More than a pictorial archive of medieval dress and decoration, this beautiful collection is also valuable for its discerning scholarship. A magnificent compilation of artwork from Henry Shaw's detailed study of court life in the Middle Ages, this splendid book provides a grand display of medieval figures and fashions of the times. Reproduced directly from Shaw's original, hand-colored plates a…
First published in 1842, this volume made an important contribution to the nineteenth-century Gothic Revival, during which English artists rediscovered decorative styles from their country's medieval past. Few published sources of the Victorian era offered information on historic designs, and The Encyclopedia of Ornament was warmly received and widely praised for the meticulous rendering of its…