Parfums d’Orient: book

Institut du Monde Arabe

Parfums d’Orient: the catalogue

Published on Jan 8, 2024

The wonderful exhibition Parfums d’Orient, in the Institut du Monde Arabe in Paris, came with its very own publication. The book, too, is called Parfums d’Orient, and it is as beautiful as the exhibition itself.

Ancient stone incense burner from the Arab Peninsula

Parfums d’Orient: the catalogue

The book presents 26 essays by renowned authors. The essays are grouped into four main parts: natural resources for perfumes, the art of perfuming oneself, fragrance and the invisible world, and fragrance in and around the house. As such, the catalogue follows the design of the exhibition and paints a complete picture of the world of fragrance.

The book starts out with an introduction of fragrance. How does it affect our mood? Why is it important to have around us? And how does our sense of smell actually work? A series of essays sets the scene to understand the role of fragrance in our personal lives, and the cultural interconnectivity that perfumes from the Middle East represent.

Parfums d’Orient: the bounty of nature

The first essays are devoted to ingredients and perfume history. I enjoyed the beautifully illustrated essays on Damascene rose, oud, ambergris and musk. The historical background explains how scented paths crossed, resulting in the familiar fragrances of today, while the essay on the perfumer’s art sheds light on both the past and the future of perfuming.

Parfums d’Orient: perfuming oneself

The second part explores the realm of science and history. Here, we learn of medieval manuscripts with perfume recipes, the trade in incense and the beautifully designed perfume flasks. An exploration into the bath house reveals the use of fragrance in relation to health and well-being.

I really liked the personal point of view on perfuming in the essay on perfume and art: imagine, indeed, losing your sense of smell as a result of the pandemic. Suddenly, the world becomes one-dimensional and plain; fragrance is of greater importance than we might think.

Parfums d’Orient: fragrance and the invisible world

Now this is one of my favourite angles, and if you have taken my course Scents of the Middle East, you’ll have seen why! Fragrance itself is like an invisible power that may affect our happiness and sense of wellbeing. This part of the catalogue addresses that supernatural capacity of scent throughout the ages.

Ancient Egypt, early Christianity and Judaism as well as Islam have their own spiritual connotations with fragrance, and these are explored in separate essays. The special essay on fumigations and magic is short, but fascinating!

Parfums d’Orient: perfume in and around the house

And this is where the jewellery is….! Scented paste and fragrant beads are shown in relation to the intimacy of marriage, adding yet another layer to the meanings perfume may carry. That extends to perfuming one’s guests and spicing dishes, both of which are discussed, too.

Parfums d’Orient: art, research, history, science

The catalogue is beautifully illustrated, showing you everything from ancient artefacts to modern art, from sweeping landscape views to medieval manuscripts. What I really loved about this book is that it seamlessly integrates the historical and cultural background of fragrance with art and lived experiences. As such, it really conveys the importance of the senses for our everyday existence. Fragrance is part and parcel of every aspect of life, and the exhibition catalogue absolutely brings that point across.

Parfums d’Orient. By Hanna Boghanim and Agnes Carayon (eds) (2023). 223 pages, full-colour, in French. Published by Institut du Monde Arabe/Skira.

Available with the publisher and in the museum shop of the Institut du Monde Arabe.

I purchased the book in the museum shop of the Institut du Monde Arabe upon my visit of the exhibition.

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Sigrid van Roode

Sigrid van Roode is an archeologist, ethnographer and jewellery historian. Her main field of expertise is jewellery from North Africa and Southwest Asia, as well as archaeological and archaeological revival jewellery. She has authored several books on jewellery. Sigrid has lectured for the National Museum of Antiquities in Leiden, Turquoise Mountain Jordan, and many others. She provides consultancy and research on jewellery collections for both museums and private collections, teaches courses and curates exhibitions. She is not involved in the business of buying and selling jewellery, and focuses on research, knowledge production, and education only.

THOBNA

by dr. Sigrid van Roode | Reviews

Palestinian dress research

THOBNA. Reclaiming Palestinian dresses in the diaspora

Published Dec 22, 2023

What power does a dress hold, personally, but also historically? Wafa Ghnaim’s second book THOBNA. Reclaiming Palestinian dresses in the diaspora investigates the memory of women through their dress. The result is a book that is personal and powerful, a study that sets a new standard for dress research.

The book 'Oman Adorned. A Portrait in Silver' shown with an Omani gold and silver necklace.

