Download or read book Jewels That Made History written by Stellene Volandes and published by Rizzoli Publications. This book was released on 2020-10-13 with total page 226 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The history of the world--triumphs and tragedies, breakthroughs and breakups--through the iconic jewels that have inspired and influenced since the dawn of time. From ancient treasures to royal weddings, great heists to the red carpet, this book is a stunning, surprising, and glittering tour of historic turning points and gem-driven drama, delving into the passions and predilections of some of the world's most interesting and extraordinary people. Starting in the era of Cleopatra and continuing through to contemporary jewelry statements by Jennifer Lopez, Lady Gaga, and Meghan Markle, Stellene Volandes tells the stories of how shiny stones and precious metals have determined empires, inspired expeditions and great crime, and been the communicator of status and ruin since ancient times. Each moment is placed in historic and relevant context, with Volandes drawing engaging parallels between Napoleon's gift to Marie Louise at the birth of their son and the modern push present or the insouciant story behind the brooch Jackie Kennedy famously wore to a 1962 State Dinner with the Shah of Iran. Illustrated with a mix of archival images and gorgeous photography of the jewels, this book is a beautiful, informative, and essential read for history lovers, fashion, celebrity, and pop-culture followers, as well as passionate jewel hounds.

Download or read book Jewels written by Victoria Finlay and published by Ballantine Books. This book was released on 2006-08-15 with total page 456 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Throughout history, precious stones have inspired passions and poetry, quests and curses, sacred writings and unsacred actions. In this scintillating book, journalist Victoria Finlay embarks on her own globe-circling search for the real stories behind some of the gems we prize most. Blending adventure travel, geology, exciting new research, and her own irresistible charm, Finlay has fashioned a treasure hunt for some of the most valuable, glamorous, and mysterious substances on earth. With the same intense curiosity and narrative flair she displayed in her widely-praised book Color, Finlay journeys from the underground opal churches of outback Australia to the once pearl-rich rivers of Scotland; from the peridot mines on an Apache reservation in Arizona to the remote ruby mines in the mountains of northern Burma. She risks confronting scorpions to crawl through Cleopatra’s long-deserted emerald mines, tries her hand at gem cutting in the dusty Sri Lankan city where Marco Polo bartered for sapphires, and investigates a rumor that fifty years ago most of the world’s amber was mined by prisoners in a Soviet gulag. Jewels is a unique and often exhilarating voyage through history, across cultures, deep into the earth’s mantle, and up to the glittering heights of fame, power, and wealth. From the fabled curse of the Hope Diamond, to the disturbing truths about how pearls are cultured, to the peasants who were once executed for carrying amber to the centuries-old quest by magicians and scientists to make a perfect diamond, Jewels tells dazzling stories with a wonderment and brilliance truly worthy of its subjects.

Download or read book The History of Jewelry written by Caroline Childers and published by Rizzoli Publications. This book was released on 2019-02-26 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book offers a unique way of exploring the world of vintage jewelry for experts, newcomers, and anyone with an interest in the topic. Every piece of jewelry tells a story, and none more so than the exquisite pieces in this book, which have passed through several notable owners before arriving at Joseph Saidian & Sons, an antique jeweler’s shop nestled in the Manhattan Art and Antiques Center. Each chapter is centered around a particular piece of jewelry and the way in which it is emblematic: a previous owner, an exemplary design or dominant material. From an array of historic pieces from Van Cleef & Arpels to a discussion of Indian royalty and its relationship with jewelry to pages filled with exquisite pearl jewelry, this book satisfies both the casual fan and the devotee with full-color photographs and informative themed chapters. The eclectic choice of jewels and objets makes this a book unlike any other, with myriad entry points to larger discussions on broader themes and trends that the pieces figure into. This publication features beautiful full-color photographs of jewelry from various historical eras up to the present day, with a wide range of materials and styles. Each piece offers a different entry point for discussing the history of jewelry and various design elements, techniques, materials, and societal implications.

Download or read book Jewel written by Bret Lott and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2011-11-15 with total page 372 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the backwoods of Mississippi, a land of honeysuckle and grapevine, Jewel and her husband, Leston, are truly blessed; they have five fine children. When Brenda Kay is born in 1943, Jewel gives thanks for a healthy baby, last-born and most welcome. Jewel is the story of how quickly a life can change; how, like lightning, an unforeseen event can set us on a course without reason or compass. In this story of a woman's devotion to the child who is both her burden and God's singular way of smiling on her, Bret Lott has created a mother-daughter relationship of matchless intensity and beauty, and one of the finest, most indomitable heroines in contemporary American fiction.

