This is my most consulted physical art book. I study it mainly for comparing materials and mediums, not so much for style and subject matter, though you do get an overall sense of high quality from the specific objects chosen. Instead of saying, They don’t make them like they used to, I go to Instagram and say, There must be a select few geniuses who are operating at this level, and I don’t stop looking until they are found, even if it takes 5-10 years:

https://archive.org/details/TheMetropolitanMuseumofArtGuide1994/