Pattern: A Study of Ornament in Western Europe 1180 to 1900 by Evans Joan - 1931

Edition Note: The first issue of the first edition, rear of the jackets with publisher's advertisements dated January 1931, set of two volumes, printed by John Johnson in Great Britain. Availability: Scarce and sought after, a worldwide search finds 245 institutional holdings; reissued by Hacker Books in 1975 and De Capo Press in 1976. Provenance: sold by Parkers of Oxford (est. 1800), their blue seller label at the foot of the front endpaper. The work originally sold for 7 guineas. Summary: Widely considered "a monumental study which reframed the scholarly concept of decoration … her study on ornament remains important." [Dictionary of Art Historians] A required source for scholars, students, and collectors on the history of ornament in Western Europe, Dame Joan Evans used her vast research in the history of adornment to write this classic work that connects the development of ornament in Western Europe to its underlying social history, "the seven centuries of European history here studied represent the most continuous epoch of intense living and thinking in the history of the world." [Vol. I, Intro, p. xxxiii] The work is nigh encyclopedic, never surpassed for its breadth, covering the gamut of forms and media and with lucid detail on the technical aspects of design. Volume I is devoted to the medieval period, "The last half of the twelfth century was one of the great creative epochs of the world". … "this stirring of the human spirit had its centre in France". [Vol. I, p. 1] Volume II, in seven parts, covers the Renaissance and Baroque, the Far East and its influence, and the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, with three parts devoted to the latter, including the vast influence of industrialism. Condition: Pages: G+ / Boards: Volume I: Near Fine / Volume II: Good+ / Gilt: Fine / Jackets: Good+, well-preserved with slight wear / Endpapers: About Fine / Binding: Fine. Detail: Pages and Plates: clean and bright, except title pages with some offset spots from frontispiece plates / Many pages have a gentle top corner bump, some with bent tips, several pages of the index with slight top margin wear / Boards: Volume One: lower board with lightly bumped top corner, slight rubs, light spotting / Volume Two: rubs, fore-edge with slight wear, corners with light wear. Jackets: Upper Sides: slight top edge wear and slight scattered foxing, for Volume II, primarily at gutter edge / Lower sides: trace foxing, scattered light soiling, trace-light bottom edge wear / Spines: foot of Volume I with an abrasion and tears. Pagination: Complete, the two volumes with separate title pages and pagination with a total of 446 pages with bibliographical footnotes and index and 435 b/w illustrations, 27 figures in text and 203 pages of plates showing 408 reproductions, including a frontispiece illustration in each volume, Vol. I in five parts, beginning with The Mistress Art, Gothic Decoration and ending with The Romance of Distance, Voyages and Volume II in seven parts, beginning with, The New Age, Italian Renaissance and ending with The Age of Theory, Envoi; "One principle alone is evident from the dispassionate study of ornament that here draws to a close: pattern to have life and meaning must derive its inspiration and its significance from the life and interests of the generation it is to serve. When Pattern so created is beautiful, it is beautiful for all time, but it does not follow that its use is for all time." [Vol. 2, p. 198-199] Format: Publisher's gilt decorated and lettered blue cloth boards in a quarto sewn binding, upper sides decorated with interlaced roundels, spines with letters and rules and the beautiful, pale green decorated jackets decorated and lettered in scarlet, the upper sides decorated with an interlaced, heraldic chevron design repeated on the title pages, the lower sides with twelve publisher ads, two for books by Joan Evans. Size: 290 mm (11.42 inches). Joan Evans [1893-1977]: A medievalist historian with a background in archaeology, she received a doctorate from Oxford and became a leading art historian. Her first notable book was "Life in Medieval France" (1925). Among her other pioneering and classic works was "A History of Jewelry, 1100-1870", published in 1953. Her last book was "Monastic Iconography in France from the Renaissance to the Revolution" (1970). A fellow of the Royal Historical Society and the Royal Society of Literature, she was the first woman elected president of the Society of Antiquaries, (a position her father, John Evans and her half-brother, the famous archaeologist, Arthur Evans held before her). She was appointed a 'Dame of the British Empire' (DBE) in 1976. Reference: Arntzen / Rainwater P67. Chamberlin 1633. Woman Medievalists in the Academy, chapter 29, Coldstream, Nicola, from p. 399. Additional Images: by request.