This brand new and exquisitely illustrated book introduces one of the great collections of jewellery, with examples of 50 key items of jewellery dating from the 1st century BC to the turn of the twentieth century. Specific terminology, when used, is always explained; each text clearly states why a particular object is important, and the jewellery selected shows an enormous range of periods, regions, artistic and stylist development, and materials.

Signature items featured in this volume include a magnificent pair of gold bracelets discovered inside a tomb in Olbia, Ukraine, and dating to the Hellenistic Period of the 1st-century BC; a pair of gold and semi-precious stone-inlaid eagle fibulae, dating from 6th-century Visigothic Spain; a cameo and gold-mounted brooch depicting Ellen Walters, made in Italy by the Saulini family around 1862; a gold Iris Corsage ornament by Tiffany & Co., and a wonderful corsage ornament of pansy blossoms executed in a combination of cast glass and plique- -jour enamel by Ren© Lalique, dating from 1904.