Rome A Sketchbook

A guide to the glories of Rome, conveyed by means of an artist's sketchbook

Matthew Rice is a long-time observer and illustrator of cities, buildings and all those who inhabit them, with an uncanny ability to express the energy of a place through a few lines of ink and splashes of paint. In this sketchbook he turns his attention to Rome, the Eternal City.

Rome is a place where the ancient, the baroque and the modern clash, and this tension runs through Matthew's paintings. In this guide, hemakes sly juxtapositions of people and animals against the backdrop of the city's architectural and artistic wonders, ruins, and ristoranti. Matthew's ability to notice detail, his sense of light and dark, and his expert knowledge of architecture and how it creates an atmosphere allows him to present Rome, in these pages, in its all its living, breathing splendor.

Following the same landscape format as Matthew's real-life sketchbooks, Rome: A Sketchbook will combine enchanting watercolor illustrations with an informed, personal and witty text, and promises to delight all visitors to Rome, armchair or actual.

Matthew Rice is the author of Rice's Architectural Primer, which has been warmly embraced by architectural students and enthusiasts alike. A celebrated illustrator, he is perhaps best known for his longstanding collaboration with the potter Emma Bridgewater. He lives and works in a medieval gatehouse near Oxford.