Author Michael Coe traces the rise and fall of Mayan civilization through its great royal cities, from El Mirador, the largest and oldest, in what is now Guatemala, to the two giant rival city-states Tikal and Calakmul in the lowlands, to Yaxchilan along the Usumacinta River, to Palenque and Toniná in the west, to Copán and Quiriguá in the east, to the cities of the Maya Renaissance in the northern lowlands—Uxmal, Kabah, Labna, Sayil, and Edzna—and finally to Chichen Itza in the Yucatán, where the 700-year flowering of the Mayan people came to a halt with the military and cultural takeover by the Toltecs. Through convincing analysis of archaeological evidence, new readings of artifacts, reliefs, and murals, Professor Coe untangles the complex sequence of internecine ritual warfare that fatally weakened the late Maya era.

Illustrating Coe’s riveting history of these remarkable polities, the powerful dynasties that led them, and the political intrigues and armed conflicts that threatened their existence, are the exceptionally evocative photographs of Barry Brukoff, who was granted unprecedented access to certain sites never photographed before. Documented with specially commissioned maps and plans based on the latest research, Royal Cities of the Ancient Maya will be irresistible to everyone from the casual visitor to Pre-Columbian experts.

About the Contributor(s)

Michael D. Coe is Charles J. MacCurdy Professor of Anthropology, Emeritus, at Yale University, and Curator Emeritus in Yale’s Peabody Museum of Natural History. For many years he was advisor to the Center for Pre-Columbian studies at Dumbarton Oaks, Washington, D. C. He has conducted field research in Mexico, Guatemala, Costa Rica, Connecticut, Massachusetts, and New York. A member of the National Academy of Sciences, he is the author of 18 books and monographs, including The Maya, 8th edition (Thames & Hudson), Breaking the Maya Code (Thames & Hudson), and The True History of Chocolate (Thames & Hudson).

Barry Brukoff is an award-winning photographer whose books include The Enigma of Stonehenge, text by John Fowles (Summit); Morocco, text by Paul Bowles (Abrams); Greece: Land of Light, text by Nicholas Gage (Bulfinch); and Machu Picchu, text by Pablo Neruda in a new translation (Bulfinch). His recently published Temples of Cambodia (Vendome, 2011) was praised by The Wall Street Journal; “though they take ruins as their subject, Mr. Brukoff’s images capture the most timeless elements of Khmer ingenuity.”

Visually evocative, the specially commissioned photographs by James Fennell, the acclaimed photographer of Vendome’s The Irish Country House, shows inviting living rooms and tousled bedrooms, print-lined hallways and well-trampled mudrooms. Telling details capture the eccentric personalities of their owners, Scottish chieftans, lairds, and nobles, drawn from the pages of Walter Scott: a red silk bell-pull against green floral wallpaper, a drawer full of two-hundred-year-old love letters, the curve of a wonderfully carved antique chair. In his delightful anecdotal text, James Knox tells the tale of the more colorful inhabitants of these homes, both past and present. The houses are not the instant creation of trendy decorators—they have evolved over generations, furnished with heirlooms and cherished hand-me-downs. This is a book for lovers of Scotland, history, or decoration.

About the Contributor(s)

James Knox, a native of Ayrshire, is a literary historian, editor and critic. He is Publisher of The Art Newspaper, the leading international journal of art, artists, and exhibitions. Mr. Knox is a Trustee of The National Gallery of Scotland, The Scotland National Trust, and Dumfries House, whose successful preservation he helped lead. His acclaimed biography of Robert Byron, the great English mid-century travel writer, was published by John Murray.

James Fennell specializes in interiors, portraiture, fashion, and travel photography. His photographs have been published in Condé Nast Traveller, World of Interiors, Elle Décor, and Architectural Digest. His books include The Irish Country House (with James Peill and Desmond FitzGerald), Vanishing Ireland: Further Chronicles of a Disappearing World, and The Irish Pub (both with Turtle Bunbury). He lives on the grounds of Burtown House, Co. Kildare.