THOBNA: our dress

The title, THOBNA, means ‘our dress’. That reflects the viewpoint of this book: it is written by a Palestinian artist and scholar. In the introduction, Wafa shares her evolving points of view and understanding since Tatreez and Tea was published. THOBNA focuses on resistance embroidery in its historical and actual context.

Palestinian tatreez: flipping the perspective

THOBNA regards dress as living history (p. 37). The importance here is the realization that the woman creating and wearing the dress is central to its decoration and the story it shares. Tracing back embroidery only to its historic roots will only get you so far: it has always moved in sync with its people.

The first two chapters discuss that perspective. First, the dress is placed in the historical context of its people. In doing so, Wafa questions the usual method of describing dresses as ‘pre- or post 1948’, ‘traditional’ and ‘modern’. By following the wider context of the history of Palestinian people, she is able to identify a much more detailed development in dress styles, tied directly to circumstances and historical shifts.

Next, she traces the embroidery styles that have contributed to tatreez and dress as they exist today to deeper history in the wider geographical area of Southwest Asia. Discussing sources and the role that museums objects can play in this type of research, she then zooms in on dress styles from the 1850s onwards.

This is an incredibly important chapter to read. It blends together detailed experiences of reality after 1948 with artistic and resistance developments.

Dress research: ten portraits

Ten Palestinian dresses are analyzed in detail and serve as a sampler of how much more information may be learned from thorough dress study. In this chapter, Wafa identifies the maker of a dress as ‘Maker Once Known’ instead of ‘Unknown Artist’ – a beautiful way of flipping the perspective again, of acknowledging a maker whose name we no longer know, but whose story is preserved in her dress.

And there is so much to be decoded in these dresses. An example that resonated with me is a dress from the Gaza region (p. 71). It was altered several times, its changing fabrics indicating displacement and wear by different persons. Importantly here, Wafa includes the history of the dress during the time it was with its collector – these, too, may have altered dresses and as such obscuring parts of its Palestinian biography.

Tatreez: symbolism and colour by decade

As a result of her in-depth study, Wafa reflects on symbolism and shares her insights on how to date a thobe by its colour scheme. This latter chapter is very important for anyone studying dress, as it provides not only colour schemes per century and per region, but also explains how these came to be and how they remained associated with regional identities even after the 1948 depopulation of these regions.

The symbolism chapter in particular is another example of living history. For jewellery, I can’t stress enough that any given symbol may carry different meaning for different people in different timeframes. Symbolism is never static. For the meaning of patterns on a dress, THOBNA adds the crucial insight that these not only vary over time and geographically, but also per family. Every family has its own history, its own way of expressing, and that is reflected in the forms chosen. And that brings me to the value of knowledge and how we achieve it.

Knowledge: lived, learned, passed on

If I were to describe THOBNA in one word, it would be understanding of knowledge (okay, that’s three). Apart from knowledge of historical events, as outlined above, there is Elder knowledge or ancestral knowledge to incorporate in research. Tangible heritage is always accompanied by intangible heritage: stories, poems, songs, expressions and personal memories. But these are rarely included in research. even though they contribute a unique perspective on living heritage.

Knowledge comes, for cultural outsiders, also in the form of awareness. In the last three chapters, Wafa shares many detailed stitches, materials, how-to’s, patterns and their meaning with us, and guides us clearly and gently in how to respect these properly.

“May THOBNA provide an artistic means for you to study and learn about Palestinian resistance from our perspective”

THOBNA: integral dress research

Do not expect easy lists or clear-cut criteria in this book, although the thobe diagram, colour guides and patterns provided are very detailed. Rather, immerse yourself in the ever-evolving world of dress and its people. Studying THOBNA will allow you to develop a deeper understanding of the multifaceted world of Palestinian dress, as seen through the eyes of a Palestinian researcher and artist.

That is what makes this book stand out, too. It combines the perspectives of scholarly research, indigenous living heritage and the actual experience of the artist. It discusses dress from all these perspectives, and it does so in the past, present and future tense.

That is how it sets a new standard for dress research: there are so many details to take into account to properly reconstruct the narrative of the creators and wearers of dress that it needs all these perspectives, not just the art historical point of view.

If you are in any way involved in Palestinian dress, either as a curator or a collector, you will really want to read this book.

