It is a vast world one enters when writing on the statuettes of the Art Deco era: both in terms of the number of artists that contributed to it, and the number of figures they created. This book studies the influences that shaped these artists' work - namely, the growth of the Ballets Russes under the aegis of Sergei Diaghilev; the fascination in all things Egyptian that followed the discovery of Tutankhamun's tomb in 1924; and the Music Hall, with all of its venues, its stars and its glamor. Paris was a magnet for aspiring artists. An unrivaled destination for free-spending tourists, its popularity dwelt in the city's inexpensiveness, considering the absence of the dollar and the falling value of the franc. A thorough look at its artists and their work can only emerge from long investigation.

"This extraordinary book is the first in a projected series of specialized catalogues documenting the permanent collections of The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City, Missouri. The collection of Italian paintings, a total of sixty works, is a representative one for the years 1300-1800 with significant examples from all major schools." "Each catalogue entry, written by Eliot W. Rowlands, includes a thorough and lively biography on the artist; complete technical notes and a detailed description; a fully documented commentary with a discussion of attribution, date, subject, and function; an exacting list of references that also summarizes the critical history of each work; and a full account of exhibition history and provenance. All the Italian paintings in the Nelson-Atkins collection are reproduced in full color, and there are over 200 black-and-white comparative illustrations."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

This accessible Companion provides a wide-ranging and comprehensive introduction to French music from the early middle ages to the present.

Women and Power at the French Court, 1483--1563 explores the ways in which a range of women " as consorts, regents, mistresses, factional power players, attendants at court, or as objects of courtly patronage " wielded power in order to advance individual, familial, and factional agendas at the early sixteenth-century French court. Spring-boarding from the burgeoning scholarship of gender, the political, and power in early modern Europe, the collection provides a perspective from the French court, from the reigns of Charles VIII to Henri II, a time when the French court was a renowned center of culture and at which women played important roles. Crossdisciplinary in its perspectives, these essays by historians, art and literary scholars investigate the dynamic operations of gendered power in political acts, recognized status as queens and regents, ritualized behaviors such as gift-giving, educational coteries, and through social networking, literary and artistic patronage, female authorship, and epistolary strategies.

Commissioned and supervised by King Pedro IV, and compiled some time around 1380, The Chronicle of San Juan de la Pena was long valued as the earliest complete history of the Crown of Aragon. With Lynn H. Nelson's translation, the Chronicle is at last available in English.

A Companion to the French Revolution comprises twenty-nine newly-written essays reassessing the origins, development, and impact of this great turning-point in modern history. Examines the origins, development and impact of the French Revolution Features original contributions from leading historians, including six essays translated from French. Presents a wide-ranging overview of current historical debates on the revolution and future directions in scholarship Gives equally thorough treatment to both causes and outcomes of the French Revolution