Jewellery and glass enter a symbiosis. Comprising 60 objects by artists from around the world who deliberately use glass in their jewellery, this is the first survey of its kind. The authors begin by placing glass jewellery in its art historical context: the high status enjoyed by glass in jewellery design goes back to ancient Egypt or Rome. Paste jewellery in 18th-century France and 19th-century Bohemian glass jewellery are world-renowned. In the early 20th century, Louis Comfort Tiffany and Rene Lalique of course also used glass in their creations.The jewellery shown here is stunningly experimental, revealing an extraordinarily non-conformist take on jewellery as such: it ranges from reticent to histrionic. Every work in the book celebrates the enigmatic qualities, sensuousness, colour and reflecting properties of glass. The use of borosilicate glass has made some objects special indeed: borosilicate glass makes it possible to use exceptionally thin yet durable elements in a composition whereas dichroic glass, which changes colour according to the direction of the incident light, produces intense colour effects.
In other objects, novelty results from the innovative use of traditional glassworking processes.