Download or read book The Family Jewels written by John Prados and published by University of Texas Press. This book was released on 2014-09-01 with total page 423 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In December 1974, a front-page story in the New York Times revealed the explosive details of illegal domestic spying by the Central Intelligence Agency. This included political surveillance, eavesdropping, detention, and interrogation. The revelation of illegal activities over many years shocked the American public and led to investigations of the CIA by a presidential commission and committees in both houses of Congress, which found evidence of more abuse, even CIA plans for assassinations. Investigators and the public soon discovered that the CIA abuses were described in a top-secret document agency insiders dubbed the "Family Jewels." That document became ground zero for a political firestorm that lasted more than a year. The "Family Jewels" debacle ultimately brought about greater congressional oversight of the CIA, but excesses such as those uncovered in the 1970s continue to come to light. The Family Jewels probes the deepest secrets of the CIA and its attempts to avoid scrutiny. John Prados recounts the secret operations that constituted "Jewels" and investigators' pursuit of the truth, plus the strenuous efforts—by the agency, the executive branch, and even presidents—to evade accountability. Prados reveals how Vice President Richard Cheney played a leading role in intelligence abuses and demonstrates that every type of "Jewel" has been replicated since, especially during the post-9/11 war on terror. The Family Jewels masterfully illuminates why these abuses are endemic to spying, shows that proper relationships are vital to control of intelligence, and advocates a system for handling "Family Jewels" crises in a democratic society. With a new epilogue that discusses former CIA employee Edward Snowden's revelation of massive covert surveillance by the NSA, this powerful accounting of intelligence abuses committed by the CIA from the Cold War through the war on terror reveals why such abuses and attempts to conceal them are endemic to spying and proposes how a democratic nation can rein in its spymasters.

Download or read book The Book of the Pearl written by George Frederick Kunz and published by . This book was released on 1908 with total page 828 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Cartiers written by Francesca Cartier Brickell and published by Ballantine Books. This book was released on 2021-06-08 with total page 673 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “A dynamic group biography studded with design history and high-society dash . . . [This] elegantly wrought narrative bears the Cartier hallmark.”—The Economist The “astounding” (André Leon Talley) story of the family behind the Cartier empire and the three brothers who turned their grandfather’s humble Parisian jewelry store into a global luxury icon—as told by a great-granddaughter with exclusive access to long-lost family archives “Ms. Cartier Brickell has done her grandfather proud.”—The Wall Street Journal The Cartiers is the revealing tale of a jewelry dynasty—four generations, from revolutionary France to the 1970s. At its heart are the three Cartier brothers whose motto was “Never copy, only create” and who made their family firm internationally famous in the early days of the twentieth century, thanks to their unique and complementary talents: Louis, the visionary designer who created the first men’s wristwatch to help an aviator friend tell the time without taking his hands off the controls of his flying machine; Pierre, the master dealmaker who bought the New York headquarters on Fifth Avenue for a double-stranded natural pearl necklace; and Jacques, the globe-trotting gemstone expert whose travels to India gave Cartier access to the world’s best rubies, emeralds, and sapphires, inspiring the celebrated Tutti Frutti jewelry. Francesca Cartier Brickell, whose great-grandfather was the youngest of the brothers, has traveled the world researching her family’s history, tracking down those connected with her ancestors and discovering long-lost pieces of the puzzle along the way. Now she reveals never-before-told dramas, romances, intrigues, betrayals, and more. The Cartiers also offers a behind-the-scenes look at the firm’s most iconic jewelry—the notoriously cursed Hope Diamond, the Romanov emeralds, the classic panther pieces—and the long line of stars from the worlds of fashion, film, and royalty who wore them, from Indian maharajas and Russian grand duchesses to Wallis Simpson, Coco Chanel, and Elizabeth Taylor. Published in the two-hundredth anniversary year of the birth of the dynasty’s founder, Louis-François Cartier, this book is a magnificent, definitive, epic social history shown through the deeply personal lens of one legendary family.

Download or read book A History of Jewellery 1100 1870 written by Joan Evans and published by Courier Corporation. This book was released on 1989-01-01 with total page 436 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Superb sourcebook of rare ornamentation includes meticulously detailed narrative and 400 illustrations depicting priceless brooches, necklaces, clasps, gold padlock, reliquary pendants, much more.

Download or read book Jeweled Garden written by Suzanne Tennenbaum and published by Vendome Press. This book was released on 2006-12-05 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Explores the evolution of garden inspired jewelry with 375 full-color photographs from the nineteenth century to present day displaying important pieces from world famous jewelers, including Cartier, Tiffany, Mauboussin, Bulgari, Chanel, and Christian Dior"--Provided by publisher.

