Here, in more than 1,500 full-color, specially drawn illustrations, is the most comprehensive and detailed history and sourcebook of twentieth-century jewelry ever published.

The Napier Jewelry book is a visual encyclopedia of Napier Costume Jewelry. It tells the heretofore untold and phenomenal story of The Napier Co. inception, development, flowering, and ultimate success. It chronicles the history of its management, manufacturing, marketing, and most importantly, the unparalleled beauty of Napier fashion jewelry. With approximately 4000 pictures of Napier jewelry history and over 250,000 words of text and descriptions, you will be taken step-by-step, decade by decade, through the development of the Napier style. As a collector, you will learn to recognize the findings, materials, and designs to appropriately circa-date the Napier jewelry in which you are investing. As a lover of vintage costume jewelry, you will enjoy the drama and excitement of the trials, tribulations, and breakthroughs at each stage of the Napier journey. In the end, you will have a deep and lasting appreciation of the romantic story infused into the metal, gemstones, crystals, cabochons, and elegance of each piece of Napier jewelry that you own or are considering owning

Spectacularly beautiful, this authoritative book presents jewelry designs of this century. With almost two hundred full-color photographs specially commissioned for this book and archival pictures of pieces that have disappeared into private collections, the volume features the finest artworks in precious metals and jewels from collections around the world, including creations by Lalique, Cartier, Boucheron, Bulgari, Tiffany, and David Webb. The fascinating text surveys the glittering world of gems with an illustrated introductory essay investigating the development of jewelry design at the end of the 1800s, and the shift from Victorian and Art Nouveau works to pieces stamped with the personality and vision of a single designer. The next chapter thoroughly examines the successive revolutions in style of the twentieth century. The balance of the book is a cornucopia of photographs portraying pieces from the beginning of the century through the 1960s: the grand era of commissions and patrons. Here you will find the Duchess of Windsor's famous necklace of diamonds and rubies as well as a fabulous pin in the shape of a World War II tank, and a veritable menagerie of diamond-studded elephants, enameled tigers, and jade dragons. This thorough history is a dazzling jewelbox of a book.

"Through meticulous research, this book explores the Italian twentieth-century jewelry and goldsmithing landscape. This is the first time the topic is investigated in such a comprehensive manner, having previously only been dealt with limitedly to specific producers or production areas. Following the evolution of an art that is the result of millenary stratifications, this volume contains over three hundred images illustrating jewelry produced between 1900 and 1990. The chapters follow a chronological order and systematically look at the political and economic events influencing the fate of jewelry, as well as the fashion, the role of women, the artistic and architectural experiences, and the tastes of the time. Alongside the most prominent maisons feature less-known jewelers of doubtless creativity and artistic quality. Detailed biographies of each of the jewelers mentioned are included at the end of the volume"--Back cover.

Aiming to spotlight areas of collectability—mainly from the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries—which are available to enthusiasts today, this is an important study of both well-known and forgotten jewelry fashions and trends. Each chapter—there are 22 in this second edition—concentrates on a specific topic, but there is a comprehensive cross-referencing to other chapters. Almost every item shown has been on the market in recent years. No other jewelry book reflects the antique jewelry market or collectors’ enthusiasms in quite the same way. Among the types of jewelry covered are diamond brooches, coral 19th-century gold work, piqué, silver jewels, cameos and intaglios, mosaics, Edwardian pendants, and unusual materials. "Theme" jewelry is another area described with an amazing variety of representations of animals or flowers, as well as Victorian Scottish jewelry and 19th-century archaeological revival jewels inspired by the goldwork of the Greeks, Etruscans, or ancient Egyptians. The work of individual artist-jewelers, who played such an important part in the Art Nouveau and Art Deco movements, is documented, along with the glamorous, highly sought after jewels created by the great jewel houses like Cartier, Tiffany, Falize, and Van Cleef & Arpels. Finally the important "movements"—Arts and Crafts; Art Nouveau, including Liberty’s huge output; and Art Deco—are assessed. Newly added is a chapter on Retro Modern—the cocktail jewelry for the 1940s—the best of which has become eminently collectable.

This fun and visually exciting book presents lavish and popular jewelry in many types of plastics from Bakelite, celluloid, and Lucite to Plexiglas, natural plastics, and resins. Brooches, necklaces, beads, and earrings appear in 365 color photos and period catalog pages that display all the styles. Popular makers such as Trifari, Lisner, Coro, Kramer, Kenneth Jay Lane, and Les Bernard, and more are well represented.