Best Jewelry Books of 2020

Looking for the perfect reading gift for a jewelry lover? Here is our selection.

When you look at a Rothko painting, you don’t talk about how much the canvas costs. Art is the essence of the conversation. Why can’t it be the same with high jewelry? That’s what Melanie Grant asks in her first book, the thought-provoking Coveted: Art and Innovation in High Jewelry.
In this volume, the luxury expert argues the case for considering jewelry as a fine art. And what an eloquent argument she makes through the 70-plus designers she profiles.
The author analyzes the styles that caught her attention through their conceptual approach, provenance of materials, quality of design, composition, and workmanship. The superb imagery and perceptive curation complement her vivid narration.

The birds and the bees — not to mention fish, snakes, lions, tigers and many other animals — have long served as the subjects of jewels, from ancient amulets steeped in symbolism to modern adornments like Cartier’s panthers, Pierre Sterlé’s birds and JAR’s butterflies. Master jewelers of the past 150 years have captured these beasts’ natural grace and charm in wearable art that appears in the gloriously detailed photos of Beautiful Creatures: Jewelry Inspired by the Animal Kingdom.
The volume is a companion catalog to an exhibition of the same name at New York’s American Museum of Natural History (AMNH), inaugurating the museum’s newly redesigned Allison and Roberto Mignone Halls of Gems and Minerals. It’s authored by jewelry historian Marion Fasel — who is also the exhibition’s guest curator.

In June 2019, the Gem Dior jewelry collection came out in lavish style, celebrating not just the latest designs of Victoire de Castellane, but also her 20th year as Dior Joaillerie’s creative director. Her long tenure at design house Christian Dior’s fine-jewelry division is now the subject of a new book.
Dior Joaillerie: The A to Z of Victoire de Castellane pays homage to both the jewels she’s produced and her creative process. It employs a dictionary format of 158 entries, and the letters of the alphabet that adorn each chapter heading feature her own illustrations. Alongside direct quotes from de Castellane expressing her feelings about the meanings each word conveys, there is commentary by Olivier Gabet, director of the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris.

When it comes to the great monarchs of the world, the jewels they owned, wore and presented to the public told stories of their great wealth and power. Jewelry designer and author Prince Dimitri of Yugoslavia grew up learning about these gems from an early age, appreciating both their innate beauty and the family history surrounding them.
In the new book Once Upon a Diamond: A Family Tradition of Royal Jewels, he shares private anecdotes that put the historical narrative into personal perspective. The volume follows the ruling families of Russia and Europe that make up his royal lineage, tracing them through the extraordinary jewelry they amassed. His paternal grandparents were Prince Regent Paul and Princess Olga of Yugoslavia; his maternal grandparents were King Umberto II and Queen Marie-José of Italy; and his parents were Princess Maria Pia of Savoy and Prince Alexander of Yugoslavia.
Dimitri spent years hearing the fascinating tales of their lives and their fabulous jewels. Recounting them in book form seemed a natural progression. “I was inspired by many friends telling me to write a book on the stories I tell in my Instagram posts,” relates Dimitri. “One day, a friend of mine who works at [publisher] Rizzoli said we should do a book together on those stories and also on my work.”
And so Once Upon a Diamond was born.

Russia’s ruling Romanov family had a passion for jewels, and the upcoming book Beyond Fabergé: Imperial Russian Jewelry focuses on the rarified talents of the creators responsible for these dazzling works. Written by Marie Betteley and David Schimmelpenninck van der Oye, it comes out in late October and takes readers behind the scenes of the magnificent gem-laden tiaras, necklaces, ceremonial and decorative objects these monarchs amassed.
Betteley began her love affair with Russian treasures in her teen years, when her father, Roy Betteley, became director of the Hillwood Museum in Washington, DC, and the family moved to the estate. The former home of cereal heiress Marjorie Merriweather Post, Hillwood houses one the largest collections of pre-revolutionary Russian decorative arts in the world.
“I was surrounded by the glories of imperial Russia at an early age,” recalls Betteley, now a dealer. “Then, in my 20s, as a gemologist at Christie’s cataloguing jewels for upcoming sales, I came across a fascinating collection of Russian jewels and fell in love.” It inspired her to find out more about the jewels’ history and who had made them. “That’s when it all started.”

French maison Chaumet established an aristocratic clientele after jeweler Marie-Etienne Nitot founded it in 1780. Known as Nitot & Fils at the time, it gained further prominence when it became royal jeweler to Empress Josephine. In a beautifully illustrated new book titled Chaumet Tiaras: Divine Jewels, authors Clare Phillips and Natasha Fraser-Cavassoni highlight the Paris jeweler’s close association with these gem-set symbols of power and prestige, which have graced the heads of royalty and the rich and famous for generations.
With over 200 illustrations, the book presents a selection of the distinctive tiaras the maison has crafted over nearly 250 years. It organizes them by themes reflecting their principal sources of inspiration, says Phillips: “Nature,” “Skies,” “Graphic Lines,” “Architecture” and “Power.”

Cartier panthers, bejeweled serpents, diamonds and diadems and more, oh my! Coco Chanel, Wallis Simpson, former First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy, Madeleine Albright’s brooches — these are just some of the people and topics covered in Jewels That Made History: 100 Stones, Myths, and Legends by jewelry expert Stellene Volandes.
In the intro to the book, Volandes gives readers notice not to expect a “history of jewelry,” or of the world, for that matter. What they should expect, she says, is a “highly opinionated chronicle of select moments where these forces collide.”

Gems is a companion to an exhibition that opened in September at France’s Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle (MNHN). A collaboration with Van Cleef & Arpels, the Paris exhibit — which runs through June 14, 2021 — merges scientific information, iconic jewelry and objets d’art. Gems represents them all beautifully.
“Natural history enlightens us on the origins of the things that fill us with wonder,” reads the preface by Bruno David, president of the MNHN, Paris. This is the premise of the exhibition, which brings together “the minerals of the earth and jewelry” and offers a glimpse beyond the surface beauty of an emerald necklace or a pair of diamond earrings, he says.