Earrings : From Antiquity to the Present

by Mascetti, Daniela; Triossi, Amanda

• ISBN13: 9780500281611
• ISBN10: 0500281610
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1999-10-01
• Publisher: W W Norton & Co Inc

Summary

There is an inexplicable magic about earrings, unmatched by any other kind of jewelry. Uniquely, they move with a life of their own, voluptuous yet pure, cold yet provocative. Earrings have been worn since prehistoric times; ancient civilizations offered earrings to their goddesses, and today they remain the most demanding and rewarding exercises of the jeweler's art. Daniela Mascetti and Amanda Triossi, both experts from Sotheby's, are themselves under the spell of earrings, and their erudition does not disguise that this book is as much a romance as a fine piece of art-historical research. The authors relate how the fashion of wearing precious earrings spread from ancient Egypt to the Classical Greek and Roman worlds to Byzantium. Techniques in the cutting of gemstones and diamonds, perfected in the eighteenth century, allowed earring design to evolve towards its most stylish and glamorous, and the book covers every period and style up to the present. The great names among designers and international jewelry houses--Cartier, Van Cleef & Arpels, Harry Winston, Bulgari--are represented in dazzling displays of precious and semi-precious earrings. Illustrations range from Rococo flowers and long, heavy girondoles thick with diamonds and emeralds to chaste Neoclassical disks and the delicate nodding sprays of the late nineteenth century. A wide-ranging study that will be a rich source of inspiration and delight for collectors, designers, and fashion lovers, this is a feast for the eye and a revelation of the wonders that artistry can create.

Table of Contents

Preface	8	(2)
Shirley Bury
The historical background: from antiquity to the 17th century	10	(33)
Minoan and Mycenean
Egypt
The Greek world
Etruscan
Rome and Byzantium
The Middle Ages
The Renaissance
The 17th century
The age of elegance: earrings in the 18th century	43	(24)
The girandole
The pendeloque
The `two-stone' earring
A lasting tradition
The 19th century: riches and revivals	67	(64)
From the French Revolution to Waterloo 1815-1830
The 1830s
The 1840s and 1850s
The exotic: the 1860s and 1870s
Classical revival Renaissance and 18th century revival
Fin de siecle
Experiment and variety: earrings of today	131	(63)
Before the First World War
Decade by decade: the 1920s to the 1980s
Biographical notes on designers	194	(21)
Glossary	215	(3)
Bibliography	218	(1)
Acknowledgements	219	(2)
Index	221