Overview

Shortlisted for the History Book Award in Scotland's National Book Awards, 2023 During the long 19th century, Scotland was home to an established body of skilled jewellers who were able to access a range of materials from the country’s varied natural landscape: precious gold and silver; sparkling crystals and colourful stones; freshwater pearls, shells and parts of rare animals. Following these materials on their journey from hill and shore, across the jeweller’s bench and on to the bodies of wearers, this book challenges the persistent notion that the forces of industrialisation led to the decline of craft. It instead reveals a vivid picture of skilled producers who were driving new and revived areas of hand skill, and who were key to fostering a focused cultural engagement with the natural world – among both producers and consumers – through the things they made. By placing producers and their skill in cultural context, the book reveals how examining the materiality of even the smallest of objects can offer new and multifaceted insights into the wider transformations that marked British history during the long 19th century. Uniting a vast array of jewellery objects with a range of other sources – including paintings, engravings, newspaper reports, letters, inventories of big houses and small workshops, sketchbooks, novels, works of literary geology and early travel writings – this book provides a deep dive into the cultural history of jewellery production through accessible thematic studies. In doing so, it sets out innovative methodologies for writing about the histories of craft production, the natural environment and the material world. Now available in a paperback edition, it will be an important addition to the bookshelf of cultural historians and those interested in Scotland's wild landscapes and natural objects.

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9781501358005

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Reviews

This extensively researched and beautifully illustrated book makes an important contribution to material culture studies. It puts the jewellery makers and their materials at the centre of the discussion, around which flow the currents of cultural, intellectual, aesthetic and economic aspects of their craft. The result is a brilliantly effective interdisciplinary account of making and meaning in Scottish jewellery practice in the long 19th century. * Dr. Simon Bliss, author of Jewellery in the Age of Modernism 1918-1940 (2021) * This is a wonderful book which will become the standard work on Scotland’s jewellery craft for many years to come. Thorough and meticulous research is blended with eloquent prose and an array of splendid images to enchanting effect. * Professor Emeritus Sir Tom Devine, University of Edinburgh, UK * From Cairngorm pebbles and Perthshire pearls to Edinburgh goldsmiths and the craftswomen of Inverness, Laurenson shows us the places and people of Scotland in vivid and innovative ways that will inspire all readers to see the past afresh. * David Gange, author of The Frayed Atlantic Edge (2021), joint winner of the Highland Book Prize, and Associate Professor of History, the University of Birmingham, UK * Essential reading for all who seek to understand the role of jewellery, and why it matters, in a period of huge social change. Bristling with new research, this engaging and highly original account takes cultural history deep into Scotland and far beyond. * Judy Rudoe, Curator, 1800 to the present, British Museum, UK *

This extensively researched and beautifully illustrated book makes an important contribution to material culture studies. It puts the jewellery makers and their materials at the centre of the discussion, around which flow the currents of cultural, intellectual, aesthetic and economic aspects of their craft. The result is a brilliantly effective interdisciplinary account of making and meaning in Scottish jewellery practice in the long 19th century. * Simon Bliss, author of Jewellery in the Age of Modernism 1918-1940 (2021) * This is a wonderful book which will become the standard work on Scotland's jewellery craft for many years to come. Thorough and meticulous research is blended with eloquent prose and an array of splendid images to enchanting effect. * Professor Emeritus Sir Tom Devine, University of Edinburgh, UK *

This extensively researched and beautifully illustrated book makes an important contribution to material culture studies. It puts the jewellery makers and their materials at the centre of the discussion, around which flow the currents of cultural, intellectual, aesthetic and economic aspects of their craft. The result is a brilliantly effective interdisciplinary account of making and meaning in Scottish jewellery practice in the long 19th century. * Simon Bliss, author of Jewellery in the Age of Modernism 1918-1940 (2021) *

Author Information

Sarah Laurenson is Principal Curator of Modern and Contemporary History at National Museums Scotland, UK.

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