Books published by Royal Collection Trust

This book tells the story of British royal contact with Japan between 1603 and 1937, when the exchange of exquisite works of arts was central to both diplomatic relations and cultural contact. As a result, the Royal Collection has one of the most significant holdings of Japanese works of art in the western world.Featuring new research and stunning photography, the book showcases the consummate craftsmanship and rich cultural traditions behind three centuries¿ worth of porcelain, lacquer, armour, embroidery, metalwork and works on paper.

KATE HEARD is Senior Curator of Prints and Drawings, Royal Collection Trust. She is the author of Maria Merian¿s Butterflies (2016) and High Spirits: The Comic Art of Thomas Rowlandson (2013). KATHRYN JONES is Senior Curator of Decorative Arts, Royal Collection Trust. She is the author of European Silver In the Collection of Her Majesty The Queen (2017) and For the Royal Table: Dining at the Palace (2008).

Carly Collier is Assistant Curator of Prints and Drawings, Royal Collection Trust.

Pamela Hartshorne is a well-known historian and author. She completed her PhD in medieval studies at the University of York in 2004 and has since written many books, both non-fiction and fiction.

Cassiano dal Pozzo, (1588-1657) now celebrated as one of the most important art patrons in Italy of the seventeenth century, commissioned a number of exquisite studies of birds as part of his famous `Paper Museum¿. In 1622 the lawyer and ornithologist Giovanni Pietro Olina used these drawings which are now kept in the Royal Library at Windsor Castle, as the basis for the illustrations in his Uccelliera . Pasta for Nightingales combines Cassiano¿s original artwork with selections from the first English translation of Olinäs text. It includes such enchanting insights as the idea that robins were epileptic, or suffered from dizziness, and that the hoopoe overindulged in grapes until it became `dazed and half-drunk.¿ However it also includes much fascinating early natural history and ornithological observation - as well as the secret recipe for pasta to keep your nightingale happy and encourage it to sing. A unique celebration of the beginnings of ornithology, designed in sympathy with the character of the 17th- century original.

The Royal Collection includes some of the most historic examples of eastern arts now in the western world. With more than 2,000 items distributed among the royal residences in England and Scotland, this collection presents a rich cross-section of the porcelains, jades, lacquer and other works of art produced in China and Japan and brought here over a period of several centuries, reflecting the West¿s long-standing appetite for rarities from distant lands. A striking feature of the collection is the mounting in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries of many objects in gilt bronze: the mounts themselves, made in French and British workshops, are often of superb quality and of great historical importance and will be published here for the first time.

Tells the story of the magnificent royal inheritance of diamonds from the time of Queen Adelaide in the 1830s to the present day. Illustrated with archive material as well as photography of the jewels, this book includes stones of international importance as well as items of great historic significance.