A Thames & Hudson first edition with 46 illustrations, 14 in colour, chronicling one of the most spectacular art appropriation campaigns in history. Napoleon Bonaparte brought the Bayeux Tapestry to the Louvre Museum in France to whip up further for the proposed invasion of England. In 1796, four years after the founding of the First French Republic and only two days after his marriage to Josephine de Beauharnais, Bonaparte left Paris to take command of his first campaign in Italy, aged only 26. One year later his army was in Venice, and his commissioners were determining which great Renaissance artworks to bring back to France. Among the paintings the French chose was 'The Wedding Feast at Cana' by Paolo Veronese, a vast masterpiece that had hung in the refectory of San Giorgio Maggiore since it was painted in 1563. Once pulled down from the wall, the Venetian canvas crossed the Mediterranean packed among paintings commandeered from Venice, and made its way by river and canal to Paris where Napoleon gathered his spoils of war - treasures from the cities of Rome, Milan and later Berlin and Vienna. In 1801, the Veronese was placed on triumphant display in what was once called the Musée Napoleon, now known as the Louvre, the former palace of the French kings which had been transformed into a public museum that ostensibly belonged to the French people, but which also functioned as a monument to Napoleon's power. Cynthia Saltzman interweaves the stories of Napoleon's military campaigns, uncovering the treatise through which he obtained his loot, with the histories of the plundered artworks themselves. 300pp, colour.

A heavyweight and very glamorous Thames & Hudson publication, a book that asks with a restless and sensitive eye what it is that makes masterpieces sing across the centuries. There are endless nuggets of ancillary information which are worth reading in this mammoth task by the feature writer for BBC Culture. Kelly Grovier devotes himself to this radical new art history, stepping away from biography, style and chronology of 'isms' to focus on the artworks themselves. He identifies an 'eye-hook', the part of the artwork that 'bridges the divide between art and life, giving it palpable purpose and elevating its value beyond the visual to the vital.' He encourages us to squint through this narrow aperture to perceive the work's truest meanings. From Botticelli's Birth of Venus to Picasso's Guernica, from a carved mammoth tusk c40,000BCE to Duchamp's Fountain 1917 and Bosch's Garden of Earthly Delights (1505-10) to Louise Bourgeois's Maman (1999), a remarkable lexicon of astonishing imagery has imprinted itself onto cultural consciousness. He includes Parthenon sculptures from 444BC, the Terracotta Army of the First Qin Emperor c210BC, the Book of Kells AD800, the Bayeux Tapestry c1077, Universal Man 1165 by Hildegard of Bingen, the Ghent Altarpiece by Van Eyck, the Mona Lisa, the Sistine Chapel, Las Meninas, Girl with a Pearl Earring, The Hay Wain, Whistler's Mother, The Scream, The Kiss, The Dance, among the 57 chosen works, some very famous others not so much, each given special treatment, with full and close up images in colour on glossy white paper. 256 pages, 20 x 27.7cm, 200 illustrations in glorious colour.

