Coffee Table Book of: Antique Jewelry (Paperback)

Description

Coffee Table Book of: Antique Jewelry is a large format book of antique jewelry, printed edge to edge in colour, one picture to a page and the widest carried across two: rings, brooches, lockets, cameos, pearls, earrings and bracelets laid alone on velvet, close details of stones and enamel, jewels at rest in bare rooms, the old crafts that make and mend them, and the wild places where their materials are found.

The sentimental jewels of the 1700s and 1800s: a gold mourning ring banded in black enamel, a brooch holding a plait of hair under glass, carved jet and bog oak, a seed pearl brooch on mother of pearl, a giardinetti ring, girandole earrings, a garnet cluster, a snake bangle, a crescent moon, a horseshoe, a pansy and an ivy leaf in enamel, and gold lockets on velvet ribbon.

Art Nouveau enamel follows the curves of nature, with a dragonfly whose wings glow clear green and blue, an iris pendant with a baroque pearl, a poppy buckle and a comb of carved horn. Art Deco answers in platinum geometry: a line bracelet of diamonds, a double clip brooch, an onyx bar brooch, drop earrings of jade, enamel cufflinks and a long sautoir of pearls.

The cocktail rings of the middle 1900s carry big citrine, amethyst and aquamarine stones and gold worked like bark, beside a bold bow brooch of rose and yellow gold. The cameos are cut in shell, banded agate, coral and volcanic stone, with a fob seal cut as an intaglio.

The making and care of jewels runs through it all: a ring mandrel, a piercing saw, a hammer and block, pliers and tweezers, a loupe, a shell cameo half carved, enamel powders, a crucible of gold and a wax ring beside its casting, pearls knotted on silk and silver polished bright, with the cold shores, clear rivers, pine woods and dry plains where amber, jet, pearls, gold, turquoise and opal are found.

Short notes run through the book, on how fine jewels are made and set, what their stones and symbols meant, and the long history of jewels kept and handed down: plique a jour enamel has no backing, so light shines through it like a tiny stained glass window, giardinetti, meaning little gardens, are rings set with small coloured stones in an open basket of flowers, tiny seed pearls were once strung on horsehair and sewn onto carved frames of mother of pearl, and claws hold a stone with the least metal, letting in the most light.

Printed in full colour on heavy 150gsm coated paper at 216 x 279 mm (8.5 x 11 inches), as a paperback.