Enfilade

From the University of California Press:

William Jones, with an introduction by Richard Vane-Wright, Iconotypes: A Compendium of Butterflies & Moths, Jones’ Icones Complete (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2021), 688 pages, ISBN: 978-0520386501, $85.

William Jones’s Icones is one of the most scientifically important and visually stunning works on butterflies and moths ever created. Icones contains finely delineated paintings of more than 760 species of Lepidoptera, many of which it described for the first time, marking a critical moment in the study of natural history. Yet until now, it has never been published—the only existing manuscript copy is housed in the archives of the Oxford University Museum of Natural History. With Iconotypes, Jones’s work is published for the first time, accompanied by expert commentary and contextual essays, and featuring annotated maps showing where each specimen was discovered.

Between the early 1780s and 1810, Jones, a wine merchant, painted in painstaking detail hundreds of species of Lepidoptera, drawing from his own collection and the collections of prominent amateur naturalists. For every specimen, Jones included the known species name, the collection, and the geographical location in which it was found. In this enhanced facsimile, Jones’s historical references are clarified and modern taxonomic names are provided together with notes on which paintings serve as iconotypes. Contextual commentary by specialist entomologist Richard Vane-Wright gives an account of Jones’s life, his motivation for collecting butterflies and creating the Icones, and evaluates the significance of Jones’s work. This lavish volume intersperses contemporary maps showing the locations of each specimen, expert essays on the study of lepidoptery since ancient Egyptian times, the development of taxonomy after Linnaeus, the roles of collectors and natural history artists during the late 1700s to mid-1800s, and the steep decline of butterflies and moths over the last fifty years. Iconotypes is a beautiful collector’s object for fans of natural history and illustrations of butterflies and moths, as well as artists, designers, and bibliophiles.

Richard I. Vane-Wright is an entomologist and taxonomist who has been associated with London’s Natural History Museum for nearly sixty years. A specialist on butterflies, he retired from the museum in 2004 as Keeper of the Department of Entomology. He is the author of three books, most recently Butterflies: A Complete Guide to Their Biology and Behavior. He is also involved with biodiversity conservation and local entomological projects.

From Princeton UP:

Marisa Anne Bass, Anne Goldgar, Hanneke Grootenboer, and Claudia Swan, with contributions by Stephanie Dickey, Anna Grasskamp, and Róisín Watson, Conchophilia: Shells, Art, and Curiosity in Early Modern Europe (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2021), 224 pages, ISBN: 978-0691215761, £40 / $50.

Among nature’s most artful creations, shells have long inspired the curiosity and passion of artisans, artists, collectors, and thinkers. Conchophilia delves into the intimate relationship between shells and people, offering an unprecedented account of the early modern era, when the influx of exotic shells to Europe fueled their study and representation as never before. From elaborate nautilus cups and shell-encrusted grottoes to delicate miniatures, this richly illustrated book reveals how the love of shells intersected not only with the rise of natural history and global trade but also with philosophical inquiry, issues of race and gender, and the ascent of art-historical connoisseurship.

Shells circulated at the nexus of commerce and intellectual pursuit, suggesting new ways of thinking about relationships between Europe and the rest of the world. The authors focus on northern Europe, where the interest and trade in shells had its greatest impact on the visual arts. They consider how shells were perceived as exotic objects, the role of shells in courtly collections, their place in still-life tableaus, and the connections between their forms and those of the human body. They examine how artists gilded, carved, etched, and inked shells to evoke the permeable boundary between art and nature. These interactions with shells shaped the ways that early modern individuals perceived their relation to the natural world, and their endeavors in art and the acquisition of knowledge. Spanning painting and print to architecture and the decorative arts, Conchophilia uncovers the fascinating ways that shells were circulated, depicted, collected, and valued during a time of remarkable global change.

Marisa Anne Bass is Professor of Northern European Art, 1400–1700 at Yale University. Her books include Insect Artifice and Jan Gossart and the Invention of Netherlandish Antiquity. Anne Goldgar is the Garrett and Anne Van Hunnick Professor of European History at the University of Southern California. Her books include Tulipmania and Impolite Learning. Hanneke Grootenboer is Professor of the History of Art and Chair of the department at Radboud University Nijmegen. Her books include Treasuring the Gaze and The Pensive Image. Claudia Swan is the Mark S. Weil Professor of Art History and Archaeology at Washington University in St. Louis. Her books include Art, Science, and Witchcraft in Early Modern Holland and Rarities of These Lands.

