Founded in 1890, The Designmuseum Danmark is the country’s national museum for design and handicrafts. This engaging guide showcases Danish design, as well as artefacts from around the world, housed in a former 18th-century baroque hospital.

Danish design is generally associated with modernity, simplicity and functionality, particularly from the mid- 20th century onwards. However, Anne-Louise Sommer’s new guide to Designmuseum Danmark reveals a richer history, tracing the Museum’s origins in the late 19th century as educational collections of beautiful objects and good craftsmanship. The museum has an extensive collection from the West, with a focus on Danish handicrafts and design. In addition, there are significant collections from East Asia, especially China and Japan. Sommer’s selection includes works by Hiroshige, Lalique, Matisse, Bindesbøll, Henningsen, Klint, Riis-Carstensen and Juhl.

The museum has always aimed to disseminate the concept of good design and how design and craftsmanship can make the world better place to live in. Designmuseum Danmark moved in its current site, the baroque former Frederiks Hospital, in the 1920s. As Sommer observes ‘It makes perfect sense that design, which in Denmark is often closely bound up with a democratic and inclusive way of thinking, should be housed in a building that was once the cradle of the welfare state.’

With around 300,000 visitors a year, the museum places a high priority on learning at all levels, with increasing interest, nationally and internationally, as it continues to innovate and contribute to the broad development of society. The aim of the museum was to disseminate the concept of good design in a society that was being changed by industrialisation.

Published to celebrate the opening of the Denver Art Museum’s newly renovated campus, this stunning volume highlights masterworks from the museum’s global art collection. Founded in 1893, the Denver Art Museum is now one of the largest art museums between Chicago and the West Coast. Featuring around 70,000 works, the collection represents cultures from Africa and Asia to Europe and Oceania, from the ancient past to the present day. Housed in landmark buildings by Daniel Libeskind and Gio Ponti, the museum also showcases work by regional artists, and provides invaluable ways for the community to learn about the world.

The Old and New Testaments are full of compelling female characters: good wives and bad, courageous heroines, and deceptive – sometimes deadly – femmes fatales. Dangerous Women presents works from the rich holdings of the John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art that explore different artists’ responses to the women of the Bible. Paintings by Pietro da Cortona, Francesco Cairo, and Fede Galizia and others stand as a reminder of how dangerous biblical women have continued to loom large in the modern imagination. These stories in this volume show how narratives of power are constructed, interpreted, and continue to evolve over the course of time. While some women saved their people, were paragons of virtue, or repented, others were purveyors of sin, harlots, and seductresses. Even if it was through their misbehaviour, all of these women – from Mary Magdalene, to Judith and Esther, to Salome and Potiphar’s Wife – shaped biblical history.

Contents: Acknowledgements; Why Are These Women Dangerous?; The Danger of Biblical Women; Plates

Colonists, Citizens, Constitutions highlights documents that tell the story of American constitutionalism from the founding era through the turn of the twentieth century. Accompanying a major exhibition at the New-York Historical Society and the Museum of the American Revolution, the book features federal and state constitutional materials – including a rare, privately owned copy of the original 1787 US constitution – that offer essential windows onto the history of the United States. Remarkably numerous and impressively diverse, constitutions enabled Americans to create revolutionary governments of, by, and for the people. Weaving both well-known and less familiar documents into a compelling narrative, the accessible text reveals how Americans have exercised their constitutional powers to shape their communities and why democracy remains an ongoing process, one in which citizens must constantly strive to create ‘more perfect’ unions among themselves.Contents: Foreword; Preface; Collecting Evidence: The Making of an American Collection; Introduction; 1. Experiments in Self-Government; 2. An Expanding Union; 3. Slavery and Freedom; 4. Reform and Renewal; Epilogue; Works in the Catalogue; Selected Bibliography; Acknowledgments; Index

During a 19th century renovation of a confectioner’s shop in the town of Colmar, France, workers chanced upon a precious hoard of medieval jewellery and coins hidden in a wall. The cache – known as the Colmar Treasure – is thought to have been concealed by a Jewish family prior to the outbreak of the Plague in 1348, when Jews across the region were tragically scapegoated and put to violent death. This exquisite volume, published to accompany an exhibition at The Met Cloisters, examines their legacy through the lens of the Colmar treasure, shedding light on what it reveals about the work, homes, worship and values of its owners.

Accompanies an exhibition at The Met Cloisters from 22 July 2019 to 12 January 2020.

Contents:
Director’s Foreword
Acknowledgments
Finding Treasure in Colmar
Finding the Lost Jews of Colmar
Unlocking a Medieval Jewel Box
Catalogue
Notes
Bibliography
Index

The Toledo Museum of Art ranks among the finest in the United States. Its many galleries, Sculpture Garden and Glass Pavilion house one of the nation’s most dazzling art collections in architecturally distinguished buildings. This beautifully illustrated handbook includes many of the most important and popular works, including outstanding paintings and sculptures by Cézanne, Cole, Degas, Gainsborough, Holbein, Kiefer, Miró, Monet, Picasso, Rembrandt, Rubens, and Van Gogh; masterworks from antiquity and Asia; decorative arts; and highlights from the world-renowned glass collection. Elegantly designed with an accessible and informative text, this is an essential volume for all visitors to the museum and anyone interested in the history of art.