And now even more so, because THOBNA was published in the summer of 2023. On p. 91, we read:

‘THOBNA is a commitment to reclamation. Therefore, Chapter 9 focuses primarily on the patterns stitched during the First and Second Intifada, when Palestinian women used tatreez as an artistic expression worn on their bodies that held the world to account for turning a blind eye to the suffering of Palestinians under Israeli occupation, reiterating their right of return and asserting their undeniable need for freedom.’

Since then, the truth in these words has become shockingly clear once again.

More information on THOBNA. Reclaiming Palestinian dresses in the diaspora.

Title: THOBNA. Reclaiming Palestinian dresses in the diaspora. By Wafa Ghnaim, 2023. 189 pages, full colour, in English.

Published by The Tatreez Institute, Washington D.C.

Available with the author and on Amazon.

More on Wafa’s work can be found here on the Tatreez and Tea website.

I received the book as thank you for the crowdfunding, which I am proud to have supported.

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Sigrid van Roode

Gold dinars at a glance

by dr. Sigrid van Roode | Reviews

Un tresor en or: le dinar dans tous ses etats

Gold dinars from all sides

Published Dec 18, 2023

A small blog on a small book filled with treasure! The booklet ‘Un trésor en or – Le dinar dans tous ses États’, published by the Institut du Monde Arabe, is a lovely, and surprisingly complete, introduction into the field of gold dinars from the Islamic world. It’s primarily aimed at kids, but this slightly older kid enjoyed it, too!

Cover of the book Le dinar dans tous ses Etats

Gold dinars: the stories they hold

This tiny publication presents 428 gold dinars shown in the exhibition of the same name, held at the Institut du Monde Arabe in Spring 2023. In just 47 illustrated pages, it introduces the length and width of the world these coins represent. For example, did you know the word dinar is derived from the coin called denarius in Latin? I love these historical continuities.

The booklet explores where the gold for these coins came from, its preferred alloy, its shapes and inscriptions, but there is much more than that. Each spread in the book covers a different topic: Christian dinars, dinars with zodiac signs, calligraphy, names of sultans and caliphs…and let’s not forget dinars struck by women rulers.

It brings several useful introductory schematics, too: how to describe coins, a map with minting offices in the medieval Islamic world, and a very useful overview of all those dynasties and countries at a glance.

Gold dinars: a tiny treasure

Like I said, this is a very small booklet, but it covers much ground! Although it is primarily aimed at kids, I find it a very well executed example of introducing the span of stories a coin can share to a wider audience. It is accessible, abundantly illustrated, and informative: a tiny treasure in itself.

And that makes me look forward to the forthcoming publication of the coin collection in the Khalili Collections even more…!

More information on Un trésor en or – Le dinar dans tous ses États’

Title: Un trésor en or – Le dinar dans tous ses États’. 2023 47 pages, full colour, in French.

Published by the Institut du Monde Arabe (IMA), Paris.

Available in the webshop of the IMA.

I purchased this booklet in the museum shop of the Institut du Monde Arabe, Paris.

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Oman Adorned

by dr. Sigrid van Roode | Reviews

Omani silver jewellery

Oman Adorned. A Portrait in Silver

Published Dec 15, 2023

It’s a book that has been out for almost 30 years….Oman Adorned. A Portrait in Silver was published in 1997, but still is on the ‘most wanted’-list for many collectors. What is it about this book that makes it such a must-have, even though it has been out of print for decades?

Oman Adorned: a hard to find book

I myself have been looking for this book for the better part of 12 years. And when I finally obtained a copy in 2023, I could not believe my luck! So, what’s the big deal about this book? Is it worth the hype?

I’d say: yes, it is. And that is not because I purchased it at a steep price and am now trying to convince myself, rather than anyone else, that it was worth it. (looking at you, new pair of overpriced shoes!) In all transparency, I hit the book jackpot for once, with a bookstore who did not realize the value of its contents for collectors and sold it at a very reasonable price.

Omani silver jewellery: an overview

Oman Adorned presents the silver jewellery tradition of Oman in three parts. These are geographically defined between Northern Oman, Central Oman and Southern Oman.

Where it truly excels, is in providing the cultural context and original names of things. And those names are not just given for the jewellery pieces themselves, but also often for its individual components: beads, dangles, coins…and even the sound some hollow anklets with small pebbles on the inside make is mentioned with its own name.

For each jewel, the book describes how and when it was worn. A large number of photographs shows what that looked like. The introductory chapter brings the history and geography of Oman, and throughout the book its various cultures are presented.

