Product Description: The history of ceramic art is ingrained in the history of mankind. Clay is one of the very first materials 'invented' by man. An essential part of our lives it has been moulded, thrown, glazed, decorated and fired for over 30,000 years in order to preserve and transport food and water...read more

An Economist Book of the Year        Costa Book Award Winner for Biography     Galaxy National Book Award Winner (New Writer of the Year Award)Edmund de Waal is a world-famous ceramicist. Having spent thirty years making beautiful pots—which are then sold, collected, and handed on—he has a particular sense of the secret lives of objects. When he inherited a collection of 264 tiny Japanese wood and ivory carvings, called netsuke, he wanted to know who had touched and held them, and how the collection had managed to survive. And so begins this extraordinarily moving memoir and detective story as de Waal discovers both the story of the netsuke and of his family, the Ephrussis, over five generations. A nineteenth-century banking dynasty in Paris and Vienna, the Ephrussis were as rich and respected as the Rothchilds. Yet by the end of the World War II, when the netsuke were hidden from the Nazis in Vienna, this collection of very small carvings was all that remained of their vast empire.

Product Description: The Ephrussis were a grand banking family, as rich and respected as the Rothschilds, who “burned like a comet” in nineteenth-century Paris and Vienna society. Yet by the end of World War II, almost the only thing remaining of their vast empire was a collection of 264 wood and ivory carvings, none of them larger than a matchbox...read more

Product Description: Potters long ago left behind the notion that pots must be purely useful or merely pleasant everyday objects.At the turn of the twentieth century, ceramics—as in other media in both the decorative and fine arts—underwent revolutionary change...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)

Product Description: This richly illustrated book presents the Jeffrey Montgomery collection of traditional Japanese art, one of the foremost collections of this art in the world.Superb examples of lacquerware and metalwork, basketry, textiles, furniture, masks, sculpture, paintings, toys and ceramics, are organized by medium in five sections...read more

Product Description: This gorgeous volume captures the very best in contemporary ceramic art. The work of over 70 internationally renowned ceramic artists showcases an array of styles. (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)

Product Description: One of a series exploring the lives and work of major artists associated with St Ives, this book looks at the potter Bernard Leach. It provides a critical overview of his art and influences, and places him alongside his contemporaries, both in St Ives and further afield...read more