The seemingly unstoppable rise of the exhibition catalogue happily does not mean that nothing else gets published, and my selection of glossy delights to drive away the Boxing Day blues has more than its fair share of goodies that were not born in museums. The Royal Tombs of Egypt by Zahi Hawass (Thames & Hudson, £39.95) is a spectacular case in point, which not only contains numerous gorgeous photographs of the paintings and carvings within them, but also some remarkable six-page fold-outs. Hawass is above all concerned with the subject-matter and meaning of these decorations, which were based upon such texts as the Book of the Dead, and proves to be an exemplary guide to their intricate iconography.
Bellini, Giorgione, Titian, and the Renaissance of Venetian Painting by David Alan Brown and Sylvia Ferino-Pagden (Yale, £40) is a Washington/Vienna co- production, but it does also serve as a lasting memorial to one of the great turning-points in the history of Western painting.
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