Ad Ilissum – förlag

Francisco de Holanda (1517/18 – 1585) was a court painter, architect and essayist at the Lisbon court of John III of Portugal and Catherine of Austria. Son of the Netherlandish painter and miniaturist, António de Holanda (d. 1557), from whom he learned illuminaton and drawing, Francisco became an important figure in the Portuguese Renaissance. Sponsored by John III, Francisco visited Italy in 1538–1540, where he produced a volume of drawings documenting sights he saw there, including fortifications and antiquities, for his patron. In Rome he frequented the home of Vittoria Colonna, who introduced him to Parmigianino, Giambologna and Michelangelo. After his return, he re-entered court service, propagating the Italianate style in Portugal through his writings. In 1548 he completed a manuscript Da pintura antigua (Of Ancient Painting), which was the first treatise on painting written in Portugal. This was followed in 1549 by his illustrated ten dialogues Do tirar polo natural (On portraiture from life), added as an appendix to Da Pintura Antiga.On Portraiture is the first treatise dedicated to portraiture, first circulating at the Lisbon court as a manuscript before it publication in Madrid in 1563\. This Spanish translation was undertaken by Holanda’s friend the Portuguese court painter Manuel Denis. However, this treatise has remained relatively unknown to modern scholars.This volume, celebrating the 500th anniversary of Holanda’s birth, is edited by the late John Bury with Fernando António Baptista Pereira, Luisa Capucho Arruda and Annemarie Jordan Gschwend. An English translation of Holanda’s portrait treatise and a transcription of the Portuguese original is included, with commentaries and essays regarding Holanda’s output as portraitist and theorist at the Lisbon court until his death in 1585.

This stunning catalogue presents an exceptional collection of rare Burmese silver. Accompanied by detailed photographs and explanatory texts, this ground-breaking book proposes a new way of looking at Burmese silver. Names, dates, places, and stories – identifying the who, when, where, and what of Burmese silver has been the focus of publications on the topic. Are these questions the best way to understand silver, however? Alexandra Green argues that they are not. Too few pieces provide reliable information about silversmiths, production locations, and dates to allow for a comprehensive understanding of the subject. Instead, a close examination of silver patterns reveals strong links with Burmese art history reaching as far back as the Bagan period (11th- to 13th-centuries), connections with contemporary artistic trends, and participation within the wider world of silversmithing. The first European to write about Burmese silver was H. L. Tilly, a colonial official from the late 19th- into the early 20th-century. Tasked with collecting objects for various fairs and exhibitions, he took an interest in Burmese art, publishing articles and books from the 1880s onwards. While much of what he wrote was factually inaccurate and coloured by the prejudices and stereotypes common at the time, his two volumes on Burmese silver published in 1902 and 1904 contain pictures of pieces from the early to mid 19th-century. These enable a reconstruction of how silver designs evolved as the country was absorbed into the Indian Raj, and British and other Westerners became consumers of local silver products. Tilly was also correct in his interest in silver designs. Green uses the visual information from his books to describe the continuities and innovations of designs found on silver from the mid 19th through the mid 20th-century, and she places these trends within local, regional, and global flows of ideas. Many studies of Burmese silver have been plagued by a lack of understanding of the Burmese context. In contrast, Green examines silver from a local perspective, drawing on Burmese texts and information that allows for a nuanced view of the motifs, designs, and patterns that appear repetitively on silver pieces. Using Graham Honeybill's collection, formed over many years, as a basis, she explores how designs and patterns circulated around the country and were innovatively combined and recombined on pieces by silversmiths producing objects for Burmese, Western, and commercial clients.