Download or read book The Last Tiara written by M.J. Rose and published by Blue Box Press. This book was released on 2021-02-02 with total page 230 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestseller M.J. Rose comes a provocative and moving story of a young female architect in post-World War II Manhattan, who stumbles upon a hidden treasure and begins a journey to discovering her mother’s life during the fall of the Romanovs. Sophia Moon had always been reticent about her life in Russia and when she dies, suspiciously, on a wintry New York evening, Isobelle despairs that her mother’s secrets have died with her. But while renovating the apartment they shared, Isobelle discovers something among her mother’s effects—a stunning silver tiara, stripped of its jewels. Isobelle’s research into the tiara’s provenance draws her closer to her mother’s past—including the story of what became of her father back in Russia, a man she has never known. The facts elude her until she meets a young jeweler, who wants to help her but is conflicted by his loyalty to the Midas Society, a covert international organization whose mission is to return lost and stolen antiques, jewels, and artwork to their original owners. Told in alternating points of view, the stories of the two young women unfurl as each struggles to find their way during two separate wars. In 1915, young Sofiya Petrovitch, favorite of the royal household and best friend of Grand Duchess Olga Nikolaevna, tends to wounded soldiers in a makeshift hospital within the grounds of the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg and finds the love of her life. In 1948 New York, Isobelle Moon works to break through the rampant sexism of the age as one of very few women working in a male-dominated profession and discovers far more about love and family than she ever hoped for. In M.J. Rose’s deftly constructed narrative, the secrets of Sofiya’s early life are revealed incrementally, even as Isobelle herself works to solve the mystery of the historic Romanov tiara (which is based on an actual Romanov artifact that is, to this day, still missing)—and how it is that her mother came to possess it. The two strands play off each other in finely-tuned counterpoint, building to a series of surprising and deeply satisfying revelations.

Download or read book The Crown Jewels written by Anna Keay and published by . This book was released on 2012 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This text captures the magnificence of a collection of symbolic objects steeped in English history like no other: the crown jewels.

Download or read book Koh i Noor written by William Dalrymple and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2017-09-12 with total page 307 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the internationally acclaimed and bestselling historians William Dalrymple and Anita Anand, the first comprehensive and authoritative history of the Koh-i-Noor diamond, arguably the most celebrated jewel in the world. On March 29, 1849, the ten-year-old leader of the Sikh kingdom of the Punjab was ushered into the magnificent Mirrored Hall at the center of the British fort in Lahore, India. There, in a formal Act of Submission, the frightened but dignified child handed over to the British East India Company swathes of the richest land in India and the single most valuable object in the subcontinent: the celebrated Koh-i-Noor diamond, otherwise known as the Mountain of Light. To celebrate the acquisition, the British East India Company commissioned a history of the diamond woven together from the gossip of the Delhi Bazaars. From that moment forward, the Koh-i-Noor became the most famous and mythological diamond in history, with thousands of people coming to see it at the 1851 Great Exhibition and still more thousands repeating the largely fictitious account of its passage through history. Using original eyewitness accounts and chronicles never before translated into English, Dalrymple and Anand trace the true history of the diamond and disperse the myths and fantastic tales that have long surrounded this awe-inspiring jewel. The resulting history of south and central Asia tells a true tale of greed, conquest, murder, torture, colonialism, and appropriation that shaped a continent and the Koh-i-Noor itself.

Download or read book Our History Is the Future written by Nick Estes and published by Haymarket Books. This book was released on 2024-07-16 with total page 343 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Awards: One Book South Dakota Common Read, South Dakota Humanities Council, 2022. PEN Oakland/Josephine Miles Literary Award, PEN America, 2020. One Book One Tribe Book Award, First Nations Development Institute, 2020. Finalist, Stubbendieck Great Plains Distinguished Book Prize, 2019. Shortlist, Brooklyn Public Library Literary Prize, 2019. Our History Is the Future is at once a work of history, a personal story, and a manifesto. Now available in paperback on the fifth anniversary of its original publication, Our History Is the Future features a new afterword by Nick Estes about the rising indigenous campaigns to protect our environment from extractive industries and to shape new ways of relating to one another and the world. In this award-winning book, Estes traces traditions of Indigenous resistance leading to the present campaigns against fossil fuel pipelines, such as the Dakota Access Pipeline Protests, from the days of the Missouri River trading forts through the Indian Wars, the Pick-Sloan dams, the American Indian Movement, and the campaign for Indigenous rights at the United Nations. In 2016, a small protest encampment at the Standing Rock reservation in North Dakota, initially established to block construction of the Dakota Access oil pipeline, grew to be the largest Indigenous protest movement in the twenty-first century, attracting tens of thousands of Indigenous and non-Native allies from around the world. Its slogan “Mni Wiconi”—Water Is Life—was about more than just a pipeline. Water Protectors knew this battle for Native sovereignty had already been fought many times before, and that, even with the encampment gone, their anti-colonial struggle would continue. While a historian by trade, Estes draws on observations from the encampments and from growing up as a citizen of the Oceti Sakowin (the Nation of the Seven Council Fires) and his own family’s rich history of struggle.