Inspired by Chinese art and lore, Western art and music, and the natural world, Anna Hu’s imaginative, one-of-a-kind pieces have catapulted her to the top of the jewelry firmament in a few short years. This volume celebrates the completion of her first 100 works, or “Opus 1,” as she calls the collection. Her ambitious goal is to produce an opus every five years until she has completed ten, for a total of 999 pieces, and no one who has seen her jewelry has any doubt that she will fulfill her dream. The introduction by jewelry historian Janet Zapata and essays by Carol Woolton, jewelry editor of British Vogue, and David Warren, head of Christie’s jewelry department, address various aspects of Anna Hu’s work, including the relationship between her jewelry and fashion, and the remarkable gems that inspired her to make some of her most virtuosic pieces. But the centerpiece of this large-format book are the pieces themselves, many of them exquisitely photographed by master jewelry photographer David Behl. Some are as intricate as Chinese embroidery, others are as ethereal and delicate as butterflies, and still others are jeweled reinterpretations of timeless works of music and art, from Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata and Puccini’s Turandot to Monet’s Water Lilies. In all, a Symphony of Jewels.

About the Contributor(s)

Janet Zapata is a renowned historian of decorative arts and jewelry and the author of The Jewelry and Enamels of Louis Comfort Tiffany (Abrams), The Art of Zadora (Vendome), and Jeweled Garden (Vendome). She has curated many jewelry exhibitions, including “The Nature of Diamonds” at the American Museum of Natural History.

Carol Woolton is jewelry editor of British Vogue and has written widely on antique and contemporary jewelry for the London Times, the Financial Times, and Art Quarterly. Her books include Fashion for Jewels: 100 Years of Styles and Icons (Prestel) and Drawing Jewels for Fashion (Prestel).

David Warren has headed Christie’s jewelry department since 1995. A respected authority on gems and jewelry, he has written many articles on the subject, including a chapter in The Encyclopaedia of World Antiques (Acropolis, 1991), and has lectured extensively in Southeast Asia, South America, the Middle East, and the United Kingdom. He is also an authority on Mughal jewelry, emeralds and pearls.

David Behl is one of the world’s leading photographers of fine jewels. His many credits include The Art of Zadora: America’s Faberge, Seaman Schepps: A Century of New York Jewelry Design, and Yard: The Life and Magnificent Jewelry of Raymond C. Yard.

Unlike other Asian cultures of the 17th and 18th centuries, the Chinese did not sit on the floor. The simple fact that the Manchu invaders imported highly flexible furniture from their yurts influenced the development of Chinese design and decorative arts. Within a few years of the Manchu invasion, Chinese craftsmen combined their highly refined design aesthetic with extraordinary exotic woods, veneers, and lacquer to create some of the finest furniture ever made. Classical Chinese Furniture illuminates this fascinating and little-known area of Chinese decorative art. These beautiful stools, desks, chairs, bureaus, and storage pieces are highly sought after and have become the fastest growing area of collecting within China itself. Over the past four years the prices for Chinese furniture have increased exponentially as impassioned Chinese collectors rediscover the glory of their artistic patrimony. This distinguished book is a multifaceted experience, with appeal to collectors and experts, Western and Chinese, as well as anyone interested in furniture, aesthetics, design, Asian culture, architecture, and interiors, or simply fascinated by the outstanding beauty of the pieces themselves.

The heart of Classical Chinese Furniture is the presentation of 52 masterpieces—all exceptional examples of great rarity—accompanied by detailed descriptions. These outstanding pieces teach an invaluable lesson on the Chinese approach to aesthetics, craftsmanship, architecture, and culture. In addition to in-depth analysis of each piece, there are a number of invaluable appendices that visually unlock the secrets of timber, joinery, regional production, and the art of restoration.

About the Contributor(s)

Marcus Flacks has been one of the forces behind the rediscovery of Chinese furniture over the past twenty years. He has helped to put together some extraordinary collections and mounted a host of exhibitions that have introduced this field to Western and Chinese collectors alike.

