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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 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.

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").

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

"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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Edward Burne-Jones, member of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood is renowned for his beautiful but usually melancholy evocations of a mythical, literary, ancient or medieval world, as well as his life-long friendship with William Morris. It will surprise many therefore to discover that he was a talented caricaturist and comic sketch artist. This charming book reveals a man brimming with imagination, a keen eye and impish sense of humour who took delight in drawing to amuse and entertain. His witty but affectionate caricatures of friends and family feature familiar faces, such as Morris and Dante Gabriel Rossetti, while his self-caricatures are endearingly self-deprecating. Accompanying these are enchanting sketches he created to illustrate letters and entertain children, and an introduction discussing the life and work of the artist in wider context. Beautifully illustrated with rarely published pieces from the large collection at the British Museum, this book provides an insight into another side of Burne-Jones and illuminates the personality and relationships of one of the most beloved English romantic painters.

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.

The British Museum holds one of the finest collections of Chinese prints outside Asia, with particular strength in the modern period. Its wide range includes examples dating back to the invention of printing in China through its development, both technically and aesthetically, over more than a millennium, from the 8th to the 20th century. This book features 100 of the most iconic and important examples from the British Museums collection, all illustrated with color photographs taken specially for this publication. Many have never before been published. The accompanying text explains the important features of each print, including techniques, aesthetic principles and cultural context, to open up this fascinating subject to a wider audience. The introduction gives a concise survey of the subject, explaining how revolutionary the invention of printing in China was and how its influence spread worldwide. Contributions from three international experts give context for the major sections. The unique range and scope of the British Museums collection offer the material for a stunning overview which provides a long overdue introduction to the Chinese printmakers art.

Over the course of the Edo period (1600-1868), an extraordinarily large quantity of paintings, prints and illustrated books with sexual and erotic themes was produced in Japan. As urban culture expanded rapidly during the seventeenth century, erotic material was a major genre of woodblock print production. These constitute some of the finest examples of art-printing in Japan, employing deluxe materials and special printing effects. This book looks at pictures by some of the most renown artists, such as Kitagawa Utamaro and Katsushika Hokusai, who produced erotic imagery as a standard part of their work. When creating erotica, artists often played on sexual situations in everyday life: a wife catches her husband having sex with a maid, mice start copulating in imitation of humans. Erotic encounters in Edo-period woodblock prints reflect multiple perspectives male, female, heterosexual and homosexual. Japanese erotic art is also notable for its tone of humour, much more so than in Western representations of sex. There was also frequent recourse to satire and parody, often in defiance of contemporary censorship and sumptuary regulations.

'Lavishly illustrated and extremely comprehensive ...a bargain' - Antiques Magazine . 'The evolution of pottery ...is fascinating, and this book does it justice' - The Good Book Guide . 'An epic tale ...a book to buy and to treasure' - Crafts Magazine . This is the definitive British Museum reference book reissued with a beautiful new jacket design and pbk-with-flaps cover. This is the classic, comprehensive, colour survey of ceramic art and production worldwide, from prehistory to the present day. It offers a mine of information for students and anyone interested in pottery. Pottery is one of the earliest and most widespread of human activities and its history can be traced back to the Stone Age. This comprehensive account begins with the earliest civilizations of the Near and Middle East and follows the production of pottery chronologically around the globe. The final chapters analyse the development of ceramics as a medium of personal expression by artist and studio potters from the beginning of the twentieth century to the present day. The breathtaking wealth of illustrations drawn from major collections all over the world includes examples of all the major styles, materials and forms from all periods. Emmanuel Cooper is an internationally renowned potter, writer, critic and broadcaster and is editor of the highly respected and influential magazine Ceramic Review . He has written widely on both modern and historical ceramics. Since 1999, he has been Visiting Professor of Ceramics and Glass at the Royal College of Art and is a member of the Arts Council of Great Britain.