Impressions of Japan, first published in 1901, 73 color illustrations. According to Wikipedia: "Menpes was born in Port Adelaide, South Australia, the second son of property developer James Menpes, who with his wife, Ann, had settled in Australia in 1839... Menpes set off on a sketching tour of Brittany in 1880, during which he met James McNeill Whistler. He became Whistler's pupil, and at one stage shared a flat with him at Cheyne Walk on the Chelsea Embankment in London. He was taught et...

The Thames by Mortimer Menpes.

Although I am familiar with Rembrandt's work, through photographs and black and white reproductions, I invariably experience a shock from the colour standpoint whenever I come in touch with one of his pictures. I was especially struck with that masterpiece of his at the Hermitage, called the Slav Prince, which, by the way, I am convinced is a portrait of himself; any one who has had the idea suggested cannot doubt it for a moment; it is Rembrandt's own face without question. The reproducti...

Mortimer Menpes happily played the loyal and obedient follower to famed nineteenth-century artist James McNeil Whistler for nearly a decade. Then abruptly, the relationship ended and barely a word passed between them again. Upon Whistler's death some twenty years later, Menpes reemerged to put to print this first-hand portrait of his former master; capturing Whistler's working methods, his daily routines, his interests, and his eccentricities. As the International Studio worte on the book's o...

Illustrated with 15 color photographs of his paintings. According to Wikipedia: "Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn (15 July 1606 – 4 October 1669) was a Dutch painter and etcher. He is generally considered one of the greatest painters and printmakers in European art history and the most important in Dutch history. His contributions to art came in a period of great wealth and cultural achievement that historians call the Dutch Golden Age when Dutch Golden Age painting, although in many ways an...

Geoffrey Fletcher's off-beat portrayal of London does not focus on the big landmarks, but rather 'the tawdry, extravagant and eccentric'. His descriptions will transport you to an art nouveau pub, a Victorian music hall, a Hawksmoor church and even a public toilet in Holborn in which the attendant kept goldfish in the cisterns. Drawn to the corners where 'the kids swarm like ants and there are dogs everywhere', Fletcher will take you to parts of the city where few outsider...

'HIS MASTERPIECE,' which in the original French bears the title of L'Oeuvre, is a strikingly accurate story of artistic life in Paris during the latter years of the Second Empire. Amusing at times, extremely pathetic and even painful at others, it not only contributes a necessary element to the Rougon-Macquart series of novels—a series illustrative of all phases of life in France within certain dates—but it also represents a particular period of M. Zola's own career and work. Some years, i...

On the 9th of June 1865, Charles Dickens was travelling aboard the Folkestone to London Boat Train with his mistress and her mother, when it derailed while crossing a viaduct near Staplehurst in Kent. The train plunged down a bank into a dry river bed, killing ten passengers, and badly wounding forty.Dickens was profoundly affected by the disaster, and a year later, he published The Signalman, a supremely atmospheric ghost story in which the narrator, while investigating a...

"There is always in our minds the hope that we may find again those golden unhastening days and wake up and dream." - Angela ThirkellAngela Thirkell, the cousin of Rudyard Kipling and the granddaughter of celebrated Pre-Raphaelite painter Sir Edward Burne-Jones, was an eminent twentieth century literary figure, and wrote avidly until her death in 1961. In her beautifully nostalgic memoirs, she recalls in rich detail the three houses in which she grew up and the childhood m...

Working at the end of the nineteenth century, photographer Henry Peach Robinson was best known for his zealous, and highly adept, use of combination printing -- creating a single image from multiple negatives. He was also an accomplished writer and this short book from 1888 remains one of his most endearing. In practical instruction and personal anecdote, it extols his unyielding belief that capturing the natural beauty of the landscape required the helping hand of props, costumed models, and...