The Indian Subcontinent is filled with many impressive, nostalgic, and historic fortresses that are intimately related to India’s long history of wars, disputes between neighboring kingdoms, and the rise and fall of ruling maharajas, some minor and others leaders of great and powerful states.  A gigantic fort, often built into a rugged mountainside, was the best protection for a ruler and his family, subjects, and government from enemy attacks; as a result, many forts sheltered entire cities, as well as great and luxurious palaces from which the rulers reigned in troubled as well as peaceful times. The maharajas’ palaces were secluded and surrounded by residences of courtiers and trusted nobles, which established hierarchies that have never really changed. At the center of the fort was a temple, built according to canonical texts.

This book features nearly sixty of these vast building complexes, all specially photographed in color by Joginder Singh, beginning with ancient forts dating back to ancient India, when dynasties began to be established, and proceeding geographically through the Rajput, Bundelkhand, Sultanate, Southern Kingdom, Mughal, Maratha, Sikh, Hill, Eastern Indian, and Colonial settlers’ forts. A good number of these complexes are among the most visited sights in India, but some will come as a revelation even to experienced visitors to the Subcontinent.

About the Contributor(s)

Amita Baig has been committed to the protection and preservation of India’s heritage for over twenty-five years. She has promoted new methods for the protection of historic sites, and has been at the forefront of the conservation movement in India, promoting the concept of preservation with stakeholder partnership. She was Director General of the Architectural Heritage Division at INTACH before becoming an independent consultant. She is currently Consultant to the World Monuments Fund for its India program.

Joginder Singh, an architect by training, specializes in architectural photography. Though he enjoys photographing modern Indian architecture, his interactions with historic buildings leave him enchanted and enriched. Regional response, material expression, and spatial complexity, coupled with an attention to detail, form a part of his visual dialogue. There have been a number of solo exhibitions of his work.

About the Contributor(s)

Jacques Boulay specializes in travel photography and has been published widely in Europe and America. His numerous publications include studies of Paul Poiret and Baccarat, as well as The Book of Linen (Flammarion). He has been taking panoramic photographs of Venice since 1996.

Jean-Philippe Follet is the author and translator of numerous books on the culture and art of Venice.

Alexis Gregory is a publisher, author, art collector, and deputy chairman of Sotheby’s advisory board. He lives in New York and Paris.

The many regions of At Home in Italy have their own architectural and interior design traditions, reflecting their history, geography, and people. The thick walls of Southern Italy and Sicily provide protection against the mezzogiorno’s brutal summer heat, while the cozy wooden mountain chalets of Cortina d’Ampezzo preserve as much warmth as possible. As Nicoletta del Buono’s vibrant text makes clear, as varied as traditional Italian approaches to design are, each unique to its region, they are nevertheless easily identifiable as Italian. And as the houses featured in this lusciously illustrated volume establish, the modern-day Italian genius for design has its roots firmly planted in Italy’s rich traditions, for Italians have long had a sure eye for color, proportion, light, and furniture placement. With over two hundred color photographs of thirty unique traditional houses, ranging from Tuscan villas to the characteristic cone-roofed houses of Trulli, At Home in Italy has something to offer to every lover of Italy and interior design.

About the Contributor(s)

Massimo Listri is an internationally acclaimed photographer of architecture and interior design. His work has appeared in numerous magazines, including Architectural Digest and Elle Décor, as well as books: Mediterranean Home, Casa Mundi, Magnificent Italian Villas and Palaces, and Villas of Tuscany.

Nicoletta del Buono is Editor of Architectural Digest Italia. Her many books include Mediterranean Home, New Asian Interiors (both with Massimo Listri), and the recently published Venetian Interiors.

