Jewelry Making and Design

I love this book, it shows me how they made jewellery before we invented different methods and I love that and it's all im looking for. 11/10 recommend

While this isn't a book for rank beginners to learn how to set up a jewellery making studio and start crafting, it can be a great source of inspiration for those starting out in jewellery design, especially for those with a love of antique jewellery styles. The original of this book was published in 1917, that's why the illustrations and photographs aren't quite what you'd expect from a newer publication, however I believe they are a good complement to the text and in keeping with learning authentic antique Arts and Crafts jewels. The previous reviewer, B. Wilson, finds that the designs are not "traditional", nor "simple" - this is quite correct! And deliberately so. The late Victorian and Edwardian jewellery, if it wasn't directly of the Art Nouveau or Arts and Crafts schools of design, was usually influenced somewhat by them, and both were a move away from "classic" or "traditional" jewellery settings and designs; and also a good deal of Edwardian jewellery was deliberately large and perhaps ostentatious to cater for the tastes of the nouveau riche and the trends set by Queen Alexandra. Our contemporary ideas of what constitutes inspiration from nature have also been tempered by nearly 100 years of further design trends from Art Deco to Avant Garde to Ethnic and so on. While a modern sensibility might find the designs in this book "tacky", it can still be useful to study the crafting of such as part of the jewellery making tradition, much as architects, for example, might study Baroque and Gothic architecture in order to understand how we have come to modern styles and also for re-interpretation into contemporary designs. And for lovers of antique jewellery design, it's hard to go past an instruction manual to make your own replicas!

First published in 1918, this book is two books in one: First, a wonderful introduction to jewelry making, walking step by step from basic sawing to casting and enameling. Second, it includes an introduction to design. If you like very modern, abstract pieces, this book is not for you. If you're a fan of the antique look, you've found a gem.