British Museum Press

This title includes highlights from all nine volumes of the highly successful "Fabric Folios" series to create the essential single-volume textile and design sourcebook. Praise for "The Fabric Folios" series: "Lovers of textiles are sure to find a place for these reasonably priced books on their shelves ...turning each page is a surprise and a pleasure". (Joss Graham, The World of Interiors). "'Fabric Folios' are gorgeous designer sourcebooks exploring the variety of colour and pattern in textiles worldwide. Each book is a treasure trove of design and information". ("Traveller Magazine Sales" points). This title showcases textiles from countries and regions of the world renowned for their rich textile and design heritage. It includes various techniques of production: embroidery, weaving, printing and dyeing. It shows each individual textile in full through a series of detailed photographs, allowing design enthusiasts and experts alike to get close-up and find inspiration for their own work. Each section opens with a brief introduction by an expert in the field to provide a context for appreciating the superb designs.

The British Museum has one of the finest collections of antiquities from medieval Europe. This magnificent book investigates 150 of the most important works of art, including the most famous, such as the Lewis Chessmen, the Borradaile triptych, the St Eustace head reliquary, the Royal Gold Cup, the Royal Gittern and medieval court art from the palaces of Westminster and Clarendon. This book puts these remarkable treasures into a historical context by exploring themes including dynastic art (royal and aristocratic patronage), sacred art (devotion, veneration and pilgrimage) and the art of pleasure (love, leisure and feasting). The range and scope of the British Museum's marvellous collections, combined with the British Library's manuscripts provides a stunning overview of the artistic production of this critical period in Western history.

Japanese woodblock prints of the Edo period (16151868) were the products of a highly commercialised and competitive publishing industry. Their content was inspired by the vibrant popular culture that flourished in Edo (Tokyo). At any given time scores of publishers competed for the services of the leading artists of the day. Publishers and artists displayed tremendous ingenuity in finding ways to sustain demand for prints and to to circumvent the restrictions placed upon them by government censorship. Japanese woodblock prints have long been appreciated in the West for their graphic qualities but their content has not always been fully understood. In recent years, publications by scholars in Japan, Europe and the United States have made possible a more subtle appreciation of the imagery encountered in them. This book draws upon this recent scholarship to explain how those who first purchased these prints would have read them. Through stunning new photography of both well-known and rarely published works in the collection of the British Museum, including many recent acquisitions, the author explores how and why such prints were made, providing a fascinating introduction to a much-loved but littleunderstood art form.

And so we afterwards took up his bones which are more valuable than precious stones and finer than refined gold ... Account of the martyrdom of Polycarp, c. AD 156 From the earliest period of Christian worship striking comparisons were drawn between sacred matter and precious materials. The association was given its most literal manifestation in the painstaking creation of sumptuous reliquaries of gold and silver, encrusted with precious stones, made to contain relics of Christ and the saints th eir body parts and items owned or touched by them Focusing on the British Museums outstanding collection of reliquaries, Finer than Gold offers a concise introduction to the practice of relic veneration in the Middle Ages. It includes treasures such as the celebrated St Eustace reliquary head from Basle, the stirring St Oda reliquary studded with the relics of female saints and the uniquely luxurious Holy Thorn reliquary commissioned by the princely Jean duc de Berry in fourteenth-century Paris. Pilgrimage, patronage, private devotion and crusade are just some of the compelling themes explored in this richly illustrated book.