Praise for Sister Parish:

“Sister Parish’s reminiscences, along with those of her friends and admirers, bear a remarkable resemblance to what one remembers about her interior decorating—warm, personable, cozy, thoughtful, harmonious, satisfying, impeccable. An enchanting compilation.”—George Plimpton

“In my novel People Like Us, I based the character of the famous society decorator Cora Mandell on Sister Parish. Apple Parish Bartlett and Susan Bartlett Crater have presented a loving portrait of her, as well as a superb social history of her era.”—Dominick Dunne

Dorothy May Kinnicutt (Sister to her family and friends) was born into a patrician New York family in 1910 and spent her privileged early life at the right schools, yacht clubs, and coming-out parties. Compelled to work during the lean years of the Depression, Sister combined her innate design ability with her high-echelon social connections to create an extraordinarily successful interior decorating business. The Parish-Hadley firm’s list of clients reads like an American Who’s Who, starting with Rockefellers, Astors, Whitneys, Paleys, and Kennedys. She helped Jacqueline Kennedy transform the White House from a fusty hodgepodge into a historically authentic symbol of American elegance. For her clients, she was an indispensable presence, both in their salons and designing them. Sister’s style, marked by cozy, airy, colorful, but understated elegance, came to be known as “American country,” and its influence continues to this day.

Compiled by Apple Parish Bartlett (one of Sister’s daughters) and Susan Bartlett Crater (a granddaughter) from Sister’s own unpublished memoirs, as well as from hundreds of interviews with family members, friends, staff, world-renowned interior designers (Mark Hampton, Mario Buatta, Keith Irvine, Bunny Williams, and Sister’s long-time partner Albert Hadley, among many others), and clients (Annette de la Renta, Glenn Bernbaum, Mrs. Tom Watson, et al.), Sister Parish takes the reader right into the houses—and the lives—of some of the most fascinating and famous people of this inimitable woman’s time.

About the Contributor(s)

Apple Parish Bartlett is an artist and shop owner. She lives in Boston, Massachusetts, and Islesboro, Maine.

Susan Bartlett Crater is co-founder of Sister Parish Design, a fabric collection inspired by the designs Sister loved and used in her own houses.

“Spike captures his magnetism, his drive and the sheer scale of his ambition…. A veteran biographer of Caravaggio, Masaccio and Fra Angelico, Spike relates Michelangelo’s wanderings to his restlessness and the troubles of his era, from the rise of the fundamentalist preacher Savonarola in Florence to the many skirmishes provoked by Rome’s bellicose Julius.”—The Sunday Times

“No art historian has got closer to Michelangelo than John T. Spike. The Florence-based American, whose coup here is his access to the artist’s recently published financial accounts and consequently enhanced understanding of his dealings with patrons, is an immensely flexible writer who has produced a book of alternating pans and zooms. . . . At the same time, however, the worldly dealings that Spike recounts, and his textured reconstruction of the times that his subject moved moodily through, make the artist seem more human than ever before. We’re left with a Michelangelo who lived on earth as a man, but also had an element of the unearthly about him. . . . Though it probably only portends a trilogy, it’s perhaps no accident that Spike’s narrative ends in the artist’s 33rd year.”—The Telegraph

“As John T. Spike argues in this crisply thorough biography, Michelangelo Buonarroti, like so many men of talent, seems to have known his own worth almost from the moment he came into the world. . . . Certainly the man Spike gives us is an altogether more worldly figure than the agonised ecstatic served up by Irving Stone and Charlton Heston on the silver screen.”—Daily Express

“John T. Spike, an art historian, curator and critic, has done some impressive research to flesh out the early years of the artist’s life, right up until his return to Rome in 1508 to focus on a commission in the Sistine Chapel. The young sculptor’s daunting talent and quest to earn as much money as possible are woven into the story of the Italian Renaissance and the outsized figures of the age.”—The Washington Post

“Spike, a renowned art critic, curator, and author, is the first modern writer to create such a comprehensive account of the master’s early life and rise to fame amid the political upheaval in the Papal States and Florentine Republic.”—Art + Auction

“He was possibly the world’s greatest artist, certainly its greatest sculptor, but John Spike gives us a nuanced human view of Michelangelo on his path to the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. The reader meets a man dealing with financial problems, family pressures, artistic feuds, all set within the turbulent world of the Medici, the Borgias, and Savonarola. This is Michelangelo of reality, not myth.”—Bill Cusumano, Nicola’s Books, Ann Arbor, MI from September 2010 Indie Notables List

