Acquire Jewelry: The Body Transformed Drafted By Melanie Holcomb Edition

did not like that the figures were mixed up with the plates, I think I got about/of the way through the book before I figured out what the pattern was,

But oh my there were some wonderful photos in here! And several cultures and concepts I hadn't read about before,

I absolutely can guess how the resources were procured and the jewels manufactured, but while looking at the glossy pictures I simply did not allow myself to think about that.
Instead, I wanted to find the dress clip made of jade beads and either date it or eat it,

Anyway, humans are suckers for a shiny thing well, except the Japanese who are apparently suckers for a tastefully mattefinished thing, and this book is full of them.
Find more on the Met's website,

My only real regret about books like this one is that they don't tell you very much about the individual object, They have a few choice words to say about each type of object, but I suppose the stories I'm interested in are hard to tell.
Not every bauble has a story and even if they did, not every story would be remembered,

Anyway, I enjoyed this book, Very pretty. As an art form, jewelry is defined

primarily through its connection to and interaction with the bodyextending it, amplifying it, accentuating it, distorting it, concealing it, or transforming it.
But how is the meaning of jewelry bound to the body that wears it
 
Establishing six different modes of ornamenting the bodyDeconstructed, Divine, Regal, Idealized, Alluring, and Resplendentthis artfully designed book illustrates how these various definitions of the body give meaning to the jewelry that adorns it.
More thanexamples of exceptional jewelry and ornaments, created across the globe from antiquity to the present, are shown alongside paintings and sculptures of bejeweled bodies to demonstrate the social, political, and aesthetic role of jewelry.
From earflares of warrior heroes in PreColumbian Peru to designs by Yves SaintLaurent, these precious and most intimate works of art provide insight not only about the wearer but also into the designers, artisans, and cultures that produced them.
Melanie Holcomb is curator in the Department of Medieval Art and The Cloisters, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, .