Hannah Williams – författare

From its establishment in 1648 until its disbanding in 1793 after the French Revolution, the Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture was the centre of the Parisian art world. Taking the reader behind the scenes of this elite bastion of French art theory, education, and practice, this engaging study uncovers the fascinating histories - official and unofficial - of that artistic community. Through an innovative approach to portraits - their values, functions, and lives as objects - this book explores two faces of the Académie. Official portraits grant us insider access to institutional hierarchies, ideologies, rituals, customs, and everyday experiences in the Académie's Louvre apartments. Unofficial portraits in turn reveal hidden histories of artists' personal relationships: family networks, intimate friendships, and bitter rivalries. Drawing on both art-historical and anthropological frames of analysis, this book offers insightful interpretations of portraits read through and against documentary evidence from the archives to create a rich story of people, places, and objects. Theoretically informed, rigorously researched, and historically grounded, this book sheds new light on the inner workings of the Académie. Its discoveries and compelling narrative make an invaluable and accessible contribution to our understanding of this pre-eminent European institution and the social lives of artists in early modern Paris.

A friendly, accessible, and empowering career guide for 16-22-year-olds at the very beginning of their working lives.Start Now is a straight-talking, reassuring guide for anyone at the very beginning of their career, whether you’re looking for a Saturday job, an internship, a first role after university, or are simply trying to figure out what comes next.There’s no single ‘right’ way to start your career anymore. The world of work has changed and most people won’t follow a neat path from one job to another. You might study and work at the same time. You might try different things, switch direction, or build multiple income streams along the way.Blending practical advice with real-life stories, Start Now covers everything from getting your first job and managing your money, to understanding how modern careers actually work – including how technology and AI are changing the workplace, the hiring process, and how you can use them to your advantage.You’ll learn how to:· Get your first job;· Build confidence, independence and real world skills;· Balance work, study and everything else going on in your life (without burning out);· Understand pay, rights, and how to handle workplace challenges; and· Explore different ways of working - from part-time jobs to starting something of your own.With the tone of a big sibling and the clarity of a great mentor, Start Now meets you exactly where you are: at the start.Because you don’t need a perfect plan. You just need to begin.

From its establishment in 1648 until its disbanding in 1793 after the French Revolution, the Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture was the centre of the Parisian art world. Taking the reader behind the scenes of this elite bastion of French art theory, education, and practice, this engaging study uncovers the fascinating histories - official and unofficial - of that artistic community. Through an innovative approach to portraits - their values, functions, and lives as objects - this book explores two faces of the Académie. Official portraits grant us insider access to institutional hierarchies, ideologies, rituals, customs, and everyday experiences in the Académie's Louvre apartments. Unofficial portraits in turn reveal hidden histories of artists' personal relationships: family networks, intimate friendships, and bitter rivalries. Drawing on both art-historical and anthropological frames of analysis, this book offers insightful interpretations of portraits read through and against documentary evidence from the archives to create a rich story of people, places, and objects. Theoretically informed, rigorously researched, and historically grounded, this book sheds new light on the inner workings of the Académie. Its discoveries and compelling narrative make an invaluable and accessible contribution to our understanding of this pre-eminent European institution and the social lives of artists in early modern Paris.

Artists are makers of things. Yet it is a measure of the disembodied manner in which we generally think about artists that we rarely consider the everyday items they own. This innovative book looks at objects that once belonged to artists, revealing not only the fabric of the eighteenth-century art world in France but also unfamiliar-and sometimes unexpected-insights into the individuals who populated it, including Jean-Antoine Watteau, Francois Boucher, Jean-Baptiste Greuze, and Elisabeth Vigee-LeBrun.From the curious to the mundane, from the useful to the symbolic, these items have one thing in common: they have all been eclipsed from historical view. Some of the objects still exist, like Jean-Honore Fragonard's color box and Jacques-Louis David's table. Others survive only in paintings, such as Jean-Simeon Chardin's cistern in his Copper Drinking Fountain, or in documents, like Francois Lemoyne's sword, the instrument of his suicide. Several were literally lost, including pastelist Jean-Baptiste Perronneau's pencil case. In this fascinating book, the authors engage with fundamental historical debates about production, consumption, and sociability through the lens of material goods owned by artists