S'appuyant sur sa vaste expérience en histoire de l'art, Janet Gleeson crée des récits qui éclairent le monde de l'art et des antiquités. Son écriture offre aux lecteurs une perspective unique pour apprécier l'histoire et la valeur esthétique de diverses œuvres. Gleeson explore les complexités du marché de l'art et l'héritage durable des maîtres peintres, rendant des sujets complexes accessibles et captivants.
Une encyclopédie des thèmes de collection les plus en vogue, de la porcelaine au design, des montres aux accessoires de couture, des ours en peluche aux flacons de parfum. Des notices sur les principales fabriques internationales et les artistes les plus connus (céramistes, ébénistes, verriers, orfèvres, designers). Pour chaque domaine de collection, des chronologie des exemples de marque des répertoires de forme des glossaires.
This 18th-century whodunit novel is by the author of 'The Grenadillo Box' and 'The Serpent in the Garden'.
It is New Year's Day 1755 and Nathaniel Hopson, journeyman to the famous cabinetmaker Thomas Chippendale, finds himself drawn into a chilling affair. While working at the country home of Lord Montfort, Nathaniel discovers his patron shot dead in his magnificent new library. The conclusion seems obvious: burdened with gambling debts and recently possessed of a melancholic nature, Montfort must have taken his own life, but Nathaniel is not convinced. While the gun near Montfort's hand suggests suicide, what of the blood on the windowsill and the confusion of footprints on the library floor? And there is another strange detail: the small, elaborately carved box of rare grenadillo wood clutched in the aristocrat's lifeless hand. No sooner has Nathaniel been set up as a most unlikely investigator than another body is found, frozen and cruelly mutilated. Nathaniel's detachment is shattered. He knows the victim well - but what was he doing on Montfort's country estate? Nathaniel's investigation will take him from palatial drawing rooms to the slums of Fleet Street and London's Foundling Hospital, where the identity of a child abandoned twenty years ago may hold the key to the mystery. But someone has already killed to keep this secret and each step Nathaniel takes on his journey is a step further into danger. As intricately crafted as a Chippendale cabinet, THE GRENADILLO BOX is both an utterly irresistible detective story and a vibrant recreation of eighteenth-century England, and marks the fiction debut of this supremely accomplished writer.
The true story of John Law, gambler, mathematical genius - and killer, and his role in the history of money. Three centuries ago, wealth was in the form of gold and silver. LawA A*s ideas revolutionised finance: he set up one of the first banks to issue paper money. A successful system today but for John Law it ended in disaster.
Imprisoned in a fairy-tale castle and under constant threat of execution by his ruthless captor an 18th century apothecary struggled to realize the alchemist's dream.
"On the death of France's most glorious king, Louis XIV, in 1715, few people benefited from the shift in power more than the intriguing financial genius from Edinburgh, John Law. Already notorious for killing a man in a duel and for acquiring a huge fortune from gambling, Law had proposed to the English monarch that a bank be established to issue paper money with the credit based on the value of land. But Queen Anne was not about to take advice from a gambler and felon. So, in exile in Paris, he convinced the bankrupt court of Louis XV of the value of his idea." "Law soon engineered the revival of the French economy and found himself one of the most powerful men in Europe. In August 1717, he founded the Mississippi Company, and the Court granted him the right to trade in France's vast territory in America.". "In Millionaire, Janet Gleeson reconstructs this epic drama where fortunes were made and lost, paupers grew rich, and lords fell into penury - and a modern fiscal philosophy was born. Her tale reveals two great characters: John Law, with his complex personality and inscrutable motives, and money itself."--BOOK JACKET.
Agnes Meadowes is cook to the Blanchards of Foster Lane, the renowned silversmiths. Her quiet world of culinary activity, preparing jugged hare, oyster loaves, almond soup and other delicacies for the family, is a happy refuge from the hustle and bustle of 1750s London. But in a single night everything is to change: the Blanchards' most prestigious and expensive commission, a giant silver wine cooler destined for the house of Sir Bartholomew Grey, is stolen and a sinister chain of events is set in motion. A young apprentice is murdered and a young maid, Rose, disappears. Are these portentous happenings connected? world of hidden secrets, jealousy and murderous intent. Before the game is played out she will be forced to act as mouse to the infamous Thief Taker's cat as she is drawn into a seamy underworld of London crime. And the truth comes at a high price: she must decide how big a sacrifice she is prepared to make to bring the villains to justice. TAKER is a spellbinding novel of crime, chicanery and cooking.
Sabine Mercier, who has lived most of her life in the Indies, is an expert in growing pineapples, the fruit of choice at the grandest dinner parties and an inspiration to artists and craftsmen. But soon after Sabine begins to cultivate pineapples in the vast conservatory at Astley, she discovers a body among her plants.