Detail of Dhofari silver jewellery from Oman.

Living Omani silver: trade, background and culture

On top of all this, all three parts of Oman Adorned include background information beyond the pieces themselves. There’s a chapter on silver jewellery for children, and jewellery in relation to the lives of women: how and when they obtain silver jewellery and why.

You’ll also find a chapter on silver jewellery and the Omani zar ceremony, the difference in jewellery and meaning between boys, men, girls and women, and chapters on trade and ownership. You’ll read how babies’ ears were pierced, how anklets added to the festivities of dance, how kohl was produced and hair was braided.

As such, Oman Adorned covers many more aspects of jewellery than just the ornamental. It discusses silver jewellery as ornament, as possession, as amulet, and as part of economic trade and household economy.

And that is what sets it aside from other books on jewellery: many of them present jewellery with only very little information, and this book places jewellery squarely in its cultural context.

Limits of Oman Adorned

As you see, this is a must-have book in its detailed descriptions and background information. And even this thorough work has its limits.

The book is extremely well-researched, but it is not complete. And it could never be, because jewellery is living heritage that changes along with its makers and wearers: creativity cannot be frozen in time, or in book pages for that matter.

As the authors themselves already write in their foreword, there is so much more on Omani adornment they did not get around to investigating. They also note the gaps in knowledge and jewellery as a result of collecting: a super important point that many other books do not address. See more about that here.

They describe this book as ‘a start’ – and if this is the start, you’ll get an idea of how much more is out there…! Incidentally, the wonderful research project on Omani silver carried out by several research partners is a fantastic follow-up: click here to read more about this exciting project! The Dhofari jewellery shown above was on display in the British Museum in the accompanying exhibition, celebrating Omani silversmithing.

Oman Adorned: how to get it

Now that is the most difficult part! The book has been out of print for decades, and getting your hands on a copy is no easy task. Of course, we all hope that we will run into a copy in that small charity shop, at the sale of the local library or in that huge bookshop with second-hand books…but those odds are slim. It does pop up irregularly online, but that is indeed a rare occasion.

Booksite Find More Books keeps track of online bookstores and other digital platforms. They cast their search net wide, and include results from (among others) AbeBooks, Amazon, Ebay and roughly 60,000 antiquarian book dealers. With the search results for your title, it also shows a graph where readers can see how the price of a book develops over time and how often it is offered for sale. The results for Oman Adorned are telling: it has not been seen online between 2016 and 2023.

Oman Adorned: what is a reasonable price for this book?

There is no easy answer to this one! Its current value is determined largely by its scarcity and lack of competition: it’s a rare book, and a very detailed one. Anyone can make a catalogue, let’s say, but this book goes above and beyond that.

But, if it were to be reprinted, and with such high demand I wonder why it hasn’t already, the value of existing copies would plummet. And imagine…if a new book on Omani silver were to be published, provided it matches the detail and knowledge in Oman Adorned, the price would decrease, too.

I suppose the consideration is not so much to see it as an investment. It rather depends on the balance between the value of knowledge and insight, and your budget. For me, this is an exceptionally good (actually indispensable) book to help me in identifying and studying Omani silver. But, although I have come across a few copies incidentally earlier, those outweighed my means. Simple as that.

So, I located it in a library, and went there whenever I needed to look something up. Worldcat is a great resource for locating titles in libraries, but… here as well, it’s a rare title.

Are you looking for a copy of Oman Adorned? Set search alerts online, with your local bookstore, and…keep looking! It may take time, but if I found one, there is hope for you, too.

Do you own a copy that you wish to sell? Contact me and I’ll help you get in touch with people who would treasure it. Again, in all transparency: I will not be selling it for you – I will simply provide guidance on how to find a buyer who truly appreciates it.

Oman Adorned: an exceptional book

Oman Adorned. A Portrait in Silver is not just a phenomenal book in its wide variety of jewellery types, but very much also because of its rich and detailed social, historical and cultural context. This book is way more than a catalogue of things: it truly is a portrait of this beautiful country as seen through its jewellery.

More information on Oman Adorned. A Portrait in Silver

Title: Oman Adorned. A Portrait in Silver. By Dr. Miranda Morris & Pauline Shelton, 1997. 362 pages, full colour, in English.

Published by Apex Publishing, Muscat 7 London.

I purchased this book in a second-hand bookstore online.

