CATEGORY

"Mother Nature is the Best Designer" has served as the unofficial motto for Tiffany & Co. since Charles Lewis Tiffany founded his company in 1837. And Mother Nature has never been in better form than in this charming two-volume, slipcased set, which presents Tiffany's stunningly bejeweled plant and animal kingdom. In Tiffany Flora & Fauna, the famed designers of this internationally renowned purveyor of luxury goods pay homage to the way nature has inspired the design of unique and intricate jewelry and precious objects.

Each book illustrates in striking detail how Tiffany's stylistic treatment of the plant and animal world has changed over the past 150 years. John Loring traces the influences of cultural and aesthetic movements on jewelry design and history from Edward C. Moore's Japanesque silver, Paulding Farnham's High Victorian masterpieces, and John T. Curran and Louis Comfort Tiffany's Art Nouveau creations, to Jean Schlumberger's mid-20th-century haute-couture jewelry and the contemporary triumphs of Elsa Peretti and Paloma Picasso. Orchid clips, apple pendants, parrot brooches, and more sparkle throughout in beautiful new photographs.