could trace its aesthetic lineage back to sumptuous medieval illuminated manuscripts and religious bindings. Apart from these books, Jones's most significant (and most widely consumed) printing output was through his long-standing relationship with the firm of De La Rue. From the mid-1840s until the end of his life, some 30 years later, Jones designed a wide variety of products for De La Rue including playing cards, menus, biscuit-tin wrappers, postage stamps, chessboards, endpapers, scrap albums and diaries. The Great Exhibition Jones was employed as one of the Superintendents of Works for the Great Exhibition of 1851. He was responsible for not only the decoration of Joseph Paxton's gigantic cast iron and glass palace, but also for the arrangement of the exhibits within, and this was the architectural project which first brought Jones to the wider public's attention. Based on his observations of primary colour polychromy within the architecture of Ancient Egypt, Ancient Greece and at the Alhambra, he chose a simple palette of red, yellow and blue for the interior ironwork. Colour theories were relatively new, and his controversial paint scheme created much debate and negative publicity in the newspapers and journals of the day. Crucially, after early viewings, Prince Albert maintained his support, and Jones ploughed on regardless. The public and professional criticism gradually dissipated until the building was eventually unveiled by Queen Victoria to much critical acclaim – some commenting that Jones's colouring was similar in effect to the paintings of J. M. W. Turner. Jones had been offered a rare chance to put some of his theories on polychromy into practice on a grand scale: six million people witnessed his vision at the Great Exhibition during its short existence – roughly three times the population of London at that time. The Crystal Palace at Sydenham After the Great Exhibition, "The Crystal Palace" was re-erected in Sydenham. Jones was given joint responsibility, with Matthew Digby Wyatt (1820–1877), for the decoration and layout for this new incarnation. It opened in 1854 as a permanent venue for education and entertainment. Jones and Digby Wyatt envisaged a series of 'Fine Arts Courts' which would take the visitor through a grand narrative of the history of design and ornament. Jones had the opportunity to re-visit his work at the Alhambra by building a luxurious re-creation of the famed palace in the 'Alhambra Court'. He designed the Egyptian, Greek and Roman courts. For