Overview

One Christmas Eve, Prince Sanruddin Aga Khan gave to his wife a magnificent jeweled box made by Cartier in the 1930s. So began the making of perhaps the most remarkable jewelry collection of a remarkable era for jewelry - and for French jewelry in particular. In the 1920s and 1930s, smoky night clubs, cocktails, a new acceptance of make up beyond the boudoir, décor for smart apartments and dinner tables, provided a new landscape for the designs of the great jewelry houses of Europe, with Paris as the superstar of cities. The gloom of war was replaced either by an explosion of coloured gemstones and enamel, with bold colour codes of blue, green and orange, or by the simplicity of black, white and gold as risqué black became newly chic. Zen rock gardens, Chinese dragons, Persian birds, Japanese plum blossom or Tutankhamun motifs provided the richest source of global influences in a triumph of hedonistic creativity. How this new world developed, the tastes and skills of its decorative shapers - above all, Cartier - the process of design and making, the rules of feminine elegance are explored by expert authors, with detailed descriptions of over 100 objects by Sarah Davis accompanying them, in a parade of the finest from the single most popular era for all those interested in jewelry and the decorative arts.

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9780500519479

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Reviews

An elegant offering filled with jeweled works beyond compare... This entire book is a feast for the eyes with images of intricate inlay, bright colors, and inventive design. Photographer Doug Rosa does a magnificent job of presenting some gorgeous vanity cases, cigarette cases, and miscellaneous objects from the 1920s and 1930s...art deco period.-- (06/01/2017) Virtually impossible to put down. A 'feast for the eyes'...for any art collector or connoisseur of the jeweler's art. The works pictured are breathtaking in their craftsmanship, their ingenuity, and their astonishing use of color. Each image is clear and crisp, as if you could touch the object. This is a book to return to again and again, a book to treasure. It is a deeply satisfying opportunity to examine, close up, a noteworthy collection.-- (01/31/2018)

Author Information

Princess Catherine Aga Khan is wife of the late Prince Sadruddin Aga Khan.

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