A Times Best Art Book of the Year, 2024'A riot of a book' – Country Life's Books of the Year, 2024The modern art market was born on a single night. On 15 October 1958 Sotheby's of Bond Street staged an 'event sale' of Impressionist paintings from the collection of an American banker, Erwin Goldschmidt: three Manets, two Cézannes, one Van Gogh and a Renoir. Movie stars and other celebrities attended in black tie and saw the ...

SHORTLISTED FOR THE BERGER PRIZE FOR BRITISH ART HISTORY 2017SHORTLISTED FOR THE SLIGHTLY FOXED BEST FIRST BIOGRAPHY PRIZE 2017A SUNDAY TIMES ART BOOK OF THE YEARA SPECTATOR BOOK OF THE YEARAN ECONOMIST BOOK OF THE YEARA NEW YORK TIMES ART BOOK OF THE YEARFrom his time as Bernard Berenson’s protégé to being...

What is heritage? When was it invented? What is its place in the world today? What is its place tomorrow?Heritage is all around us: millions belong to its organisations, tens of thousands volunteer for it, and politicians pay lip service to it. When the Victorians began to employ the term in something approaching the modern sense, they applied it to cathedrals, castles, villages and certain landscapes. Since then a multiplicity of heritage labels have arisen, cultu...

The definitive biography of this brilliant polymath--director of the National Gallery, author, patron of the arts, social lion, and singular pioneer of television--that also tells the story of the arts in the twentieth century through his astonishing life.Kenneth Clark's thirteen-part 1969 television series, Civilisation, established him as a globally admired figure. Clark was prescient in making this series: the upheavals of the century, the Cold War amon...

Bloomsbury presents Rogues and Scholars: Boom and Bust in the London Art Market, 1945–2000 by James Stourton, read by Charles Armstrong.The modern art market was born on a single night. On 15 October 1958 Sotheby’s of Bond Street staged an ‘event sale’ of Impressionist paintings from the collection of an American banker, Erwin Goldschmidt: three Manets, two Cézannes, one Van Gogh and a Renoir. Movie stars and other celebrities attended in black tie and saw the seven lots g...

SHORTLISTED FOR THE BERGER PRIZE FOR BRITISH ART HISTORY 2017SHORTLISTED FOR THE SLIGHTLY FOXED BEST FIRST BIOGRAPHY PRIZE 2017A SUNDAY TIMES ART BOOK OF THE YEARA SPECTATOR BOOK OF THE YEARAN ECONOMIST BOOK OF THE YEARA NEW YORK TIMES ART BOOK OF THE YEARFrom his time as Bernard Berenson’s protégé to being...

On October 15, 1958, Sotheby's of Bond Street staged an "event sale” of seven Impressionist paintings. The seven lots went for £781,000—at the time the highest price for a single sale. The event established London as the world center of the art market and Sotheby's as an international auction house. It began a shift in power from the dealers to the auctioneers and paved the way for Impressionist paintings to dominate the market for the next forty years.Sotheby's had pulled off a ma...

Discover the stories of some of the most breathaking and historic great houses of London, along with their secrets, in this lavishly illustrated compedium.London has a wealth of truly stunning great houses, seen by many as one of the marvels of English architecture, and yet to many their histories, their interiors and their occupants remain unknown.This book, illustrated throughout with sumptuous photography of thes...

A unique and glamorous book about British Imperial and post-Imperial architecture and a lively and evocative read for anyone interested in the international projection of British power and culture.British Embassies have a special role in our history. They represent our country in bricks and stone and have often expressed – at least in the eyes of foreigners – our national character. Whether they are Lutyens buildings in Washington, grand palaces in Europe, beautiful old colonial bu...

'Brings both house and garden vividly to life... A magnificent achievement' Gardens Illustrated'A finely crafted work... it is an important record of the history of one of the country's most splendid estates' The English GardenThe Palladian house of Stourhead, in Wiltshire, occupies a plateau above the confluence of three valleys. When you cross the south lawn and descend the tree-hung slopes, you glimpse a lake adorned wi...