ENGLISH GOTHIC CHOIR-STALLS 1200-1400

First edition. Publisher's original burgundy cloth with gilt titles to the spine, in dustwrapper. With five small black and white illustrations within the text at the front and 242 black and white photographic plates to the rear. A near fine copy, the binding square and firm, with some rubbing to the extremities and a few light marks. The contents are clean throughout and without inscriptions or stamps. Complete with the very good or better rubbed and creased dustwrapper, that is a touch faded to the spine, and has a short closed tear to the top of the rear flap fold. Clipped and repriced (£50.00 net on a publisher's label to the lower front flap).

'This study examines and interprets some thirty sets of choir furniture and associated material in the greater churches of England and Wales. [...] Charles Tracy notes architectural and stylistic development in choir furniture, wherever possible linking one monument with another, and fits each into its place in the artistic activity of the period. He stresses the importance of choir-stalls as a symbol of power and affluence, and the consequent honoured and privileged status of the furniture designer and carver in English medieval society. The intervention of royal patronage is also fully discussed, revealing its promotion of individual artists and its probable agency in effecting the spread of certain architectural and sculptural formulae in woodwork during the second half of the 14th century' (publisher's blurb).