A landmark publication for photography, well written and nicely designed with concise entries on photographers, genres and processes, one that will be enjoyed for many years to come. A truly heavyweight tome in a modern elegant design, the first image is by Richard Avedon, Dovima with Elephants, a beautiful woman in a long black dress with white sash holding the trunks of two elephants, sadly chained, in an arresting black and white image. Other such images to contemplate and recall are Raising the Flag on the Reichstag, 1945 by a photojournalist for the TASS press agency in Moscow documenting the advance of the Red Army during the capture of Berlin, symbolising the fall of the Nazi regime. There are boys playing marbles in front of a mosque in Istanbul 1968, subway passengers New York City 1938, Paris in 1932 on a rainy day outside a train station by Henri Cartier-Bresson, Lewis Caroll's Alice Liddell as The Beggar Maid 1858, plus photo montages and reportage right through to digital photographs and image software such as Photoshop, this is documentary photography at its very best. It is a reference to more than 180 years of history in one authoritative volume, more than 1,200 concise and fully cross-referenced entries on the art, history, science, masters and proponents of photography from Abbas to Zoom lens. Illustrated with over 300 photographs in colour and black and white, diagrams and built upon fresh scholarship by an international team of 79 researchers. Truly epic. 438pp, 19.6 x 30.2cm, amazing softback Thames & Hudson first edition.
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A screaming crab-eating macaque going cheap at Spanish market, a Kemp's ridley sea turtle on an Alabama beach attached to a discarded beach chair by the neck, a young male lion poisoned in Kenya's Masai Mara. Wildlife Photography has surged in importance as our environment becomes more threatening and the lives of thousands of species are endangered. These 100 glorious photos have been selected from 48,130 entries in the Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition in 2019, and every one is a small masterpiece. The entries are judged blind so that an amateur photographer could scoop a prize, but in fact the winners are usually veterans with long experience and expertise. This reflects that fact that behind a good wildlife picture there are often months of preparation and hours or even weeks of patient waiting for the subject to appear in the desired context. Animal behaviour came to the foreground in this competition, and there was also an increase in entries from distant regions such as Mongolia, Tajikistan and China, possibly reflecting increase in access to equipment. The grand-title winner is Yongqing Bao, a Tibetan from China, whose image of a young marmot in the moment of realising that a fox was about to pounce is a haunting reminder that these photos reflect the savagery of nature. The portfolio award went to Stefan Christmann of Germany with his elegant and rather touching image of emperor penguins mating in an icy landscape. A blank sheet of snow also dominates the winning image for a young photographer's portfolio: Jérémie Villet of France got frostbite while recording two male Dall's sheep huddling together for warmth, having started out in territorial combat. Other striking images include bright orange algae weaving a tapestry on a Monterey cypress tree, and a large bull hippo snatching a calf from its mother with a view to killing it, probably in order to relieve overcrowding. The cover image of a puma attacking a guanaco in Patagonia had a happier ending with the escape of the prey. A Weddell seal, a juvenile jackfish travelling inside a jellyfish, and a garden of eels in the Philippines are some of the stunning shots of sealife. 160pp, over 100 large colour images on glossy paper, biographies of photographers and scenario descriptions of all the entries. 25.5cm square.
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Who painted Guernica? In which museum can La Joconde be seen? How many arms has the Venus de Milo? What is Rodin's first name? Which Dutch painter was inseparable from his wife Saskia? Which art movement was born in England in the mid 19th century? What is the name of the world's oldest auction house? These multiple choice questions are accessible to all ages from 14 years and up, designed for 2-8 players, 150 question cards, one dice and one rule book including a glossary of the main artistic movements. 12.3 x 8.5 x 12.4cm box set.

Step into a world of star-crossed lovers, magical winds, mischievous giants, and trolls, through some of the most exquisite illustrations in publishing history. In this gorgeous abridged edition, Taschen revives the most ambitious publication project of beloved Danish artist Kay Nielsen, one of the most famous children's book illustrators of all time. The 10 tales included are: East of the Sun and West of the Moon, The Blue Belt, Prince Lindworm, The Lassie and Her Godmother, The Husband Who Was to Mind the House, The Three Princesses of Witheland, The Giant With No Heart in His Body, The Widow?s Son, he Three Billy Goats Gruff and The Three Princesses in the Blue Mountain. First published in 1914, 'East of the Sun and West of the Moon' is a celebrated collection of fairy tales gathered by legendary Norwegian folklorists Peter Christen Asbjørnsen and Jørgen Engebretsen Moe on their journeys across Norway in the mid-19th century. Nielsen's illustration edition of Asbjørnsen and Moe's tales is considered a jewel of early 20th century children's literature, highly sought-after by art and book collectors worldwide. An original signed copy of the book sold at auction in 2008 commanded the highest price ever paid for an illustrated children's book. This finely crafted volume presents ten of the original fairytales, and restores the artistry of Nielsen's images to their original splendour. Featuring 41 enchanting illustrations, including many enlarged details from Nielsen's rare original watercolours, lovely fonts used, the decorative mono panelling on the text pages and book illustration from the era, this is so much more than a book of folk tales. The book has small details picked out and used as chapter headers and comes with three accompanying essays, illustrated with dozens of rare and previously unseen artworks by Nielsen, that explore the history of Norwegian folktales, Nielsen's life and work, and how this masterpiece came to be. New from Taschen. With ribbon bookmark, 23.5 x 30.5 cm, 168 pages.