C O N T E N T S

Anne Goldgar — Introduction: For the Love of Shells

Part I: Surface Matters
1  Claudia Swan — The Nature of Exotic Shells
2  Anna Grasskamp — Shells, Bodies, and the Collector’s Cabinet

Part II: Microworlds of Thought
3  Marisa Anne Bass — Shell Life, or the Unstill Life of Shells
4  Hanneke Grootenboer — Thinking with Shells in Petronella Oortman’s Dollhouse

Part III: The Multiple Experienced
5  Róisín Watson — Shells and Grottoes in Early Modern Germany
6  Stephanie S. Dickey — Shells, Prints, and the Discerning Eye

Acknowledgments
Notes
Bibliography
Contributors
Index
Illustration Credits

Distributed by Oxford UP:

Chris Skidmore, Quakers and Their Meeting Houses (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2021), 240 pages, ISBN: 978-1800857209, £40 / $75.

This book provides a fascinating account of the architecture and historical development of the Quaker meeting house from the foundation of the movement to the twenty-first century. The Quaker meeting house is a distinctive building type used as a place of worship by members of the Society of Friends (Quakers). Starting with buildings of the late-seventeenth century, the book maps how the changing beliefs and practices of Quakers over the last 350 years have affected the architecture of the meeting house. The buildings considered are illustrated, predominantly in colour, and are from England, Scotland, and Wales, with some consideration of colonial American examples. The book commences with an introduction that provides an accessible account of the early history of Quakerism, and it concludes with a consideration of whether there is a Quaker architectural style and of what it might consist.

From Cornell UP:

Kerry Dean Carso, Follies in America: A History of Garden and Park Architecture (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2021), 216 pages, ISBN: ‎978-1501755934, $30.

Follies in America examines historicized garden buildings, known as ‘follies’, from the nation’s founding through the American centennial celebration in 1876. In a period of increasing nationalism, follies—such as temples, summerhouses, towers, and ruins—brought a range of European architectural styles to the United States. By imprinting the land with symbols of European culture, landscape gardeners brought their idea of civilization to the American wilderness.

Kerry Dean Carso’s interdisciplinary approach in Follies in America examines both buildings and their counterparts in literature and art, demonstrating that follies provide a window into major themes in nineteenth-century American culture, including tensions between Jeffersonian agrarianism and urban life, the ascendancy of middle-class tourism, and gentility and social class aspirations.

Kerry Dean Carso is Professor of Art History at the State University of New York at New Paltz. She is the author of American Gothic Art and Architecture in the Age of Romantic Literature.

C O N T E N T S

List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments

Introduction
1  The English Landscape Garden in America
2  Temples
3  Summerhouses
4  Towers
5  Ruins
Conclusion

Notes
Bibliography
Index

Distributed by Oxford UP:

Geoffrey Timmins, The Built Environment Transformed: Textile Lancashire during the Industrial Revolution (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2021), 240 pages, ISBN: 978-1800856530, £40 / $75.

This book is concerned with the remarkable changes made to the built environment in Lancashire’s main textile district—essentially the eastern and central parts of the county—during the Industrial Revolution (c1780–c1850). A case-study approach is taken, with findings from investigations at six different types of site being presented. The sites included are water-powered mill remains in the Cheesden valley, near Rochdale; Barrow Bridge factory village, near Bolton; the former handloom weavers’ colony at Club Houses, Horwich; Preston’s Winckley Square; Eanam wharf at Blackburn; and, to the north of Bolton, the road between Bromley Cross and Edgworth. The case studies show how, in rural and urban areas alike, developments in industry, housing, and transport greatly extended the built environment and brought striking new features to it. Emphasis is placed on interpreting the physical evidence the sites provide, linking it with that taken from various types of documentary source, especially historical maps. By making comparisons with developments occurring at similar types of site elsewhere in Britain, as well as in Europe and North America, the forms the changes took are explained and their significance assessed. Additionally, insights are provided into the economic and social impact the changes brought, especially on the everyday lives that people led.

Geoffrey Timmins is Emeritus Professor in the School of Humanities, Language, and Global Studies at the University of Central Lancashire.