Customer Reviews

Jeweled Garden: A Colorful History of Gems, Jewels, and Nature

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
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1 star:		(0)

 

 

A "Must-have" for jewelry collectors, designers ..... Excellent pictures!!!! Great details!!! With lots of great masterpieces! 100% +++++ satisfaction in owning it!!!

For me, "Jeweled Garden" was a disappointment. Nature in general and flowers in particular have inspired a myriad of jewelry forms, created by many cultures and throughout much of history. Many materials(beyond common gems) have been used to express motiffs derived from nature. But the pieces illustrated in this book are of limited variety. The book primarily focuses on a narrow range of subjects; faceted gems set into standard floral forms. These are pretty, but repetitive. The book holds little record of the broader range of materials, forms, and imagination that have enriched the nature-inspired jewelry scene.

A superb book! A visual ravishment!

The book is well researched and wide ranging in its study of flora based jewellery!

Focusing not only on the great jewellery houses but also on historical pieces, it makes for interesting reading for anyone who appreciate fine workmanship but also the history of jewels!

From ancient times flowers, leaves, vines and other organic forms have been made into precious jewels by mankind. This is essentially a picture book. It starts with some early examples of jewelled plants from UR (c2500BC) and ancient Greece and Egypt, but the bulk of the images represent jewellery made in the 19th and 20th centuries.

It has to be said that all the jewellery illustrated is very well photographed in colour and the images are of the highest quality. All the big "name" jewellers are illustrated (eg Castellani, Bucheron, Cartier, Tiffany etc) but there are also many examples by unknown artists, whose work is nevertheless still gorgeous.

The book is not restricted any particular type of jewellery. You have earrings, brooches, necklaces, bracelets all unified by a theme of organic design. If you make or simply love or collect jewellery then this book is one you should at least have a look at. It's a feast for the eyes and will give you an appreciated for how widely flowers etc have been used over the centuries for adornment.

Drool! Drool! Drool! You haven't seen these before. I have a lot of books on jewelry and I haven't seen 99% of the pieces in this book before.

Every page has full color photographs of the most stunning jewelry I've every seen. Many of the photographs are larger than life size, so you can really see the details. The descriptions of the pieces even give you a better feel of what they look like in real life.

I would definitely consider buying other books by these authors, as this book is stunning.

I am a gemologist and I have a passion for the unique and the antique, this book fills my eyes with delight every time I open the pages! The pictures are well done, plentiful, large, colorful, and vivid. Unlike some other books that go through the history of one type of jewel or one famous jewelry house, this book includes so many photos and descriptions from collections of various renowned designers & covers broad spectrums of jewel designs all with the tie in to nature from glorious watches to intricate brooches to elaborate rings etc. not a single dull page.
The "Jeweled Garden" is a gem of a book and really covers many styles of jewelry in a very unique and well put together book!

I think this book is exactly what I hoped when I ordered it and (unlike some other books I have purchased online) it truly lives up to its beautiful cover and title.

This was listed as a used book with some writing in it, but there were only about five pages with some scrawls (as from a child) on them. As I had looked through a library copy of this book, I knew what to expect, and all the pages were intact with all the gorgeous photographs. Not primarily a history book, but a celebration of fabulous works of art in precious stones and metals. A very satisfying book at a great price.

This is a fabulous book if you are interested in jewelry. The photos are beautiful and the text is well written and fascinating.