Enfilade

From Lienart:

Marie-Laure de Rochebrune, ed., Ange Laurent de La Live de Jully (1725–1779): Un grand amateur à l’époque des Lumières (Paris: Lienart éditions, 2024), 488 pages, ISBN: 978-2359064186, €55. With contributions by Lionel Arsac, Géraldine Aubert, Colin Bailey (foreword), Vincent Bastien, Mathieu da Vinha, Patricia de Fougerolle, Mathieu Deldicque, Vincent Droguet, Alexandre Maral, Marc-André Paulin, Alexandre Pradère, Yohan Rimaud, and Xavier Salmon.

Ange Laurent de La Live de Jully (1725–1779) fut l’une des figures les plus brillantes et les plus attachantes du monde des grands amateurs français de la seconde moitié du XVIIIe siècle. Mécène et ami des artistes de son temps, collectionneur, graveur, musicien et historien, il fut élu, très jeune, membre honoraire ou associé libre de l’Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture, en raison de la qualité des collections qu’il avait réunies et aussi de ses capacités artistiques. Avec le concours des meilleurs spécialistes, cet ouvrage a pour ambition d’embrasser l’ensemble des collections de ce « dénicheur de talents » dans des domaines très divers—peintures, arts graphiques, sculptures, mobilier et objets d’art, livres, coquilles, instruments de musique—collections qui constituent autant de témoignages de son immense curiosité, de son ouverture d’esprit et de sa générosité envers les artistes. Il met également en lumière les milieux familial et intellectuel si stimulants dans lesquels il a baigné et qui expliquent, à bien des égards, la formation de son goût si raffiné et de son extrême sensibilité artistique.

Marie-Laure de Rochebrune est conservateur général au château de Versailles.

From Springer:

Howell Edwards and Christopher Brooke, Coade Stone: A History and Analysis (New York: Springer, 2024), 275 pages, ISBN: 978-3031714313, $110.

The history and nature of artificial stone for use in architecture is a subject still shrouded in myth and misconception. This book aims to lay bare those misconceptions and present a scientific and architectural account of these materials, and especially Coade Stone, the most successful of all, which found great favour during the Georgian period. Many examples of Coade Stone cast sculpture still exist and several key examples are presented in context and as case studies . Eleanor Coade’s artificial stone was so good that many observers could not distinguish it from the natural stone it replaced: the growth in replication of the neo-classical statuary and building adornment required in the late Georgian and Regency period was well satisfied by the use of Coade stone. A holistic evaluation of Coade stone artefacts is undertaken whereby the use of analytical data, historical documentation, invoices, company records, impressed marks and expert connoisseurship will establishthe attribution of Coade stone artefacts, some of which are currently in the unknown category. Several new scientific analyses are presented that demonstrate the true nature of high temperature fired ceramic Coade Stone and allow comparison with other forms of artificial stone, such as the cold cured cementitious variations, which eventually replaced it in the Victorian period.

Howell G. M. Edwards is Professor Emeritus of Molecular Spectroscopy at the University of Bradford. He read Chemistry at Jesus College in the University of Oxford and after completing his BA and BSc degrees he studied for his doctorate in Raman spectroscopy at Oxford with Dr Leonard Woodward and then became a Research Fellow at Jesus College, University of Cambridge. He joined the University of Bradford as a Lecturer in Structural and Inorganic Chemistry, becoming Head of the Department of Chemical and Forensic Sciences, and was awarded a Personal Chair in Molecular Spectroscopy in 1996. He has published over 1350 research papers in Raman spectroscopy and the characterisation of materials, along with six books on the application of this analytical technique to art, archaeology, and forensic science. He has had a lifelong interest in porcelains and the industrial archaeology, excavation, and the preservation of early porcelain manufactory sites.