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Dictionnaire des Bijoux

by dr. Sigrid van Roode | Reviews

North African jewellery

Dictionnaire des Bijoux

The Dictionnaire des Bijoux (Dictionary of Jewellery) by Paul Eudel presents jewellery from North Africa. It’s a resource that has been around for more than a century, and you’ll find a downloadable copy for your own use with this post. What does this book offer, and what do we need to know before using it?

Describing jewellery from North Africa: the colonial background

Before you think: ‘Why do I need to know how, why and when a book was made? I just want to see jewellery references!’ – bear with me. Especially with older books, it is important to have some idea of the aim with which they were written. And that is because that aim colours our understanding of jewellery today. So here we go.

Paul Eudel’s overview of jewellery from North Africa was published in 1906. The Dictionary of Jewellery is the product of a project that started well before the 1900’s. Eudel had first published his works on the works of jewellers in Algeria and Tunisia, followed by an essay on jewellers in Morocco.

During this timeframe, the Maghreb was colonized by France. It is against this background that the book has been compiled. Its purpose was not simply to document jewellery from a cultural perspective, but far more from an economical perspective. Knowing what types of jewellery existed and what materials went into them, provided a basis to calculate and impose everyone’s favourite: taxes. Taxes, that would flow into the economy of France.

A dictionary of jewellery: critical reading

The re-edition of this book which I read, features an introduction by Moroccan ethnologist Abdelmajid Arrif. That introduction adds very necessary context to the book. One of the points he makes, is that the very act of listing, documenting and presenting information into a dictionary is a very colonial thing to do.

Now of course every culture on earth has been making lists since writing was first invented. On a side note, writing was invented because humans wanted to make lists – the invention of writing is literally rooted in economy.

It gets colonial when a culture starts making lists of things encountered in another culture: cities captured, enemies killed, loot taken are hot topics in ancient inscriptions. But, also the seemingly innocent listing of jewellery types in a colonized region falls into that category.

Dictionnaire des Bijoux by Paul Eudel, with a Kabyle fibula placed on the cover.

Jewellery from the Maghreb: what do we miss?

So, what are we missing from these many pages of jewellery examples? Most importantly, all cultural context is left out. This book presents an overview of jewellery types and nothing more. It’s a catalogue of sorts. Some entries also tell us where a certain piece was worn, and some even by whom. But mainly, it’s a list of objects.

The oral histories that go with jewellery pieces are missing. Their meaning as wedding or dowry gift, the symbolism in their design, the songs jewellery features in, the art and creativity of the jewellery creators themselves…all that and more has no place in a dictionary. It’s like a phone book, more or less: it simply lists your contacts, but it does not capture their personality or your relationship with them.

Eudel’s dictionary of jewellery: what do we have?

If you have read this far, you might be wondering by now if this book is useful at all. It very much is! The main thing to keep in mind is that this book is not the definitive book on North African jewellery. Obviously, you would not reasonably expect a book of only roughly 200 pages to showcase all jewellery from four countries. But lists often have that effect: if it’s not on the list, it does not exist. This is the third filter of selecting: click here to see how that works!

What it absolutely is very valuable for, is the original names of things. This overview presents us with a wealth of jewellery pieces from the Maghreb, all listed with their own name. These are often missing from today’s descriptions outside of the Maghreb itself, so having access to these is a major advantage.

The drawback is that, well, you’d have to know their name to find anything (it’s a dictionary, after all), but the many illustrations speak for themselves and make it easier to find the piece you’re looking for. And I may be a little bit of a nerd, but I love starting at A and letting myself be surprised by what I encounter!

Those illustrations themselves are also incredibly helpful. A perfume container for musk, called meskia, is depicted both open and closed. The hundreds of detailed drawings bring the jewellery from North Africa to life and show us what they looked like around the beginning of the 20^th century. As a time capsule, it is a very helpful resource to get an idea of the date of some jewellery pieces.

Dictionnaire des Bijoux de l’Afrique du Nord: an important resource

With all its pros and cons, the Dictionnaire des Bijoux is an important resource for North African jewellery. It is a starting point for research, in that it offers insight into the types of jewellery in existence in the late 19^th and early 20^th century. When you’re looking into North African jewellery, this book will be a great help with their vernacular names. And with those, you will be able to extend your search and learn more: see here how to go about that!

As it is an old book, it is widely available in pdf-form, and you’ll find a downloadable pdf below this blog. This is a digital scan of the original book, so in its original formatting and without additional explanations, introduction or indexes.

