Jewellery's web blog

This catalogue for a Cleveland Museum of Art exhibition provides a sumptuous survey of precious objects sold to the fabulously rich by Fabergé, Lalique, Tiffany & Co., Lewis Comfort Tiffany, and other highstatus vendors around 1900. Costly jewelry of nearly every imaginable sort predominates, augmented by a dazzling array of (mostly) small, very expensive objects, including parasol handles, vases, opera glasses, clocks and watches, tea/beverage sets, inkwells, toilet sets, combs, fans, perfume bottles, candlesticks, cigarette boxes, and the famous Fabergé eggs. They are drawn from over 60 institutions/collections around the world. The text describes the international luxury market and strategies these firms adopted to promote sales – exhibiting at worlds fairs, exploiting the appeal of exclusivity, cultivating patrons, seeking high exposure, and stressing their goods’ “museum quality.” Readers looking for nuanced analysis and critique of the material world of the rich or detailed descriptions of individual objects will find neither in the derivative, repetitive, and occasionally confusing text, where small essays (perhaps once exhibition sidebars?) unaccountably appear within large ones. Although it offers little new to specialists and advanced students, Artistic Luxury is an impressive pictorial resource and an informative peek into the beautiful lives of the privileged few. Summing Up: Highly recommended, “kick Lower-level undergraduates through graduate students; general readers. – K. L. Ames, Bard Graduate Center