Printed images were ubiquitous in early modern Britain, and they often convey powerful messages which are all the more important for having circulated widely at the time. Yet, by comparison with printed texts, these images have been neglected, particularly by historians to whom they ought to be of the greatest interest. This volume helps remedy this state of affairs. Complementing the online digital library of British Printed Images to 1700 (www.bpi1700.org.uk), it offers a series of essays which exemplify the many ways in which such visual material can throw light on the history of the period. Ranging from religion to politics, polemic to satire, natural science to consumer culture, the collection explores how printed images need to be read in terms of the visual syntax understood by contemporaries, their full meaning often only becoming clear when they are located in the context in which they were produced and deployed. The result is not only to illustrate the sheer richness of material of this kind, but also to underline the importance of the messages which it conveys, which often come across more strongly in visual form than through textual commentaries. With contributions from many leading exponents of the cultural history of early modern Britain, including experts on religion, politics, science and art, the book's appeal will be equally wide, demonstrating how every facet of British culture in the period can be illuminated through the study of printed images.

From the 15th century on, engravings influenced European culture almost as profoundly as books. Like stained glass windows in the Middle Ages or television today, popular prints were designed to reach even the lowest orders of society. In the 17th century, Peter Stent, whose shop stood outside Newgate, was England's most prolific seller of popular prints, maps, and copybooks to the working and rising middle classes. His inventory of copper plates reflected the shifts of popular tastes during this period and commented directly on the turbulent events of the day. In documenting Stent's output, Alexander Globe studied the printsellers' advertising catalogues as external controls for reconstructing inventories as well as indices to contemporary tastes. From these and other contemporary sources, Globe cites every engraving and book attributable to Stent, breaking down the material into types: portraits, maps, miscellaneous sheets, and books (including works on handwriting, politics, natural history, anatomy, costume, and architecture). References and additions are made to the catalogues of Donald Wing and A.M. Hind. Globe takes the history of engraving beyond Hind by including prints from the Commonwealth, Protectorate, and early Restoration periods. Eight appendices supplement the catalogue information. They provide evidence for print identificiation, discuss paper sizes, and list Stent's artists, suppliers, and business associates. All the collectiions in which Stent items may be found are named. The volume concludes with a bibliography and indices of subject as well as post-17th century authors. Globe's introduction to Stent's work is concerned with the social, political, and economic conditions leading to the emergence of a popular printseller who catered to a different clientele from that usually studied by art historians. Stent's career illustrates the mid-17th century commercial revolution which saw the artisan's customers change from the wealthy leisure class to the worker who wanted mass-produced cheap goods. Drawing on material in a hundred libraries and museums around the world, the catalogue describes over fifteen hundred engravings, including 319 sheets and five books of portraits, 42 maps, 102 miscellaneous prints and sets (with religious, classical, heeraldic, and satirical subjects), and 86 books (on handwriting, politics, military training, natural history, figure sketches, costume, architecture, and ornament). Richly illustrated with 319 plates, Peter Stent will prove valuable not only to print dealers, art historians, museums, and libraries, but also to social, cultural, and political historians.

In the first book of its kind, art information expert Lois Swan Jones discusses how to locate visual and textual information on the Internet and how to evaluate and supplement that information with material from other formats--print sources, CD-ROMS, documentary videos, and microfiche sets--to produce excellent research results. The book is divided into three sections: Basic Information Formats; Types of Websites and How to Find Them; and How to Use Web Information. Jones discusses the strengths and limitations of Websites; scholarly and basic information resources are noted; and search strategies for finding pertinent Websites are included. Art Information and the Internet also discusses research methodology for studying art-historical styles, artists working in various media, individual works of art, and non-Western cultures--as well as art education, writing about art, problems of copyright, and issues concerning the buying and selling of art. This title will be periodically updated.

Among the world's greatest technological and imaginative achievements is the invention and development of the timepiece. Examining for the first time The Metropolitan Museum of Art's unparalleled collection of European clocks and watches created from the late Renaissance through the nineteenth century, this fascinating book enriches our understanding of the origins and evolution of these ingenious works. It showcases fifty-four clocks, watches, and other timekeeping devices, each represented with an in-depth description and new photography of the exterior and the inner mechanisms. Among these masterpieces is an ornate sixteenth-century celestial timepiece that accurately predicts the trajectory of the sun, moon, and stars; an eighteenth-century longcase clock by David Roentgen that shows the time in the ten most important cities of the day; and a nineteenth-century watch featuring a penetrating portrait of Czar Nicholas I of Russia. Created by the best craftsmen in Austria, England, Flanders, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, and Switzerland, these magnificent timepieces have been selected for their remarkable beauty and design, as well as their sophisticated mechanics. Built upon decades of expert research, this publication is a long-overdue survey of these stunning visual and technological marvels.