Overview

For many women of Egypt, their jewelry is their bank-they wear their wealth in their gold. But jewelry in Egypt is also more than mere assets, and its design and manufacture reveal a great array of styles and a high degree of skill and artistry. In this lavishly illustrated book, Azza Fahmy, herself a world-renowned designer of jewelry based on traditional motifs, lays before us an Aladdin's cave of jewelry made in all corners of Egypt over the last one hundred years, collected through her extensive travels throughout the country. From the farms and villages of the Nile Valley and Delta, from the oases of the Western Desert and the mountains and wadis of Sinai and the Eastern Desert, from Nubia in the south, and from the crowded traditional neighborhoods of Cairo is displayed a cornucopia of gold and silver adornment-each area with its own distinctive favored style. Personal seals have been widely employed, and there is even jewelry for special occasions, such as the appeasement of malignant spirits, and for animals.In this completely redesigned edition of her bestselling book, in a new and elegant format, the author not only documents all these varieties and illustrates them with the finest examples, she also describes the techniques and skills involved in their production and the materials used, and recounts her own journey of learning as she apprenticed with the leading master jewelers to become the best known jeweler in Egypt, whose work is worn by world leaders, royalty, and connoisseurs of jewelry around the globe.

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9789774167201

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Reviews

Enchanted Jewelry Of Egypt: The Traditional Art And Craft comes in an oversized gorgeous hardcover with slipcase and is a top pick for any college-level or in-depth specialty collection focusing on either world jewelry in general or Egyptian history, culture and the arts in particular. The author is a designer of jewelry based on traditional motifs and covers jewelry made throughout Egypt over the last hundred years, using her own collection and travels to supplement history and research. Both history and jewelry-making insights make for an outstanding survey. --Midwest Review of Books This well-researched and beautifully designed book presents a detailed history of traditional jewelry design and adornment in Egypt, with many full-page color plates of jewelry, both alone and being worn, including many historic photographs. The text is of interest for its treatment of ethnography, a result of the author's travels from Nubia to the Mediterranean researching local jewelry traditions in villages and towns. Fahmy's roots are in Upper Egypt and she is an accomplished jeweler with training in traditional Egyptian gold and silver metalwork. --Book News Jewelry-making is a subject Azza Fahmy knows well. Unlike most jewelry designers who merely design jewelry, Fahmy can also make jewelry: she mastered the techniques and the skills involved in their production. She was the first Egyptian woman to learn silver-smithing as an apprentice in the iconic Khan Al-Khalili . . . Enchanted Jewelry of Egypt is a delightful book to read and to look at. The text is informative and devoid of technical verbiage. The photographs are superb, and most of the jewelry pieces come from the author's private collection. Azza Fahmy's passion for jewelry is clear throughout the book. And she succeeds in communicating her enthusiasm to readers. --Arab News Fahmy's jewelry catches the spirit of Arab tradition. The pieces are inspired by everything from the hammered silver of peasant wedding jewelry and the repetitive patterns of Islamic architecture to symbols of Arab folklore such as wolf fangs and chili peppers. --Time Magazine An exceptional women, who makes exceptional jewels in exceptional circumstances. --The Telegraph Azza Fahmy's brand of tempered Middle Eastern exoticism has started to spread beyond the Arab world. --Financial Times

Author Information

Azza Fahmy was born and raised in Sohag, in Upper Egypt. She graduated in interior design from the Faculty of Fine Arts, became the first female apprentice to several of the best jewelers in Cairo, and studied jewelry craft at the City of London Polytechnic. She now makes and markets her own jewelry internationally.

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