EVANS, Joan.

Inquire · Offered by Peter Harrington

Life in Mediaeval France. First edition, with an autograph letter signed from the author, dated in the year of publication, noting her recent return from France and remarking that the archaic French used in Plate XLVII would have "probably puzzled you".Joan Evans (1893-1977) was a celebrated authority on medieval art. Her study Pattern: a Study of Ornament in Western Europe from 1180 to 1900 (1931) was "groundbreaking" (ODNB), but she is best known for her innovative, broad approach to the study of medieval France, and several of her publications remain influential reference works. Evans earned a prodigious number of degrees and honours, including doctorates from Oxford and London, and the presidency of the Royal Archaeological Society (1948-51). She was also president of the Society of Antiquaries (1959-64), the first woman to hold the post.There is a further contemporary pencil annotation on the front free endpaper in a different hand: "Read at Camusdarroch July & August 1925".

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