Scarabs animal and mineral…

BIT of a shuddersome dedication “...to our husbands Michael and Ricardo, and to our four-legged companions who give us their uncompromising love”. If you steer clear of Raymond Yard’s 1930s platinum and pavé platinum and diamond pins depicting a rooster courting a chicken decked out as fashion miss, this study seems thorough with many pictorial examples of animal imagery.

It covers the early history of jewellery, from ancient Egyptian scarabs – the Egyptians, observing the industrious scarab as it rolled a ball of animal dung many times larger than its body to its underground hiding place, associated it with Ra, the sun god, whom they thought, rolled the solar ball across the sky as a daily routine – to Renaissance pendants. It includes design developments from the turn of the 19th century and throughout the 20th century, from Lalique’s intricate insects to Cartier’s panthers, from Boucheron and Van Cleef & Arpels to the sophisticated imagery of Verdura.For collectors, designers and dealers in jewellery.