Maharaja's Jewels Table Book by Katherine Prior, Assouline

The stories of Indian princes and their jewelry and precious stones are brought together in this illustrated narrative tracing the rise and fall of India's leading royal houses through the dramatic fortunes of their crown jewels. Traditionally, precious metals and jewels have been, for Indians rich and poor, a repository of wealth and a status symbol.
 
For the reigning families, jewels also had symbolic and religious significance.
 
Also here are the original drawings by great European jewelers of the pieces they designed for their exotic and demanding clients. The text is both lively and scholarly, drawing from descriptions of such travelers as Marco Polo and Tavernier as well as Sanskrit dramatists extolling the riches of India.
 
The core of this lavishly photographed book is the encounter between Indian princely magnificence and the best of European Jewellery designers in the 20th century when many of the Maharaja's travelled to Europe with trunks filled with traditional Indian jewels and unset stones which the likes of Cartier, Boucheron, Chaumet and Van Cleef and Arpels reset in contemporary settings.
 
205 pages beautifully illustrated with photographs and drawings.
 
Maharajas' Jewels
 
By Katherine Prior/John Adamson.
 
Publisher Vendome Press.
 
Format/Binding Hardcover.
 
About the Author:
 
Katherine Prior is a historian specializing in the British Empire, focusing on India. She has a Ph.D. from Cambridge University. She is regularly published in books and academic journals, and is also an exhibition consultant for the Museum of the British Empire. She lives in London.
 
Great hardcover table book, great pictures and well documented and written.