The technique of water-based painting dates to ancient times, and belongs to the history of many cultures in the world.

By the 1780s the sweeping curves of the late Baroque and the exuberant ornament of the Rococo were giving way to a renewed interest in classical precedents, which found expression in the delicate, rectilinear forms of the Neoclassical, or Federal, style.

François Boucher (1703–1770), the friend and protégé of Mme de Pompadour, was the greatest French artist and decorator of the Rococo period. His prolific oeuvre has been both lauded and derided, but it is not until now—in this volume accompanying an exhibition held at The Metropolitan Museum of Art and The Detroit Institute of Arts—that his art has been fully studied and appreciated. Alastair Laing, the principal author of this volume, shows that Boucher's work represents the acme of French eighteenth-century fine and decorative arts. With the exception of a trip to Italy in his mid-twenties to study the work of Renaissance masters, Boucher lived and worked in Paris. His artistic progression, through religious themes, mythological subjects, genre painting, landscape, and portraiture, is thoroughly documented in this catalogue. The patronage of Mme de Pompadour, mistress of Louis XV, ensured a large demand for Boucher's work, including drawings, prints and paintings, as well as tapestry and porcelain designs. His art traveled throughout northern Europe, and formed the essence of the French Rococo style sought after by patrons and emulated by artists in Stockholm, Copenhagen, Saint Petersburg, and Munich. A large collection of these works is illustrated in this volume. In addition, little-known or misattributed early works have been brought to light, showing Boucher's first experiments with composition and color. His designs reproduced in tapestry at Beauvais and Gobelins, and in porcelain at Vincennes and Sèvres, are illuminated in lively discussions by Edith Standen, Consultant, European Sculpture and Decorative Arts, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, and by Antoinette Fay-Halle, Conservateur, Musée Nationale de Céramique, Sèvres, and Conservateur, Musée Nationale Adrien-Dubouché, Limoges. Preliminary essays by Alastair Laing, Pierre Rosenberg, Conservateur-en-chef, Département des peintures, Musée du Louvre, and J. Patrice Marandel, Curator, European Paintings, The Detroit Institute of Arts, provide the necessary foundation for a complete appreciation of the artist's work. Augmented by a detailed chronology and bibliography, this volume comprehensively defines a painter of extraordinary productivity, diversity, and influence. It gives the reader a chance to examine with fresh eyes the range of styles and subject matter of an artist who epitomizes the splendid taste of his time—François Boucher.

Mapungubwe is the earliest known site in southern Africa where the leaders were spatially separated from their followers, reflecting the evolution of a class-based society.

The church not only exerted enormous power over the lives of the European and indigenous peoples, but also, through its patronage, profoundly influenced the nature of the visual arts in these regions.

Among the Metropolitan's most beloved spaces are the galleries dedicated to arms and armor. The Museum's collection of fourteen thousand pieces, unrivaled in quality, depth, and diversity, encompasses objects from around the globe and across more than two millennia. Crossbows occupy a singular place in the history of weapons and their technology: they remained in use for more than two thousand years, and, until eclipsed by firepower, reigned as one of the dominant weapons throughout the world. Indeed, changes originally designed to increase the propulsive power of the simple bow evolved into the mechanisms that would define the operation of firearms.

Join Stephan Wolohojian, John Pope-Hennessy Curator in Charge of the Department of European Paintings, and Caroline Campbell, Director (An Stiúrthóir) of the National Gallery of Ireland, to virtually explore Siena: The Rise of Painting, 1300–1350.

Limoges enamels, the richest surviving corpus of medieval metalwork, were renowned throughout Europe in the Middle Ages. Yet today they are little known outside academic circles. The present volume, published in conjunction with the exhibition Enamels of Limoges, 1100–1350, brings to deserved public attention nearly two hundred of the most important and representative examples from the collections of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Musée du Louvre, the great church treasuries of France, and other sources. Early in the twelfth century, goldsmiths at the Benedictine Abbey of Conques in the hills of the ancient province of Rouergue began to create enamels whose jewel-like colors and rich, golden surfaces belied their fabrication from base copper. Within a generation, this technique was established in the area of the Limousin itself. By the 1160s the enamels created at Limoges, known as opus lemovicense, were a hallmark of the region. They were to be found not only in the Limousin and the neighboring region of the Auvergne but also in Paris, in monasteries along the pilgrims' road to Santiago de Compostela, at the Vatican, and in the cathedrals of Scandinavia. The works of Limoges were created for important ecclesiastical and royal patrons. The wealth of enameling preserved from the Treasury of the abbey of Grandmont, just outside Limoges, is due chiefly to the Plantagenet patronage of Henry II and his queen, Eleanor of Aquitaine. Enamels created during their reign resonate with the elegant style of the court, and the dramatic history of Henry's monarchy is evoked by such works as the reliquary of Saint Thomas Becket. Ecclesiastical patrons such as Archbishop Absalon of Lund, Cardinal Guala Bicchieri, and, above all, Pope Innocent III were key to the dissemination of Limoges work throughout the churches of Europe. While few of the artists who created the enamels that have come down to us are known by name, the works of several—Master Alpais, Garnerius, and Aymeric Chretien—are here juxtaposed with related pieces, some of them demonstrably from the same atelier. Clearly, the ability of the goldsmiths of Limoges to adapt their work to meet the demands of a varied clientele was an essential element in their success. Victorines and Franciscans joined Benedictines among the patrons of Limoges. Before the middle of the thirteenth century, the goldsmiths of Limoges began to create tomb sculptures of gilt copper with enameled surrounds, the most famous being the paired images of John and Blanche of France, children of Saint Louis. Objects decorated with enameled coats of arms came into prominence at about the same time.

Fifteen jewel-like miniature paintings—with enlarged details—and thirteen pages of exquisitely calligraphed poetry are reproduced here from a diminutive manuscript commissioned by Akbar the Great, the third Mughal emperor of India. The manuscript, which measures only 5 1/2 by 27/8 inches, was made in 1588, the thirty-third year of Akbar's reign, when the emperor was at the height of his power. The tiny paintings are the work of Akbar's court artists, many of whom were trained by Persian artists brought to India by Humayun, Akbar's father. A brilliant blend of Persian and Indian influences marks the work of these Mughal painters; their miniatures combine extreme delicacy of line with intense colors and complex compositions—some of which demonstrate the artists' understanding of the European concept of perspective. The various small paintings convey the whimsy, vigor, and lyrical quality of the poems they illustrate. The poems are by Auhaduddin Anvari, the greatest Persian panegyrist of the twelfth century. In her commentary on the poems and in her essay on Anvari's work and life, Annemarie Schimmel, the Museum's special consultant for Islamic art, offers insights into Anvari's complex and sometimes caustic works and gives new translations of many of the poems. Stuart Cary Welch, special consultant in charge of the Department of Islamic Art at the Metropolitan, has written an engaging account of Akbar's life and times that includes a history of the Mughal dynasty and of the court ateliers where this delightful Divan was produced. This Divan of Anvari is in the collection of the Fogg Art Museum at Harvard, and the Metropolitan is honored to collaborate with the Fogg in the publication of the present book. The publication has been generously supported by a grant from The Hagop Kevorkian Fund, New York.