Book Competition

This week’s competition prize is Carrying off the Palaces: John Ruskin’s Lost Daguerreotypes, by Ken Jacobson and Jenny Jacobson (Bernard Quaritch Ltd, £85). Click here for your chance to win.

Winner of The Apollo Awards 2015: Book of the Year, the inspiration for this book was a remarkable discovery made by the authors at a small country auction in 2006. One lightly regarded lot was a distressed mahogany box crammed with long-lost early photographs. These daguerreotypes were later confirmed as once belonging to John Ruskin, the great 19th-century art critic, writer, artist and social reformer. Moreover, the many scenes of Italy, France and Switzerland included the largest collection of daguerreotypes of Venice in the world and probably the earliest surviving photographs of the Alps. Core to this book is a fully illustrated catalogue raisonné of the 325 known Ruskin daguerreotypes.

For your chance to win simply answer the following question and submit your details here before midday on 18 December 2015.

Which Italian city did John Ruskin call ‘the paradise of cities’?

This competition closes at midday on 18 December 2015.

For our last competition prize we offered Gothic for the Steam Age: An Illustrated Biography of George Gilbert Scott, by Gavin Stamp (Aurum Press, £30)

In which year was Scott’s Midland Grand Hotel, London opened?

Answer: 1873

Congratulations to the winner, Michael Downes.