Patrick Mauriès

The goal of this book (purportedly) is to be a sort of chronicle of fashion history, and it kind of is. La Croix uses his extensive knowledge and love of archival material to amass a unique collection that shows his perspective on the development of fashion. The book is organized into sections based on different patterns, styles, and inspirations that pairs La Croix's couture creations with a variety of other designers' pieces from various historical periods. La Croix's vision of fashion show more history may be more personal than objective, but this kind of account of what makes history so interesting. show less

An extensive illustrated survey of one of the most inventive design minds of the twentieth century. Combining whimsy and elegance, Piero Fornasetti transformed everyday objects like cups, scarves, and plates into much sought-after works of art with his idiosyncratic motifs, such as the hand, the female face, and luminescent fish. His dazzling pieces of trompe l’oeil furniture, created in collaboration with Gio Ponti, are also highly prized by collectors worldwide.
Fornasetti’s show more boundless imagination is celebrated here in a book published to document a major retrospective exhibition at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris. The first half of the monograph is organized by type and includes Fornasetti’s paintings, drawings, and furniture. The second half focuses on favorite themes: his use of trompe l’oeil, architectural drawings, and his variations on the face of a famous operatic beauty. Featuring 400 illustrations covering almost fifty years of a protean and prolific designer and artist like no other, this is a must-have for Fornasetti connoisseurs and anyone interested in design. show less

This book is a visual treasure chamber for those interested in how collections could look like in the curiosity cabinets of the wealthy classes during the 15th-17th centuries.

I’m very fond of this title. Not only is it lavishly illustrated, but it also gives the reader an historical account of collecting from the renaissance wunder kammer to contemporary curio cabinets. You cannot browse the pages without being inspired. This book is eye candy for the collector, art buff or anyone with an show more interest in cultural history... show less

Between May 1818 and May 1819, Charles-Frédéric Soehnée filled three albums with an extraordinary series of watercolour paintings and sketches. These, together with a single lithograph, ‘make up the bulk, if not the entirety of Soehnée’s œuvre:’ a singular body of work reproduced in this catalogue, published by Le Promeneur in association with the Galerie Jean-Marie Le Fell, to coincide with an exhibition there in 2006. Patrick Mauriès provides an intoduction and notes.

Excepting show more a few conventional landscapes, Soehnée’s paintings are almost entirely devoted to fantastical and grotesque subjects: groups of faceless figures are juxtaposed with variously ratlike and batlike creatures, or skeletal birds; and there is a strange preponderance of stilts, whips and fishing-rods. The titles that Soehnée gave to some of his pictures are further suggestive of a ‘gothic’ sensibility: ‘Journey to Hell;’ ‘Cradle of Death;’ ‘A Place of Silence;’ and ‘The Winds, Grouped around Plague and Death, Cover the Earth with Tombs…’ show less