Fonthill, in Wiltshire, is traditionally associated with the writer and collector William Beckford who built his Gothic fantasy house called Fonthill Abbey at the end of the eighteenth century. The collapse of the Abbey’s tower in 1825 transformed the name Fonthill into a symbol for overarching ambition and folly, a sublime ruin. Fonthill is, however, much more than the story of one man’s excesses. Beckford’s Abbey is only one of several important houses to be built on the estate since the early sixteenth century, all of them eventually consumed by fire or deliberately demolished, and all of them oddly forgotten by historians. Little now remains: a tower, a stable block, a kitchen range, some dressed stone, an indentation in a field. Fonthill Recovered draws on histories of art and architecture, politics and economics to explore the rich cultural history of this famous Wiltshire estate. The first half of the book traces the occupation of Fonthill from the Bronze Age to the twenty-first century. Some of the owners surpassed Beckford in terms of their wealth, their collections, their political power and even, in one case, their sexual misdemeanours. They include Charles I’s Chancellor of the Exchequer, and the richest commoner in the nineteenth century. The second half of the book consists of essays on specific topics, filling out such crucial areas as the complex history of the designed landscape, the sources of the Beckfords’ wealth and their collections, and one essay that features the most recent appearance of the Abbey in a video game.

This book celebrates the work and career of the internationally renowned art historian, David Bindman, on the occasion of his 75th birthday, and is above all a tribute to him from his former students and colleagues. With essays on sculpture, drawings, watercolours and prints, the volume reflects the extraordinary range of Bindman's knowledge of works of art and his impact through his teaching and research on the understanding of British and European artistic developments from the eighteenth to the twentieth century. The essays cast light on questions of technique and stylistic change, patronage, collecting and iconography, and engage with issues such as the representation of race, gender, sexuality, political violence and propaganda, exile, and notions of the canon. The artists discussed here include Hogarth, Blake, Roubiliac, Thorvaldsen and Canova, all subjects of books by David Bindman, as well as Morland, Rowlandson, Gillray, Millais, Munch, Nevinson, and Heartfield.

The catalog for the Norton Museum of Art exhibition, High Tea: Glorious Manifestations East and West focuses on the art of tea in high society from eight key cultures worldwide: China, Korea, Japan, Germany/Austria, France, Russia, Britain, and America.