Ancestral Jewels

Rating:
Summary: A sumptuous look at Britain's noble past via jewels
Review: Diana Scarisbrick's "Ancestral Jewels: Treasures of Britain's Aristocracy" is a superb overview of the jewels and jewelry which helped to set the British nobility apart--for better or for worse. Scarisbrick doesn't limit herself to the typical earrings, necklaces, tiaras, and so on--there are bejeweled ceremonial swords, stomachers, chatelaines, cups and boxes, and more.

One of Scarisbrick's real accomplishments is to juxtapose photographs of jewelry alone with a photograph of the jewelry being worn in an oil portrait, or showing a piece being worn first as a head ornament and then later as a necklace (a common practice with tiaras, which could often be broken down into smaller parts and used as earrings, brooches, and so on).

The jewels are fantastic, as is the photography. Although I would have preferred that more of the photographs were in color, that's a small quibble when even the black-and-white pictures are so crisp and filled with telling detail. Beyond this, Scarisbrick is to be commended for providing a concise, accurate, and broad overview of British jewelry history. The book is eminently readable, and the pictures are fascinating.

One of the most fascinating parts of the book is the appendix, tellingly entitled "Where Are They Now? Dispersal, Transformation, and Theft." Here Scarisbrick delves into the sometimes shady, sometimes ignoble histories and reputations of dozens of gem-encrusted objects. She quotes here from Anthony Trollope's peerless novel "The Eustace Diamonds" when she writes: " . . . family treasures were preserved 'not so much for the protection of property but for the more picturesque idea of maintaining chivalric associations. Heirlooms have become so, not that future owners of them may be assured of so much wealth whatever the value of the things so settled may be--but that the son or grandson may enjoy the satisfaction of saying my father or grandfather or ancestor sat in that chair or looked as he now looks in that picture or was graced by wearing on his breast that very ornament which you see lying beneath the glass.' "

Scarisbrick understands, as did Trollope, how the aristocracy works and how it clings to the thought of itself as being somehow better than the rest of the world. Scarisbrick's accomplishment here is to show us a history of a rarefied group of people through the splendid adornments chosen by its very privileged members.

Rating:
Summary: A sumptuous look at Britain's noble past via jewels
Review: Diana Scarisbrick's "Ancestral Jewels: Treasures of Britain's Aristocracy" is a superb overview of the jewels and jewelry which helped to set the British nobility apart--for better or for worse. Scarisbrick doesn't limit herself to the typical earrings, necklaces, tiaras, and so on--there are bejeweled ceremonial swords, stomachers, chatelaines, cups and boxes, and more.

One of Scarisbrick's real accomplishments is to juxtapose photographs of jewelry alone with a photograph of the jewelry being worn in an oil portrait, or showing a piece being worn first as a head ornament and then later as a necklace (a common practice with tiaras, which could often be broken down into smaller parts and used as earrings, brooches, and so on).

The jewels are fantastic, as is the photography. Although I would have preferred that more of the photographs were in color, that's a small quibble when even the black-and-white pictures are so crisp and filled with telling detail. Beyond this, Scarisbrick is to be commended for providing a concise, accurate, and broad overview of British jewelry history. The book is eminently readable, and the pictures are fascinating.

One of the most fascinating parts of the book is the appendix, tellingly entitled "Where Are They Now? Dispersal, Transformation, and Theft." Here Scarisbrick delves into the sometimes shady, sometimes ignoble histories and reputations of dozens of gem-encrusted objects. She quotes here from Anthony Trollope's peerless novel "The Eustace Diamonds" when she writes: " . . . family treasures were preserved 'not so much for the protection of property but for the more picturesque idea of maintaining chivalric associations. Heirlooms have become so, not that future owners of them may be assured of so much wealth whatever the value of the things so settled may be--but that the son or grandson may enjoy the satisfaction of saying my father or grandfather or ancestor sat in that chair or looked as he now looks in that picture or was graced by wearing on his breast that very ornament which you see lying beneath the glass.' "

Scarisbrick understands, as did Trollope, how the aristocracy works and how it clings to the thought of itself as being somehow better than the rest of the world. Scarisbrick's accomplishment here is to show us a history of a rarefied group of people through the splendid adornments chosen by its very privileged members.