Personifications & Symbols

A must-have reference work for all art professionals, from museum curators to art educators, and a great book for art lovers, art buyers or anyone curious about the personifications and symbols depicted on their painting, print, sculpture, furniture, silver or clock. At the end of the eighteenth century the well-known engravers H.F. Gravelot and C.N. Cochin compiled the four-volume 'Iconologie par Figures', comprising illustrations of hundreds of personifications and their attributes. This encyclopedic work, enjoyed tremendous success and served artists as a standard source-book of allegorical motifs until well into the nineteenth century. Lels has taken the 'Iconologie' to create a new, comprehensive and easy-to-search lexicon of personifications and symbols, as a modern day reader would want it. The index allows the contemporary viewer to interpret art and artifacts, starting with the attributes. It offers a clear alphabetical list of the attributes associated with Gravelot and Cochin’s 400 personifications, together with a pictorial overview to make searching even easier. Never before has such thorough research been attempted into the attributes in the 'Iconologie par Figures'. The relevance of this work extends beyond painting and sculpture to encompass applied art pieces, featuring allegorical scenes. The result is an insightful manual: an important and commendable new source for art history.