Queen Victoria of Great Britain made a tremendous impact on the world, so much so that the era of her reign was given her name. Items from the Victorian period have a reputation for beauty and elegance, which is why they are such popular collectibles. This one-of-a-kind reference covers the beautiful jewelry of the Victorian Age, from 1837 to 1901. Gemologist C. Jeanenne Bell offers collectors this fascinating all-color exploration of the illustrious age and the elegant jewelry that is produced. &break;&break;Decade by decade, Bell reveals how the fashion of the time influenced the style of jewelry, and how innovations in manufacturing affected jewelry production. Jewelry listings provide current marketplace values, and also cover American and French jewelry styles from the time. Over 1,000 color pictures and illustrations convey the true beauty of Victorian era jewelry it produced.

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

Many of the earliest books, particularly those dating back to the 1900s and before, are now extremely scarce and increasingly expensive. We are republishing these classic works in affordable, high quality, modern editions, using the original text and artwork.

Jean Arnold explores the role material objects play in the cultural cohesion of the West, arguing that gems symbolized the most closely held beliefs of the Victorians and thus can be considered prisms of culture. Her close readings of works by Wilkie Collins, George Eliot, William Makepeace Thackeray, and Anthony Trollope show jewels turned into symbols of power, personal relationships, and valued ideas that serve to bind the materialist culture together.

In this study of Victorian jewels and their representation, Jean Arnold explores the role material objects play in the cultural cohesion of the West. Diamonds and other gems, Arnold argues, symbolized the most closely held beliefs of the Victorians and thus can be considered "prisms of culture." Mined in the far reaches of the empire, they traversed geographical space and cultural boundaries, representing monetary value and evoking empire, class lineage, class membership, gender relations, and aesthetics. Arnold analyzes the many roles material objects fill in Western culture and surveys the cross-cultural history of the Victorian diamond, uncovering how this object became both preeminent and representative of Victorian values. Her close readings of Wilkie Collins's The Moonstone, George Eliot's Middlemarch, William Makepeace Thackeray's The Great Hoggarty Diamond, and Anthony Trollope's The Eustace Diamonds show gendered, aesthetic, economic, fetishistic, colonial, legal, and culturally symbolic interpretations of jewelry as they are enacted through narrative. Taken together, these divergent interpretations offer a holistic view of a material culture's affective attachment to objects. As the assigned meanings of jewels turn them into symbols of power, personal relationships, and valued ideas, human interactions with gems elicit emotional responses that bind the materialist culture together.

"The 'age of Victoria' is taken in its widest sense to encompass jewellery made throughout Europe and America, displayed at the great international exhibitions and distributed through foreign trade, illustrated publications and a burgeoning tourist industry ... The focus of the book is on the attitudes of owners to their jewellery and the symbolic weight that it was expected to carry. Rather than concentrating on the major figures at the top end of the jewellery trade, or indeed offering a chronological survey of the development of jewellery styles and fashions, it is oriented towards the social aspects of owning, wearing and displaying jewellery. The authors show, for example, how novelists use jewellery to add a moral or metaphorical dimension to a character, while jewels depicted in portraits would often have disclosed multiple messages which could be immediately decoded by the viewer. The achievements of science, the fascination with nature and the Victorian sense of humour are all embodied in jewellery. Topics discussed in depth include the importance of jewellery in the life of the Queen herself, jewellery and dress, the language of jewellery, the cult of novelty, the importance of nationalism in the revival of historical styles, and the contribution of archaeological discoveries."--Publisher's description.

A lavishly illustrated celebration of some of the finest examples of vintage costume jewelry ranges from the Victorian era, through the sophisticated designs of art deco and geometrics, to the designer and artisanal jewelry of the present, accompanied by valuable suggestions on how to distinguish a quality piece and appreciate its craftsmanship.

During recent years, the Bakelite jewelry of the 1930s has become a trendy and popular fashion accessory and much-valued collectible. Emblematic of a unique culture that only could have blossomed between a depression and a world war, this cheeky costume jewelry is beautifully shown here in its amazing range, humor, high style, good-hearted silliness, streamlined chic, and daring inventiveness. Bakelite, the first thermosetting plastic, formed the basis for a Depression-era fashion trend that began, spread like wildfire, and died away, all within a few short years--between 1933 and 1941. Two generations later, there is an astounding resurgence of interest in Bakelite jewelry. Among fashion trendsetters, there is growing infatuation with these playful and very wearable baubles. Among serious collectors, there is fierce competition for the rare, quality pieces that were made in limited numbers under such evocative brand names as Marblette, Gemstone, Prystal, Agtine, and Catalin. Bakelite seems to be everywhere, and prices are rising. The authors have assembled for this book--from many sources--the greatest array ever seen of Bakelite jewelry. They have also appended a very useful guide to prices. ILLUSTRATIONS 150 full colour