Wednesday 28 March 2012

Cataloguing Fine Arts

Our Fine Arts section is relatively small with approximately 346 titles out of 462 volumes, yet the breadth of what our 19th -century antecedents considered to be the Fine Art is substantial, including Hunting, Fishing, Music, The Art of War, Field Sports, Cricket, Nursing, Interior Decoration, and of course, the ‘true’ Fine Arts.  This section contains an (almost) complete Badminton Library series covering numerous sports and games and a full set of John Stevenson’s (1818) A selection of Irish melodies, with symphonies and accompaniments, comprised of lyrics and leaves of musical scores and "harmonised airs". Another interesting work is Charles Eastlake's (1868) Hints on household taste in furniture, upholstery and other details with its 19th century coloured wallpaper samples!  The Fine Arts also contains a first edition Florence Nightingale Notes on nursing: what it is, and what it is not and Henry Augustus Dillon's two volume (1811) A commentary on the military establishments and defence of the British Empire. Needless to say, the Fine Arts section is certainly varied and cataloguing it perhaps took longer than necessary due to the inherent distraction in looking through old books! It is one of the sections to which we add supplementary volumes more regularly.  We have also managed, through a bit of rearranging, to fit all of the Fine Arts section back into the window bays which are, as designated in gold lettering, for the Fine Arts.



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