Christopher J. Brooke studied for a BSc (Hons.) in Archaeological Sciences at the University of Bradford, specializing in geophysics, environmental archaeology, and palaeopathology, followed by a PhD at the University of Nottingham in the field of archaeological remote sensing for historic buildings analysis. He has worked in a wide range of organizations from central and local government, through university teaching appointments and industry, a major charity, and freelance consultancy. A Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries, a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, an Associate Fellow of the Remote Sensing and Photogrammetry Society, and a member of many professional organizations both nationally and in the UK East Midlands, he serves on a large number of advisory boards and committees. Dr Brooke’s principal research specializations are in electromagnetic remote sensing, nondestructive archeological site survey, record photography, mathematical image processing, environmental study, spectroscopy, the history and archaeology of churches, and the recording and conservation of historic buildings. He has lectured extensively at academic institutions throughout the UK and is currently Honorary Associate Professor in Medieval History and Church Archaeology at the University of Nottingham, and Visiting Fellow in Remote Sensing at Nottingham Trent University.

c o n t e n t s

1  Introduction: Coade Artificial Stone and Its Marks
2  Factors That Influenced the Success of Coade Stone
3  Artificial Stone: The Precursors, Contemporaries, and Later Variations of Coade Stone
4  Historical Myths and Anomalies Associated with Coade Stone
5  The Mineralogy of Fired Ceramics
6  The Analysis of Coade Stone Artefacts
7  Case Studies: Coade Stone
8  Conclusions

Appendices
Glossary
Index

From Bloomsbury:

A. N. Wilson, Goethe, His Faustian Life: The Extraordinary Story of Modern Germany, a Troubled Genius, and the Poem that Made Our World (London: Bloomsbury Continuum, 2024), 416 pages, ISBN: ‎978-1472994868, $35.

Goethe was the inventor of the psychological novel, a pioneer scientist, great man of the theatre, and a leading politician. As A. N. Wilson argues in this groundbreaking biography, it was his genius and insatiable curiosity that helped catapult the Western world into the modern era. Wilson tackles the life of Goethe with characteristic wit and verve. From his youth as a wild literary prodigy to his later years as Germany’s most respected elder statesman, Wilson hones in on Goethe’s undying obsession with the work he would spend his entire life writing—Faust. Goethe spent over 60 years writing his retelling of Faust, a strange and powerful work that absorbed all the philosophical questions of his time as well as the revolutions and empires that came and went. It is his greatest work, but as Wilson explores, it is also something much more—it is the myth of how we came to be modern.

A. N. Wilson is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and holds a prominent position in the world of literature and journalism. He is a prolific and award-winning biographer and celebrated novelist, having written biographies of Tolstoy, C. S. Lewis, Milton, and Hilarire Belloc. In 2007, Wilson’s novel, Winnie and Wolf, was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize, and in 2020 The Mystery of Charles Dickens was published to great critical acclaim. He lives in North London.

From Norton, a translation of the original German, Die beste aller möglichen Welten: Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz in seiner Zeit, which appeared in 2022:

Michael Kempe, The Best of All Possible Worlds: A Life of Leibniz in Seven Pivotal Days, translated by Marshall Yarbrough (New York: Norton & Co., 2024), 304 pages, ISBN: 978-1324093947, $32.

A biography of the polymath Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz told through seven critical days spanning his life and revealing his contributions to our modern world.

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646–1716) was the Benjamin Franklin of Europe, a ‘universal genius’ who ranged across many fields and made breakthroughs in most of them. Leibniz invented calculus (independently from Isaac Newton), conceptualized the modern computer, and developed the famous thesis that the existing world is the best that God could have created.

In The Best of All Possible Worlds, historian and Leibniz expert Michael Kempe takes us on a journey into the mind and inventions of a man whose contributions are perhaps without parallel in human history. Structured around seven crucial days in Leibniz’s life, Kempe’s account allows us to observe him in the act of thinking and creating, and gives us a deeper understanding of his broad-reaching intellectual endeavors. On 29 October 1675, we find him in Paris, diligently working from his bed amid a sea of notes, and committing the integral symbol—the basis of his calculus—to paper. On 17 April 1703, Leibniz is in Berlin, writing a letter reporting that a Jesuit priest living in China has discovered how to use Leibniz’s binary number system to decipher an ancient Chinese system of writing. One day in August 1714, Leibniz enjoys a Viennese coffee while drawing new connections among ontology and biology and mathematics. The Best of All Possible Worlds transports us to an age defined by rational optimism and a belief in progress, and will endure as one of the few authoritative accounts of Leibniz’s life available in English.

Michael Kempe is the director of the Leibniz Research Center and the Leibniz-Archiv in Hannover and teaches early modern history at the University of Konstanz.
Marshall Yarbrough is a writer, musician, and German-to-English translator. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.