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"This book takes you through the collection gallery by gallery, illuminating the art and installations in each room"--From preface.
Born in 1915 to one of New England’s elite wealthy families, Isabella Gardner was expected to follow a certain path in life—one that would take her from marriageable debutante to proper society lady. But that plan was derailed when at age eighteen, Isabella caused a drunk-driving accident. Her family, to shield her from disgrace, sent her to Europe for acting studies, not foreseeing how life abroad would fan the romantic longings and artistic impulses that would define the rest of Isabella’s years. In Not at All What One Is Used To, author Marian Janssen tells the story of this passionate, troubled woman, whose career as a poet was in constant compromise with her wayward love life and ...
Described as 'greedy and grasping, and raised from nothing', the Woodviles have had a bad press. 'Brought Up of Nought' investigates the family origins, explains the rise and fall of the senior branch, and how the junior branch rose to the highest levels of court society after struggling to establish itself in Northamptonshire. The family originally rose to the status of 'baron', but lost land over time as it descended to the gentry; however, the medieval wheel of fortune was to turn dramatically in favour of the junior branch in Northamptonshire. Early in the 15th century, Richard, the son of Richard Woodvile Esq., was placed in the service of John Duke of Bedford at his court in Rouen, which resulted in his secret marriage to the duke's young widow Jacquetta. In 1464, their daughter Elizabeth made an extraordinary marriage to Edward IV, which attracted great criticism, resulting in a period of slander that continues to this day. This book argues that the Woodvile's blackened reputation was the result of a campaign by Richard, Earl of Warwick who was jealous and eager to retrieve his position as 'kingmaker'.
Copying the Master and Stealing His Secrets examines the transmission of painting traditions in Japan from one generation to the next. The contributors emphasize the relationship between inborn abilities and those skills taught in the course of learning how to paint. They focus their discussion on a group of painting masters loosely associated with the prestigious Kano painting atelier, Japan's de facto painting academy throughout the Tokugawa period (1615-1868) and into the early modern era. By delving into why, how, and what these painters transmitted to students through their teaching, readers gain insight into artistic and aesthetic sensibilities active in Japanese painting and a fuller appreciation of extant paintings within their cultural and historical contexts.
Smuggling the Renaissance: The Illicit Export of Artworks Out of Italy, 1861-1909 explores the phenomenon of art spoliation in Italy following Unification (1861), when the international demand for Italian Renaissance artworks was at an all-time high but effective art protection legislation had not yet been passed. Making use of rich archival material Joanna Smalcerz narrates the complex and often dramatic struggle between the lawmakers of the new Italian State, and international curators (e.g., Wilhelm Bode), collectors (e.g., Isabella Stewart Gardner) and dealers (e.g., Stefano Bardini) who continuously orchestrated illicit schemes to export abroad Italian masterpieces. At the heart of the intertwinement of the art trade, art scholarship and art protection policies the author exposes the socio-psychological dynamics of unlawful collecting.
Benvenuto Olivieri was a Florentine banker active in Rome during the first half of the sixteenth century. A self made man without any great family patrimony, he rose to prominence during the pontificate of Pope Paul III, becoming involved with a variety of papal enterprises which allowed him to get to the heart of the mechanisms governing the papal finances. Amassing a considerable fortune along the way, Olivieri soon built himself a role as co-ordinator of the appalti (revenue farms) and became one of the most powerful players in the complex network that connected bankers and the papal revenue. This book explores the indissoluble link that had developed between the papacy and bankers, illuminating how the Apostolic Chamber, increasingly in need of money, could not meet its debts, without farming out the rights to future income. Utilising documents from a rich corpus of unpublished sources in Florence and Rome, Guidi Bruscoli unravels the web of financial connections that bound together Florentine and Genoese bankers with the papacy, and looks at how money was raised and the appalti managed.
Elegantly written, tirelessly researched, full of shocking revelations, Edith and Woodrow offers the definitive examination of the controversial role Woodrow Wilson's second wife played in running the country. "The story of Wilson's second marriage, and of the large events on which its shadow was cast, is darker and more devious, and more astonishing, than previously recorded." -- from the Preface Constructing a thrilling, tightly contained narrative around a trove of previously undisclosed documents, medical diagnoses, White House memoranda, and internal documents, acclaimed journalist and historian Phyllis Lee Levin sheds new light on the central role of Edith Bolling Galt in Woodrow Wilso...