Download or read book The Black Church written by Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2021-02-16 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The instant New York Times bestseller and companion book to the PBS series. “Absolutely brilliant . . . A necessary and moving work.” —Eddie S. Glaude, Jr., author of Begin Again “Engaging. . . . In Gates’s telling, the Black church shines bright even as the nation itself moves uncertainly through the gloaming, seeking justice on earth—as it is in heaven.” —Jon Meacham, New York Times Book Review From the New York Times bestselling author of Stony the Road and one of our most important voices on the African American experience comes a powerful new history of the Black church as a foundation of Black life and a driving force in the larger freedom struggle in America. For the young Henry Louis Gates, Jr., growing up in a small, residentially segregated West Virginia town, the church was a center of gravity—an intimate place where voices rose up in song and neighbors gathered to celebrate life's blessings and offer comfort amid its trials and tribulations. In this tender and expansive reckoning with the meaning of the Black Church in America, Gates takes us on a journey spanning more than five centuries, from the intersection of Christianity and the transatlantic slave trade to today’s political landscape. At road’s end, and after Gates’s distinctive meditation on the churches of his childhood, we emerge with a new understanding of the importance of African American religion to the larger national narrative—as a center of resistance to slavery and white supremacy, as a magnet for political mobilization, as an incubator of musical and oratorical talent that would transform the culture, and as a crucible for working through the Black community’s most critical personal and social issues. In a country that has historically afforded its citizens from the African diaspora tragically few safe spaces, the Black Church has always been more than a sanctuary. This fact was never lost on white supremacists: from the earliest days of slavery, when enslaved people were allowed to worship at all, their meetinghouses were subject to surveillance and destruction. Long after slavery’s formal eradication, church burnings and bombings by anti-Black racists continued, a hallmark of the violent effort to suppress the African American struggle for equality. The past often isn’t even past—Dylann Roof committed his slaughter in the Mother Emanuel AME Church 193 years after it was first burned down by white citizens of Charleston, South Carolina, following a thwarted slave rebellion. But as Gates brilliantly shows, the Black church has never been only one thing. Its story lies at the heart of the Black political struggle, and it has produced many of the Black community’s most notable leaders. At the same time, some churches and denominations have eschewed political engagement and exemplified practices of exclusion and intolerance that have caused polarization and pain. Those tensions remain today, as a rising generation demands freedom and dignity for all within and beyond their communities, regardless of race, sex, or gender. Still, as a source of faith and refuge, spiritual sustenance and struggle against society’s darkest forces, the Black Church has been central, as this enthralling history makes vividly clear.

Download or read book The Napier Co written by Melinda L. Lewis and published by . This book was released on 2013 with total page 1011 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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

Download or read book Beyond Faberg written by Marie Betteley and published by . This book was released on 2020-10-28 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A rare look at the exquisite world of Russian treasures that lies beyond Fabergé. Imperial Russia evokes images of a vanished courts unparalleled splendor: magnificent tiaras, gem-encrusted necklaces, snuff boxes and other diamond-studded baubles of the tsars and tsarinas. During that time, jewelry symbolized power and wealth, and no one knew this better than the Romanovs. The era marked the high point of the Russian jewelers' art. Beginning with Catherine I's reign in 1725, in the century when women ruled Russia, until the Russian Revolution of 1917, the imperial capital's goldsmiths perfected their craft, and soon the quality of Russias jewelry equaled, if not surpassed, the best that Europes capitals could offer. Who created these jewels that helped make the Russian Court the richest in Europe? Hint: it wasn't Carl Fabergé. This is the first systematic survey in any language of all the leading jewelers and silver masters of Imperial Russia. The authors skillfully unfold for us the lives, histories, creations, and makers marks of the artisans whose jewels and silver masterworks bedazzled the tsars. The previously unheralded names include Pauzié, Bolin, Hahn, Koechli, Seftigen, Marshak, Morozov, Nicholls & Plincke, Grachev, Sazikov, and many others. The market for these exquisite masterworks is also explored, from its beginnings to today's auction world and collector demand. More than 600 stunning photos reacquaint the world with the master artisans and their creations.

Download or read book Jewels and Jewellery written by Clare Phillips and published by Victoria & Albert Museum. This book was released on 2008-05-01 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Drawing on the popular jewellery collection at the Victoria and Albert Museum, 'Jewels & Jewellery' explores every aspect of this fascinating subject within a broad historical framework. Famous pieces are highlighted in special features.