Off the shelf

Apollo’s selection of recently published books on art, architecture and the history of collecting

The Edwardians and their Houses: The New Life of Old England

Timothy Brittain-Catlin Lund Humphries, £45 ISBN 9781848222687

From country houses built to accommodate the new concept of the ‘weekend’, to cottages and seaside villas, this attractively laid-out book re-examines domestic architecture over a -year period, and the Liberal politics that influenced it.

The Letters of Edgar Degas

Theodore Reff (ed.)

Wildenstein Plattner Institute, $200 ISBN 9780998817514

Ranging from sonnets to scathing putdowns, the writings of the Impressionist painter are inventive and prolific. These three volumes include some , letters, transcribed, dated, and annotated by the Degas scholar Theodore Reff, and presented in French with an English translation.

The Silver Swan: In Seach of Doris Duke

Sallie Bingham

Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $14.99 ISBN 9780374711863

Once described as ‘the world’s richest girl’, tobacco heiress Doris Duke was a collector of Islamic art who set up a museum in her home in Hawaii, a generous donor to preservation efforts in Newport County – and the proud owner of a B bomber.

Notre-Dame: The Soul of France

Agnès Poirier Oneworld, £16.99 ISBN 9781786077998

Released one year after the fire that ravaged the great cathedral, which Poirier witnessed through her kitchen window, this brief history moves between the days of Joan of Arc and the present, assessing why NotreDame is so important to France and why the stakes for reconstruction are so high.

Finding Dora Maar

Brigitte Benkemoun (trans. Jody Gladding) Getty Publications, £18.99

ISBN 9781606066591

After an accidental eBay purchase left her with Dora Maar’s address book, Benkemoun spent two years immersing herself in the Surrealist artist’s life. The result, a compelling blend of memoir, biography and history, now appears in English after proving a bestseller in France.

Tudor Textiles

Eleri Lynn

Yale University Press, £35 ISBN 9780300244120

Lavish tapestries, carpets and embroideries were prized more highly at the Tudor court than any other art form. This richly illustrated study asks what textiles reveal about the monarchy from Henry VII to Elizabeth I, with special attention paid to the Field of the Cloth of Gold festival in .