A ‘sunny, cheerful, happy house’, Clarence House has served as the private London residence for members of the Royal Family since it was built in 1827, and it retains the welcoming feel of a much-loved family home. Its distinctive atmosphere owes much to the late Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother, who lived at Clarence House for 50 years. The works of art she collected throughout her life remain on display in the ground-floor rooms that are open to the public.

Now the official London residence of TRH The Prince of Wales and The Duchess of Cornwall, Clarence House continues to provide an intimate setting for family occasions. But this is also very much a working house. Each year TRH welcome guests from visiting heads of State to school children, and host a wide variety of receptions and meetings in support of charities and other organisations.

Contents: Introduction; A Royal Residence: William, Duke of Clarence (1765-1837); Victoria, Duchess of Kent (1786-1861); The Duke and Duchess of Edinburgh; Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother; The Prince of Wales and The Duchess of Cornwall; The House and Gardens: A brief introduction to the architectural history; The Entrance and Hall; The Lancaster Room; The Morning Room; The Library; The Dining Room; The Horse Corridor; The Garden Room. A Working House: Official entertaining; School visits; Working lunches and dinners; Receptions; Teas.

There is no better place to learn your ABCs than at the circus! Only
there can you work your way through the alphabet with acrobats, bears,
clowns, dogs, elephants, and many more. Beautifully illustrated with
vintage circus posters from the Tibbals Circus Collection at the John
and Mable Ringling Museum of Art, this entertaining book is the perfect
read for children of all ages.

Sir Victor Sassoon (1881-1961) lived an extraordinary and colourful life and left a remarkable legacy. He created a trust to preserve his collection of ivories for the benefit of UK citizens. Since its foundation and under the guardianship of the dedicated trustees, the collection has grown by the addition of significant specimens that originally went unrepresented. Chinese Ivory Carvings presents 350 of its most significant artefacts, each illustrated and discussed. Four introductory essays explore the acquisition of the pieces, placing the ivories in their historical and cultural context. In this scholarly celebration of Sassoon’s bequest, one can appreciate some of the many facets of Chinese culture both religious and secular. Including minutely carved ‘devil’s work’ spheres, massive figures and exuberantly carved vases, the book is also testament to the technical skills of the craftsmen who produced these wonderful objects.

In China, a fan has traditionally been both a practical object and an artistic work that expresses the owner’s learning or personality. The high-end craftsmanship of Chinese fans, encompassing poetry, calligraphy and painting, has long captivated the West.

This sumptuous book, newly translated from the original Korean, showcases 71 examples dating from between the late 18th and 20th centuries. It follows on from the popular volume on European Fans, and the fine objects featured in Chinese Fans are again drawn from the renowned Eurus Collection in South Korea.

Also in the series: European Fans, ISBN 9781785514128

Chester Cathedral was a monastic church of the Benedictine order for over 450 years before it was closed during Henry VIII’s reformation of the Church in England, and immediately re-opened as the cathedral of the new diocese of Chester. As a result it retains much of the flavour of a monastic institution, with a fine Norman refectory, a superb Early English Gothic chapter-house and a cloister garth which forms a tranquil oasis in the heart of the busy modern city.

Originally dedicated to a local Saxon saint, Werburgh, Chester became an important centre of medieval pilgrimage and St Werburgh’s shrine still stands in the cathedral. The cathedral’s fourteenth-century choir stalls are among the finest in the country, featuring a riot of imaginative wood-carving. Its external appearance today, however, is largely the result of major Victorian restoration work by Sir George Gilbert Scott, much needed as the soft local stone did not age well. As modern architecture is also represented by the new Song School, opened in 2003, Chester Cathedral is a rare amalgamation of old and new, captured perfectly in this splendid little book.

One of the finest remaining American Country Place era estates in the
nation, Cheekwood is a 55-acre historic estate, comprised of a botanical
garden, arboretum, and museum with historic rooms and art galleries in
Nashville, Tennessee. Formerly the family home of Leslie Cheek and his
wife Mabel Wood, investors in the family Maxwell House Coffee Business,
the extraordinary 1930s estate designed by Bryant Fleming features a
Georgian mansion, formal gardens, and expansive views and vistas. Today,
Cheekwood serves the public showcasing 12 distinct gardens, 7,000 works
in its permanent collection as well as travelling exhibitions, and a
mile-long woodland trail featuring modern and contemporary outdoor
sculpture. This richly illustrated book explores its historic origins as
a private estate and traces its evolution as a public institution to
the beloved destination that it is today.