Books make won­der­ful presents, espe­cially those that add a new facet of knowl­edge to Mom’s bur­geon­ing, or per­haps more advanced inter­ests. My book, BROOCHES: TIMELESS ADORNMENT, is a fab­u­lous gift for any­one who wants to know more about the styl­ish his­tory of this orna­ment — the best exam­ple of the jeweler’s art. It’s full of advice and the illus­tra­tions, noted with praise by Elle edi­tors, are inspi­ra­tional to those who haven’t yet grasped, “where and how to stick ‘em.”

For today’s post, I’ve asked my col­league and book seller non­pareil (every­one in the indus­try taps into her archival stock), Judy M. Cohen of JM Cohen Rare Books to offer a few insights into gath­er­ing a library of jew­elry books that will last a lifetime:

First you should read a well-written, well-illustrated gen­eral sur­vey of jew­elry. The one I always rec­om­mend is Under­stand­ing Jew­elry by David Ben­nett and Daniela Mascetti, an aptly named book that presents a thor­ough, yet gen­eral overview of jew­elry through­out his­tory. Under­stand­ing Jew­elry is a book that will be used over and over again through­out your col­lect­ing life; the index is exhaus­tive; the infor­ma­tion is quite detailed, and the pho­tographs are excep­tional. In fact, when there is a ques­tion about buy­ing just one book, I always sug­gest this one.

There is a lot to digest in this work and for those who feel it is a bit too over­whelm­ing, there is also John Benjamin’s Start­ing to Col­lect Antique Jew­ellery or Clare Phillips’ Jew­elry, From Antiq­uity to the Present.

Every­one should have Harold Newman’s An Illus­trated Dic­tio­nary of Jew­elry and Christie Romero’s Warman’s Jew­elry. The dic­tio­nary is easy to use, alpha­bet­i­cal list­ing of words you might come across, as well as design­ers and tech­niques. Short entries explain the mean­ings of these terms and names.
Romero’s book has every­thing, includ­ing val­ues. And a small book, What’s it Made Of , by Sheryl Gross Shatz is very help­ful to deter­mine the mate­r­ial some­thing is made of by using sim­ple at home methods.

Once you have the basic ref­er­ence books, you will find that your library will grow. Your quest for knowl­edge will make sure that hap­pens! The minute you find a piece of jew­elry about which you want to know more than a gen­eral sur­vey can teach you, you will find that you want and need books on more spe­cific top­ics, a par­tic­u­lar period, a spe­cific designer, one type of mate­r­ial or another.

In order to deter­mine what a piece of jew­elry is, the date and/or the maker, you will need books of marks, both hall­marks and maker’s marks. The stan­dard hall­mark books are by Tardy, Poincons d’Or and Poincons d’Argent, one on gold and plat­inum and one on sil­ver. They are in French, but every­one seems to be able to use them once taught. The marks will help you to deter­mine the place and date of any piece. Jackson’s Sil­ver and Gold Marks is use­ful for British marks. When there is a maker’s mark, you may have to search many books, as there is no one book on maker’s marks. How­ever, there is one for Amer­i­can maker’s marks and that is Dorothy Rainwater’s Amer­i­can Jew­elry Man­u­fac­tur­ers.

After pur­chas­ing and read­ing the basic books, there are sev­eral that are highly rec­om­mended and referred to quite often by col­lec­tors and deal­ers. They include Shirley Bury’s Jew­ellery 1789–1910, The Inter­na­tional Era, Joan Evans’ A His­tory of Jew­ellery 1100–1870, Martha Gandy Fales’ Jew­elry in Amer­ica, and Penny Proddow’s Amer­i­can Jew­elry: Glam­our and Tradition.

When I am asked what books I rec­om­mend to peo­ple start­ing out in their quest for knowl­edge of jew­elry, I usu­ally begin with the books I have men­tioned. Then I ask them to be more spe­cific, about what period appeals to them or what period they are see­ing and focus­ing on most often. For the Vic­to­rian era I rec­om­mend you start with Mar­garet Flower’s Vic­to­rian Jew­ellery; for Art Nou­veau Vivi­enne Becker’s Art Nou­veau Jew­elry, Joseph Sataloff’s Art Nou­veau Jew­elry, and Alas­tair Duncan’s The Paris Salons 1895–1914; for the Arts & Crafts period Elyse Zorn Karlin’s Jew­elry and Met­al­work in the Arts and Crafts Tra­di­tion; for Art Deco, Art Deco Jew­elry by Sylvie Raulet and Melissa Gabardi’s Art Deco Jew­ellery, 1920–1949; and for 20^th cen­tury jew­elry Gra­ham Hugh­es’ Mod­ern Jew­elry: An Inter­na­tional Sur­vey, 1890–1967. Rec­om­mended books on cos­tume jew­elry would be Deanna Far­neti Cera’s Jew­els of Fan­tasy: Cos­tume Jew­elry of the 20^th Cen­tury and Vivi­enne Becker’s Fab­u­lous Cos­tume Jew­elry.

Books with good pho­tographs of jew­elry as it was worn through­out his­tory include Boucher’s 20,000 Years of Fash­ion and Gregorietti’s Jew­elry Through the Ages. I am always happy to dis­cuss indi­vid­ual pref­er­ences with my customers.

I sug­gest that you pay atten­tion to cer­tain authors includ­ing: Joan Evans, Vivi­enne Becker, Daniela Mascetti, Amanda Triossi, Diana Scaris­brick, Penny Prod­dow, and Char­lotte Gere; I also rec­om­mend that you con­sider the bib­li­og­ra­phy at the end of books you already find use­ful. The books that these authors use in their own writ­ing will con­tain much more infor­ma­tion than they are pre­sent­ing to you.

Sec­ond only per­haps to the plea­sure of find­ing and wear­ing beau­ti­ful jew­elry is immers­ing one’s self in books of exquis­ite pho­tographs of jew­elry. Not only will you find it plea­sur­able, you will learn so much.
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Ok, my dears, that’s all for this week. My fam­ily is cel­e­brat­ing our youngest son’s mile­stone — we are very proud of him. So I’m off to make final prepa­ra­tions. I will be back next Tues­day with more. Bon week­end!! LEG