Egyptian mummies are perennially popular with visitors to museums but what is their relevance in the twenty-first century? What can we learn from the study of these ancient remains? Mummies are an unparalleled source of scientific data, addressing a host of questions about life in one of the most highly developed societies of the ancient world. Although the ancient Egyptians left many written records, these tell only part of the story, and researchers rely heavily on human remains to complete the picture. These throw light on many important issues about which the inscriptions are often silent: physical anthropology, family relationships, life expectancy, nutrition and health, disease and the causes of death. They also of course provide a unique insight into the fascinating and complex processes of mummification; including not only the artificial preservation of the corpse, but also the ritual elements which played such an important part: the placing of amulets, the putting on of wrappings and the equipping of the body with religious texts and images. For many years, the only way to extract this data from Egyptian mummies was to unwrap them a process both destructive and irreversible. Then, the advent of modern non-invasive imaging techniques X-rays and Computerized Tomography (CT) scanning made it possible to look inside a mummy without disturbing the wrappings in any way. Now this technology has advanced still further. Thanks to the latest computer-generated images, we are able to perform a virtual unwrapping of a mummy and to embark on a journey within the body, visualizing every feature and amulet in 3D. The subject chosen for this ground-breaking experiment, the priest Nesperennub, has been one of the British Museums treasured exhibits for over a hundred years. His beautifully painted mummy-case has never been opened since it was sealed up by embalmers on the West Bank at Thebes shortly before he was buried, but now after 2,800 years technology has unlocked its secrets. This book takes the reader on a journey of discovery, gathering information about Nesperennub from a variety of sources. First, his place in history and his role in Egyptian society are pieced together from the inscriptions the formal record of his life which was intended for posterity. Then the 3D technology makes it possible to enter the mummy case and to explore the body, collecting data about Nesperennub as a person, seeing his face, assessing his health, and looking over the shoulders of the embalmers as they prepared him for eternal life.

Authoritative, surprising, evocative and original, "Shakespeare: Staging the World" offers a completely new approach to one of the most exceptional creative imaginations in history. While matters of religion, trade and war were being contested, the role of the playwright developed to inform, persuade and provoke debate on the concerns of the day. This richly illustrated book presents an extraordinary collection of objects from the British Museum's unrivaled collection, as well as key pieces from Britain and elsewhere. Simon Forman's diary of 1611 gives a vivid account of attending a contemporary performance of "A Winter's Tale"; a dagger fished from the Thames gives new resonance to the gang violence of "Romeo and Juliet"; while Guy Fawkes' lantern illustrates the Catholic counterculture revealed through the failed Gunpowder Plot, which was later to prove the inspiration for "Macbeth". "Shakespeare: Staging the World" is a fascinating view of the early modern world through the eyes of Shakespeare, his players and audiences.

Drawn from 14th and 15th century sources including works by Geoffrey Chaucer and carefully adapted to suit the modern kitchen, this beautifully illustrated cookbook explores the traditions and tastes of authentic medieval cookery. "This is a beguiling gastronomic journey." ("Homes and Gardens"). "Sumptuous and richly informative with recipes that work ...this is a model of how historical cookery books should be done. ("The Financial Times").

"The Classical Cookbook" is the first to explore the cuisine and manners of the ancient Greece and Rome, from 750 BC to AD 450. This newly updated edition of the bestselling cookbook features fifty recipes from every strata of classical civilization, from wedding feasts and lavish banquets to street food and simple meals, alongside step-by-step adaptations for the modern cook. Each chapter gives an informative historical outline, and translations of the 50 original recipes are followed by a modernized version. Each recipe is placed in context alongside descriptions of household life and festivity from across the classical world, to conjure the tastes, smells, sights and sounds of daily life.

Is a work of art still a work of art if it exists in several hundred identical examples? This illuminating introduction to masterpieces of printmaking reveals why prints can be considered to be every bit as original as any other visual art form. Offering a fresh look at printmaking, this stunningly illustrated book explores through magnified details the subtle differences in texture, shading, line, tone and colour that an artist can achieve in engravings, etchings, lithography and screen printing. The book discusses forty-five individual prints to highlight the genius of major historical and contemporary printmakers such as Durer, Rembrandt, Goya, Cezanne, Edward Hopper and Chuck Close. "Master Prints Close-Up" also includes a glossary of printmaking techniques, together with indicators for recognising them.

This title offers an informative and elegantly illustrated introduction to Chinese ink paintings and calligraphies from the twentieth and twenty first centuries.