Personally, I like having a reprint in tangible form on my shelf: it makes for much easier reading and searching. Details of the book that is pictured above in the video and the photograph are below: this edition has been reformatted and includes the introduction by Abdelmajid Arrif, the essay on jewellers in Morocco, and an alphabetic index.

Download the Dictionnaire des Bijoux here

More information on Dictionnaire des Bijoux de l’Afrique du Nord

Title: Dictionnaire des Bijoux de l’Afrique du Nord. Maroc, Algerie, Tunisie, Tripolitaine. By Paul Eudel (1906), with an introduction by Abdelmajid Arrif 2014. 255 pages, b/w with a few colour images, in French.

Published by Editions Frontispice.

Available online and in well-sorted bookstores.

I purchased this republished book in the museum shop of the Institut du Monde Arabe, Paris.

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Sigrid van Roode

Jewellery clasps

by dr. Sigrid van Roode | European jewellery, Reviews

A reference work on jewellery design

Clasps: 4,000 years of fasteners in jewellery

Every now and then I come across a book of which I think ‘How did I not know of this book before?!’ and this little book is one of those. Le Fermoir en Bijouterie, or in English, Clasps, devotes almost 300 pages to one of the most overlooked parts of jewellery: the way it closes.

Silver bracelet made by Tuful Ramadan, in the exhibition 'Making their Mark: women silversmiths from Oman' in the British Museum

Clasps in jewellery: 4,000 years of history

This book covers the use of clasps and other ways of fastening jewellery from the distant past to our times. From the Bronze Age to jewellery designs of our time, the author covers a multitude of ways to close necklaces, bracelets and anklets. You will see how torcs work, how anklets hinge, illustrated by a dazzling variety of jewellery. That includes a necklace worn by Marjorie Merriwather Post for example, but also a few examples of regional jewellery from Europe and the rest of the world.

This is 4,000 years of history, but apart from ancient Egypt and a lovely excursion to jewellery types of other areas, the focus is firmly on European jewellery: clasps like those of Maghrebi fibulas, or sliding knots from Indian jewellery are not included. That is not criticism, as this book covers an incredible amount of material – I think I’m just really hoping for a Part 2!

Clasps in close-up: photography and drawings

Another thing which makes this a great reference book are the detailed photographs of clasps. The beautiful pieces of jewellery are not only shown in their entirety, but also with focus on the details of the clasp. That means that you’ll see a lot of images of jewellery pieces both closed and open, and with details of that part you never see when worn: its reverse side.

Detailed schematic drawings throughout the book highlight closing mechanisms where necessary. The last part, the glossary of clasps, presents an overview of 25 types of closing mechanisms in chronological order. Each type is accompanied by a schematic drawing of its function. And all of these are shown in use, too, as part of a jewel.

The book features hundreds of pieces of jewellery, dating from prehistory to high-end jewellery of our day and age. You will see museum pieces from archaeological museums as well as contemporary designs and everything in between: think Etruscan gold to Van Cleef and Arpels.

I loved to see the intricacy and clever design of jewellery closing devices throughout history. And because they are presented in such a wide time range, this book allows you to appreciate the originality and creativity that jewellery designers managed to come up with, time and again. A clasp can be part of the design itself, the eye-catching element in the centre or the invisible, innovative solution to wearing a jewel safely and securely.

Clasps to study and understand

This is a wonderfully illustrated book which both jewellery historians and jewellery designers will love. It presents a wide overview of types of clasps and it offers a gorgeous selection of jewellery to admire. Many of which you will see photographed in this detail of their closing mechanism for the first time! This really helps in understanding how a jewel is constructed, or, when you’re admiring a painting or an old photograph, to get some idea on how a jewel is worn. A lot of work went into compiling this book, and I am sure you will appreciate this encyclopaedic overview. For me, this is definitely a reference book that I will pull out often!

More information on Le Fermoir en Bijouterie/Clasps

French title: Le Fermoir en Bijouterie. 4000 ans d’histoires.

English title: Clasps. 4,000 years of fasteners in jewellery.

By Anna Tabakhova, 2019. 283 pages, full colour, in either French or English.

Published by Editions Terracol: click here for the English version, and click here for the French version.

Available with the publisher, online and in well-sorted bookstores.

I purchased the French book in the museum shop of the Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris.

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Looking for background information on your jewellery? Have a look at the courses – there’s so much available on the world of the jewellery from North Africa and the Middle East!

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Sigrid van Roode

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