Traditional Indian Jewellery

Traditional Indian Jewellery: Beautiful People is a vast and detailed publication covering the importance of ritual adornment, and the popular design motifs featured in traditional Indian jewellery. Jewellery plays an important part in the everyday lives, important moments, festivals and religious aspects of Indian culture. It is not only girls and women who wear jewellery, but also boys, men, temple statues and even animals. The book excels in its detailed descriptions, which accompany the sumptuous array of images. We discover why enamel is used in the north of India, and how ancestral craftsmen pass their skills from generation to generation, especially the process and tradition of enamelling. The book covers in detail the meaning of the use of flowers and birds in Hindu-influenced jewellery, looking through the eyes of seventeenth-century European travellers who visited the rich Mogul courts. This publication is the result of thirty-five years of research – travelling, studying, and talking to many people across the entire subcontinent of India, as well as having had unprecedented access to goldsmiths and enamellers; being shown techniques known only to one family, which have been transferred from generation to generation; and being granted access to beautiful and never before seen Royal collections.