The fragile beauty of glass has ensured its popularity through the ages in forms ranging from simple beakers to ornate decorative masterpieces. This beautifully illustrated book traces the story of glass from its origins in Mesopotamia some 5000 years ago, to the creation of the elegant vessels of the Islamic Near East, the superb mastery of Renaissance Venice and the creation of modern glassware for daily use.

A reissue of this popular title with a fresh new paperback format, this collection of beautiful Persian love poetry is richly illustrated with images from the British Museum s world - famous collection. Love is everywhere in Persian poetry and can be interpreted in various ways: as mystic love, the basis of the relationship between humans and God; as passionate or affectionate love between lovers, husbands and wives, parents and children, family and friends; even as patriotic love for Iran. The literary style and indeed the Persian language itself are floral and elaborate, but the themes differ little from our preoccupations with love and romance today. With a brief introduction to the Persian poetic tradition and a short biographical note about each of the major poets, this beautiful anthology is the perfect way to discover the treasures of Persian literature and art.

5000 Years of Tiles is the essential, single - volume colour compendium of tile art and production around the world, from ancient times to the present day. Over 350 beautiful colour illustrations showcase an incredible range of tile arts, including the first fired roof tiles in ancient Greece in the third millennium BC, English medieval floor pavements from Clarendon Palace, figural tiles from China, richly patterned Iznik tiles from the Islamic world and stylized ceramic tiles of the Arts and Crafts movement. Placing the tiles firmly in their historical and cultural context, this richly illustrated book highlights the continuity and diversity of tiles, examining how tile art in one time and place has inspired and rejuvenated those in others. The function and form of this versatile art is examined in stunning detail, from floors to roofs, stoves to bathrooms, cathedrals to metro stations to reveal a fascinating history of design, colour and decoration.

Haiku poems about the natural world and the seasons are well known, but many poets have used the genre to capture the evocations of love. Combining elegant and restrained haiku with lively senryu poems, all aspects of romantic love are explored here with humour, satire, wit and compassion. Poems by both men and women from the 1600s to the present day are beautifully illustrated with images from the unrivalled collection of Japanese paintings and prints in the British Museum. From the tender and the melanch oly to the witty and the ribald, the poems and images in Haiku: Love comment on the most universal of human emotions.

The Greeks and Romans were not shy about sex. Drinking cups, oil-lamps and walls were decorated with scenes of seduction and sexual intercourse which make the modern viewer blush; models of penises were worn around the neck or hung from doorways. In classical Greece, statues of erect penises served as boundary-stones and signposts. In Rome, marble satyrs and nymphs grappled in gardens. How are we to make sense of this abundance of sexual imagery? Were these images seductive, shocking, humorous? Were they about sex or love? And what and how do we learn from them? Sex on Show answers these questions by embracing ancient attitudes to religion, politics, sex and gender to examine how the ancient saw themselves and their world. Covering the sixth century BC to the fourth century AD, as well as some Neoclassical art from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, Sex on Show uses detailed visual analysis to bring new insights to Greek and Roman culture and to the meaning of erotic imagery, past and present. This is not simply a book about sexual practice or social history. It is a visual history about what it meant and still means to stare sex in the face.

The British Museum watch collection is unsurpassed anywhere in the world, and tells the story of the watch which spans an incredible 500 years. Within the collection are examples ranging from sixteenth-century early stack freed watches made in south Germany to exquisite decorative watches of the seventeenth century. Everyday watches from the eighteenth century and precision-made chronometers from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries are included, as are examples from the modern era. All the major makers of Europe and America will be represented, including Thomas Tompion, whose reputation stretched far and wide even in his own time, and the Swiss-born Abraham Louis Breguet, who lived and worked in Paris supplying the best that money could buy to the crown heads and aristocratic families of the western world. In contrast to the high precision of the horological giants, the Museum has a growing collection of wristwatches, including those with automatic winding systems. There are also extensive collections of pin-pallet lever watches made for the mass market during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries by companies such as Waterbury and Ingersoll. The collections are brought up to the minute with the inclusion of early examples of electro-mechanical watches and the quartz revolution.