In 1966, American collector and philanthropist Paul Mellon presented to Yale University a glorious collection of British paintings, drawings, sculpture, prints, and rare books. Subsequently he provided funds for the celebrated Louis Kahn building to house the collection, bestowed additional works of art, and established an endowment for continuing acquisitions. This lavishly illustrated book presents eighty masterpieces from the Yale Center for British Art.

The book reflects the latest scholarship on individual paintings by such leading British artists as Hogarth, Gainsborough, Stubbs, Turner, Constable, and Bonington, and by foreign painters -- from Canaletto to Whistler -- who made rich contributions to the development of British art. The volume spans five centuries and groups the paintings by themes ranging from "Court and Country" in the seventeenth century to "Modern High and Low" in the twentieth.