian art world of which he was a part. Re-assessment of Gilbert's contribution to British art history reveals an artist who created powerful images - strong on narrative, romantic, illustrative and escapist - that have much to offer the viewer today. In addition, Gilbert is an interesting figure, both for what his story can tell us about Victorian taste and the vagaries of the art market, and because of his unusual practice of working contemporaneously in oils, watercolour and as an illustrator; blurring the boundaries between these media and using them interchangeably. Bringing together a selection of large-scale historical paintings, modest and rarely seen landscape watercolours, illustrated novels and children's books, newspaper illustrations and ephemera from both public and private sources, this groundbreaking publication explores both an unduly neglected figure and some important aspects of Victorian life. Offering first-class, original research, Sir John Gilbert is essential reading for all those with a particular interest in Victorian art, literature and society.

The Anatomy of Riches tells the story of one family's long rise from rags to riches, and their rapid reversal of fortune. It focuses on the life of Sir Robert Paston, who experienced the family's fall from grace at a time of momentous change, the beginning of the modern world. The Paston wealth had brought luxuries from across the globe to an idyllic retreat in rural Norfolk. The family commissioned Europe's finest craftsmen to enhance their rarities, and their lavish hospitality was famed throughout England. But Civil War and plague tore the country apart, and peace-loving Sir Robert was assailed by what he called a `whirlpool of misadventures', although he kept his faith and worked tirelessly to protect his wife and children. Encouraged by his friend Dr Thomas Browne, he even found time to pursue his interests, employing both an alchemist in search of the Philosophers' Stone and an artist to capture his favourite treasures in an enigmatic still-life, The Paston Treasure.