Designer British Silver explores the designer-silversmiths who have shaped British silver from the 1950s through to the present day. Covering a complete generation of craftsmen and women, and featuring one-to-one interviews with key figures, the book reveals the people and forces behind the post-war Renaissance that made Britain a centre of excellence for designer makers in silver. The fifty leading figures are covered in-depth, from Malcolm Appleby to John Willmin. Detailed insight is provided on the lives and works of each maker, alongside lavish illustrations and extended captions telling the story of every remarkable piece of silver. Designer British Silver also includes a fascinating overview of the post-war revival of British silver, a section on where to view designer British silver and additional listings of designers, craftsmen, silver manufacturers and engravers. Contents: Acknowledgements; Abbreviations; Foreword; Introduction; The Work and Lives of the Leading Designer-Silversmiths; Listing of Designers, Craftsmen, Silver Manufacturers and Engravers; Where to see Designer British Silver; Glossary; Bibliography; Index.

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.

Il catalogo riproduce interamente la Suite 347, di proprietà di Bancaja di Valencia. Tutte le incisioni, appunto 347, realizzate da Picasso tra marzo e ottobre del 1968, rappresentano il "diario di bordo" di un uomo che "senza curarsi delle proprie ansie o di quelle profonde inquietudini che spesso cercava, portandole a galla, di esorcizzare," si apriva "alla percezione del mondo esterno, quel mondo che a un uomo di quasi 87 anni appariva folle, grottesco. Aveva visto ben altro!" La Suite è composta da quattro grandi nuclei tematici: La Celestina, ovvero le stampe selezionate da Picasso per un'edizione della Celestina di Fernando de Rojas, pubblicata dall'atelier Crommelynck nel 1971; Picasso, la sua opera e il suo pubblico, una sorta di presentazione dei soggetti principali e di tutte le tecniche e gli stili utilizzati; Mitologia e circo, in cui affiorano la mitologia mediterranea e i tradizionali temi picassiani: il Don Chisciotte, i personaggi di Rembrandt, Raffaello, le mezzane ecc...; Il pittore e le modelle, incisioni che rimandano a temi della Suite Vollard e a quelli ripresi nella Suite 156 con Degas e Poussin nella parte di voyeur, i moschettieri e le donne rembrandtiane. Inoltre, il tema di Raffaello e la Fornarina, già trattato da Ingres, viene affrontato da Picasso con maggiore ironia e malizia. Annotation Supplied by Informazioni Editoriali

An annotated edition of Lolita, first published in 1970 with a revised edition in 1991. The novel which first established Nabokov's reputation with a large audience is a comic satire on sex and the American ways of life. It focuses on the love of a middle-aged European for an American nymphet.