The exotic, sensuous paintings of Gustav Klimt recall the art of ancient civilisations - their patterns and ornamentation reminiscent of Byzantine mosaics and Egyptian murals with their gold leaf and shimmering colours. This beautifully illustrated book on the life and work of Klimt, one of the most influential artists of the Art Nouveau movement, describes how he first achieved fame as a decorative painter before turning to portraiture and erotic art. Chapters cover The Secession Years, Femmes Fatale, Landscapes and the Later Works and of course his abstract compositions with flattened, glowing surfaces embellished with gold and silver leaf. This technique is perhaps best identified in his two portraits of Adele Bloch Bauer. With features on key works and an easy-to-read timeline, 96 large quality pages, 23.5 x 28.8cm, glowing colour throughout. New full price.
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The Tiger Who Came to Tea, Babar, Ludwig Bemelmens' Madeline and Hansi who is packed onto a train by his mother and travels up the mountains, Edward Ardizzone's Lucy Brown and Mr Grimes and Little Tim books, Peter Rabbit, Tomi Ungerer's Moon Man, Edward Bawden, William Steig, Astrid Lindgren, Hans Christian Andersen, Ted Hughes, Maurice Sendak, David Gentleman's Fenella in the South of France, Felix Hoffman's The Sleeping Beauty. This unashamed visual feast of old and new, classic and not so famous but equally collectible imagery celebrates the best designed and illustrated picture books from around the world over the past 100 years. Each book is a creation of genius and inventiveness, and their design and illustration represent such diverse trends as the Russian Constructivists, Italian Futurists and Postwar Neo-romantics. They are also mirrors of their times reflecting social concerns from a child's and family's perspectives throughout the 20th and into the 21st century. Fearlessly confronting the frontiers between a child's picture book and art, this is a collectors of children's literature. Hundreds of gorgeous original colour images and book jackets reproduced. 22.86 x 2.54 x 29.21cm. Rare and collectible, 216 pages.

Expanded and Updated Edition, MIT Press, here's the triumphant return of a book that gave us permission to throw out the rulebook, in activities ranging from play to architecture to revolution. As a design principle, adhocism starts with everyday improvisations: a bottle as a candleholder, a dictionary as a doorstop, a tractor seat on wheels as a dining room chair, a footstool of female stockinged legs. Think Le Drugstore on King's Road or Archimboldo. When this book first appeared in 1972, it was part of the spirit that would define a new architecture and design era - a new way of thinking ready to move beyond the purist doctrines and formal models of modernism. Turned-off citizens of the 1970s immediately adopted the book as a DIY guide. The word "adhocism" entered the vocabulary, the concept of adhocism became part of the designer's toolkit, and Adhocism became a cult classic. Now available again, with new texts by Jencks and Silver reflecting on the past 40 years of adhocism and new illustrations demonstrating adhocism's continuing relevance. But it is also an undeveloped force within the way we approach almost every activity, from play to architecture to city planning to political revolution, the Pluriverse, The authors are brilliant at describing the mix of mechanisms, materials and metaphors which can help communities and cultures keep their stories alive and relevant. Engagingly written, filled with hundreds of pictures and examples from areas as diverse as auto mechanics and biology. 256 page paperback.

A rewarding view of more than five millennia of artistic achievements, this stunningly beautiful Metropolitan Museum of Art publication has been specially imported by Bibliophile. The Middle Kingdom (ca. 2030-1650 B.C.), the second great era of ancient Egyptian culture following the great "Pyramid Age" of the Old Kingdom, was a transformational period during which the artistic conventions, cultural principles, religious beliefs, and political systems formed during earlier dynasties were developed and reimagined. This comprehensive volume presents a detailed picture of the least known of Egypt's three kingdoms yet a time of remarkable prosperity and unprecedented change. International specialists present new insights into how Middle Kingdom artists refined existing forms and iconography to make strikingly original architecture, statuary, tomb and temple relief decoration, and stele. Thematic sections explore art produced for different strata of Egyptian society, including the pharaoh, royal women, the elite, and the family, while other chapters provide insight into Egypt's expanding relations with foreign lands and the themes of Middle Kingdom literature. Statues in their settings, artists and workshops, elite tombs connecting the living and the dead, Thebes during the Eleventh Dynasty, the Pharoah, Royal Women, Courts and Provinces, conquest and colonisation, the supernatural, Abydos and Osiris, excavations and selected archaeological sites, more than 250 objects from major collections around the world are sumptuously illustrated, many with new photography undertaken specifically for this exhibition catalogue publication. Dripping in 365 colour and 42 mono illus, heavyweight quality, six maps, chronology. 24.13 x 3.18 x 30.48cm. 400 pages.
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