Antiques and Collectables – The Collectors Blog

The first and only book to showcase twentieth-century French jewellery, this sumptuous book focuses on pieces acquired by Americans, including Jackie O, Grace Kelly and the Vanderbilts. Featuring work by artisans such as Cartier and artists such as Picasso and Man Ray, it will appeal equally to people interested in twentieth century art as well as those with a love of jewellery. The book includes over 80 colour photographs of jewellery, photographs of notable people buying pieces at French houses, and famous designers.

First compiled in 1929 as a pioneer work by the late G.H. Baillie, this directory of watchmakers and clock makers of the past soon established itself as the standard reference source and has been used ever since by watchmakers and clockmakers, collectors, dealers, museums, historians and libraries the world over. The book went through numerous editions and reprints, and was seldom out of print. The list of makers has more than doubled, having been thoroughly updated and revised by Brian Loomes in this twenty-first century edition, and now contains information on about 90,000 makers working between the late sixteenth and early twentieth centuries. As well as the makers and retailers of clocks and watches, the list includes makers of scientific instruments, sundials and barometers. Working dates include, where known, dates and places of birth, apprenticeship, freedom, marriage and death, as well as movement between different locations, and monograms. It is a unique and essential work of reference.

Based on 20 years' research and experience with potters and their wares, folklorist Joey Brackner presents a definitive, comprehensive survey of folk potters and the folk pottery tradition in Alabama from the early historic period to the present. Illustrated with hundreds of color and black-and-white photographs, the book examines much admired and sought-after ceramics (such as crocks, face jugs, bowls, churns, and garden pottery) appreciated the world over for their originality, beauty, and utility. The book's publication coincides with a major exhibition of Alabama folk pottery curated by Brackner and set to open at the Birmingham Museum of Art September 30, 2006. This volume places historic Alabama pottery making into a national and international context and describes the technologies that distinguish Alabama potters from the rest of the southeast. It explains how a blending and borrowing among cultural groups that settled the state nurtured its rich regional traditions.In addition to providing a detailed discussion of pottery types, clays, glazes, slips, and firing methods, 'Alabama Folk Pottery' presents a geographic survey of the state's pottery regions with a comprehensive list of Alabama folk potters, historic and contemporary - a valuable resource for collectors, scholars, and curators. Most important, in the pages and photographs of 'Alabama Folk Pottery', Brackner introduces - largely through their own words - the dynamic communities and families of Alabama potters who have carefully and proudly passed on their methods and styles from generation to generation. As Mobile archaeologist, Greg Waselkov declares, 'Alabama Folk Pottery reveals the humanity behind the artistry and the technical sophistication of this historic craft. Starting with magnificent ceramic churns, jugs, braziers, and grave markers found today largely in museums and private collections, this book pieces together the story of the talented men and women who have transformed Alabama clay into objects of great functionality, beauty, and personal expression.'

This beautifully illustrated book is the first to look at the role of the urban Italian house in the development of Renaissance art and culture. 'The Renaissance Home' brings together a wide range of objects, from furniture and kitchen utensils to popular prints, jewellery and everyday dress, to reveal how the homes of the upper- and middle-classes made a crucial contribution to the flowering of the visual arts in 15th- and 16th-century Italy. Drawing on a wide array of sources including inventories, account-books, letters, treatises, and archaeological and conservation reports, it offers a completely fresh exploration of the fascinating domestic world of Renaissance Italy.