This magnificent book is a collaboration between The Metropolitan Museum of Art and The National Gallery London. It gives a detailed chronology of Cole's life, retracing his travels as documented in his journals, letters and sketchbooks and discussions of over 70 works demonstrating his major contribution to the history of Western art. You may not have heard of him and we certainly hadn't at Bibliophile, but on a recent buying trip with US suppliers we fell in love with the gentle colours and scenes of this talented landscape artist. This book is a major re-examination of the father of the Hudson River School in relation to his European roots and travels. Thomas Cole (1801-1848) is celebrated as the greatest American landscape artist of his generation. Previous scholarship has emphasised the American aspects of his identity, and never before has the British-born artist been presented as an international figure. This special large monograph emphasises his travels in England and Italy 1829 to 1832 and his crucial interactions with such painters as Turner and Constable. The tome explores his renowned paintings The Oxbow (1836) and The Course of Empire cycle (1834-36) together with magnificent oils on canvas like Titan's Goblet of 1833, View of Florence from San Miniato 1837, his chalk drawings from the Acropolis in Athens and closer to his home a distant view of Niagara Falls with a moody sky and tranquil waters and two figures on a ravine which appear to be Native American Indians. Another mountain landscape is his scene from The Last of the Mohicans novel which the artist painted. As a teenager in Chorley, Lancashire, Cole worked as an engraver on the woodblocks used to apply patterns to calico, which explains his appreciation of colour. Technical comparisons are made throughout with paint samples mounted in cross sections from the Oxbow and the Consummation of Empire magnified, a look at paint techniques and materials, the influence of industrial England where Cole was born (near Manchester), and the influence of Turner is made in comparison throughout the book, complete with gorgeous colour images. Combining Cole's passion for the American wilderness and his horror of the industrial revolution in Britain, this led him to create works that offer a distinctive even dissident response to the economic and political rise of the United States, and the ecological changes then underway. 254 colour illustrations. 288 huge pages, 24.9 x 28.2cm.

Vincent Van Gogh was a revolutionary artist who changed the nature of draughtsmanship so thoroughly, brightened the palette for serious painting and infused his art with so much personal character, it was hard for his contemporaries to see the merits of his work. When he died at the age of 37 in 1890 he was not completely unrecognised, but it wasn't until the end of 1888 when his younger brother Theo entered three of his paintings in an Avant-Garde exhibition that a few major artists and writers began to give Van Gogh's work a serious look. In all the major cities he lived - The Hague, Amsterdam, Brussels, Antwerp, London and Paris - Van Gogh applied his keen eye and devilish intellect to all the art he could find. He frequented museums and declared 'It is good to love as much as one can' as he embraced life, especially art and literature, with passion. He studied Gustave Doré's work intensely, and tenderly called Millet 'Father Millet', and was devoted to the Old Masters and their influence on his work would always be profound. The works selected for this magnificent volume provide an opportunity to see the artists who were the predominant painters of the era, some famous some still not, and why they gave the world Van Gogh inhabited so much pleasure. There are several works by Jean-Francois Raffaëlli who shared Van Gogh's sensibility for the subject of the downtrodden and influenced for example Van Gogh's portrait 'Woman Rocking a Cradle', an image so important to him that he made five versions of it, focussing our attention on the working-class woman's rough hands just as Raffaëlli did. A painting by Jozef Israëls of a peasant family at a dinner table inspired Van Gogh's most famous early work 'The Potato Eaters'. Just as Rembrandt painted himself almost a hundred times, Van Gogh made more than 30 self portraits over a much shorter span of time. We watch Van Gogh experimenting with loose brushwork and bright colours as used by Manet, studying the pointillist dots used by Seurat and appreciating the work of Monet, Gauguin and Toulouse-Lautrec, all positioned here side by side with images and for detailed comparison in the text by this bestselling author. With chapters arranged from Religion, Romanticism, The Barbizon School, English Art and The Graphic, Japanese Prints, The Female Sitter, Still Life, Impressionism, The Sea and more. An afterword on his legacy by Ann Dumas. Glossy white pages, hundreds of full page colour images. Tiny remainder mark. A magnificent tome of 409pp, 22.33 x 26cm.
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The Starry Night, Vincent's Bedroom with the yellow coverlet, 14 Sunflowers in a Vase, The Church at Auvers-sur-Oise, Garden with Flowers in that unmistakeable pointillism style with greenish sky and yellowed grasses and flowers are the five designs. There are four of each totalling 20 blank quality notecards for all occasions and 20 white envelopes. Colourful box.

One of Jane Austen's most charming youthful 'novels' in miniature, presented in a deluxe illustrated edition with Leon Steinmetz's gorgeous black and dark red illustrations. Most people think Jane Austen wrote only six novels, though very short ones, while still a young girl. She was only 12 or 13 when she wrote The Beautifull Cassandra, an irreverent and humorous little masterpiece. Weighing in at 465 occasionally misspelled words, it is a complete and perfect novel-in-miniature, made up of a dedication to her older sister Cassandra and 12 chapters, each consisting of a sentence or two. Narrating the slightly criminal adventures of the 16 year old title character, the novel gives us Austen's most irrepressible heroine, who, after stealing a hat, leaves her mother's shop to flounce around London, eating ice cream (without paying), taking coach rides (without paying), and encountering handsome young ladies and gentlemen (without speaking) - all to return home hours later with whispered joy: 'This is a day well spent.' Austen fans will love the strong-willed Cassandra who can eat six ice creams and then refuse to pay for them! Special import from Princeton University Press, 72 page landscape softback, illus.
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Great Britain and Ireland are particularly well endowed with cathedrals and abbeys and it is estimated that there were almost 1,000 built during the Middle Ages. When Cromwell closed the majority of them during the dissolution of the monasteries, many were left in ruins, plundered or survived because their local communities adopted them as parish churches. The outstanding example is St Albans which begins this beautifully illustrated collection. We go to Bath Abbey, Belfast, Birmingham, Bristol, Canterbury, Chelmsford, Chester, Chichester, Coventry, St Davids, Durham, Ely, Exeter, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Glastonbury, Gloucester, Hereford, Leicester, Lincoln, Liverpool, Manchester, Newcastle, Norwich, Oxford, St Patrick's Dublin, St Paul's, Peterborough, Rochester, Salisbury, Southwark, Southwell Minster, Tewkesbury Abbey, Truro, Wells, Westminster Abbey, Winchester, Worcester to York Minster with a bolt of lightning and walls of glass and it rebellious Yorkshireman. Discover tales of an English pope, a martyred archbishop, secrets and troublesome spies, stained glass wonders and castle-cathedrals, famous memorials and spectacular architectural feats in a rich heritage and fascinating collection. 144 well illustrated pages.