“Spike crystallizes historical detail into vivid, memorable imagery. . . . Alternating between accounts of the turbulent political atmosphere and details of Michelangelo’s most private moments in the sculpture studio, Spike creates a rich narrative that promises more intrigue than the best adventure novel.”—Publishers Weekly

“Making the most of Michelangelo’s ample correspondence and the recently published records of his extensive banking transactions, Spike has drawn an astonishingly vivid portrait of the artist’s first 33 years. It’s the best life of Michelangelo I’ve read, and it leaves one wishing the author would complete Michelangelo’s life with his wonderful grasp of the artist’s tenacious personality and Herculean achievement.”—Everett Fahy, John Pope-Hennessy Chairman of the Department of European Paintings at The Metropolitan Museum of Art

“Tense and agile as an early sculpture, Young Michelangelo is a compelling portrait of the artist as a young man in a dangerous time.”—Peter Robb, Author of M: The Man Who Became Caravaggio

“This erudite but immensely readable account is essential for anyone who desires to know more about Michelangelo’s formation.”—David Alan Brown, National Gallery of Art

“Spike is a masterful weaver of disparate information into a synthetic narrative. He provides a rich web of the political, social, and personal contexts against which Michelangelo’s early career unfolded.”—John Hunisak, Co-Author of The Art of Florence

“John T. Spike proves himself, yet again, as one of our most astute and readable authorities on the Italian Renaissance. In Young Michelangelo he approaches the artist through a compelling blend of solid scholarship, animated storytelling, and shrewd insight—and in the process he makes Michelangelo more fascinating than ever.”—Ross King, Author of Brunelleschi’s Dome and Michelangelo and the Pope’s Ceiling

Young Michelangelo: The Path to the Sistine: A Biography is the most important biography of Michelangelo to appear in modern times, a long-awaited and authoritative reinterpretation of the early life and career of arguably the greatest artist in history. Author John T. Spike surveys Michelangelo’s early life from birth to his early thirties, probing the thinking, artistic evolution, and yearnings of a young man thoroughly convinced of his own exceptional talent. Spike’s biography covers the full range of Michelangelo’s early years, and explores the overwhelming influence that his charismatic personality had upon his contemporaries and followers. Spike traces Michelangelo’s development into a master sculptor – the creator at a very young age of the Pietà and the David – probes his involvement in the most troubling controversies of his age, and recreates Florence and Rome with vivid sketches of Lorenzo the Magnificent, Leonardo, Julius II, and Machiavelli – for Michelangelo knew them all. Over the arc of his artistic development, from 1475 to 1508, Michelangelo was an eyewitness to the bonfire of the vanities, the Rome of Borgias, the siege of Florence, and the burning of Savonarola at the stake. Now, from the author of landmark books on Masaccio and Caravaggio comes Young Michelangelo: The Path to the Sistine: A Biography, a prodigiously informative and compelling account that will fulfill the need for a major Michelangelo biography for this generation and many to come.

About the Contributor(s)

John T. Spike, critic, curator, and art historian, is the author of more than twenty significant books on Renaissance and contemporary art and artists, including the highly praised Caravaggio (Abbeville Press). He lives in Florence and is currently Distinguished Scholar in Residence at the College of William & Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia.

Martin Eidelberg and Alice Cooney Frelinghuysen have contributed essays on the history of the lamps, enlarging our understanding of Louis Comfort Tiffany’s achievement. They have drawn upon a host of previously unpublished photographs, paintings, and watercolors by Tiffany and other artists in his employ, as well as on working drawings and studio photographs, and images evoking the lost gardens and interiors of Tiffany’s country estate, Laurelton Hall, that so inspired him. They outline the development and manufacture of the Tiffany lamp from freehand sketch to finished form, as well as the chief decorative themes in Tiffany’s glass masterpieces and their relation to the work of other fin de siecle glassmakers.

About the Contributor(s)

Martin Eidelberg is Professor Emeritus, Art History, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, and has written extensively on Tiffany.

Alice Cooney Frelinghuysen is Curator of American Decorative Arts at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

Nancy A. McClelland and Lars Rachen are art consultants specializing in the decorative arts.