Search results

Alternative assets offer a proven means of diversifying your financial portfolio away from the volatility of the markets. In the past, investors have looked to property, hedge funds or private equity to accomplish this - but the safety and high returns they sought there have perished in the wake of the 2007-2009 financial crisis. As an antidote to this, experienced investment writer Peter Temple here introduces those tangible, and often portable, assets whose returns are impressive but whose val...

Pre-Columbian artifacts are among the most popular items on the international antiquities market, yet it is becoming increasingly difficult to monitor these items as public, private, and digital sales proliferate. This timely volume explores past, current, and future policies and trends concerning the sales and illicit movement of artifacts from Mesoamerica to museums and private collections. Informed by the fields of anthropology, economics, law, and criminology, contributors critically analyz...

There was a time when museums might have been regarded as rather forbidding and austere centres of learning, but today they are more likely to position themselves firmly within the tourism and leisure industry with all manner of food, fun and family entertainment on offer. A high-profile museum brand often relies on a fast-changing menu of temporary exhibitions with an attractive programme of activities, cleverly marketed to ever-growing numbers of visitors. Many of these changes have been posit...

By the nineteenth century, connoisseurs from the British Isles had assembled the richest collections of classical antiquities outside Rome. The galleries they created to house the spectacular Greek and Roman statues, ornaments, vases, bronzes, and gems were in many instances designed to be as magnificent as the artworks themselves. This delightful book examines how the great British antiquities collections were put together and displayed, from Lord Arundel’s collection of marbles in the seventee...

'Making it Modern' features approximately 100 folk art objects acquired by the avant-garde sculptor Elie Nadelman and his wife, Viola, between 1919 and 1934, when the couple were forced to find a buyer for their vast collection of 70,000 pieces. Most were bought by the New-York Historical Society in 1937. This substantial volume presents all of the objects in full-colour plates, covering a huge range of geographic areas and media, including Pennsylvania German folk art, imposing large-scale woo...

The Japanese netsuke is a thing of wonder: a utilitarian accessory to traditional Japanese dress that has become an art form in itself, prized by collectors from East to West. The V&A's collection of netsuke is world-famous, and this stunning book draws on its many highlights to explore the origins of netsuke and to trace the sources of their designs in prints, paintings and woodblock-printed books. It records the evolution of materials and techniques and the patterns of craftsmanship, in a text...

At the beginning of the 21st century, collecting photography has come of age and more people are collecting photographs than ever before. With prices constantly rising, it is a complex subject for newcomers with many pitfalls. This book is an introduction to the field, providing would-be collectors and those already building collections with an accessible source of information. It includes a combination of essays and listings sections and discusses things collectors need to know about how and wh...

This trade edition of Moby-Dick is a reduced version of the Arion Press Moby-Dick, which was published in 1979 in a limited edition of 250 copies and has been hailed as a modern masterpiece of bookmaking. It was hand set under the supervision of one of America's finest book designers and printers. The initial letters that begin each chapter were designed especially for this book and christened "Leviathan." The illustrations, of places, creatures, objects or tools, and processes connected with ni...

The Artist's Touch, the Craftsman's Hand presents a selection of the most historically important and visually compelling Japanese prints from a collection of more than 2,500 works spanning the late 17th century to the present day. Many are extremely rare and almost all appear here in an English-language publication for the first time. Noteworthy areas of interest include early actor prints, dating back to the first decade of the 18th century; works by Suzuki Harunobu, the master associated with...