[Kindle] Brilliant Effects: A Cultural History of Gem Stones and
Jewellery
By Marcia Pointon
In a broad-ranging and exceptional work of cultural and art history, Marcia
Pointon explores what owning, wearing, distributing, and circulating gems and
jewelry has meant in the post-Renaissance history of Europe. She examines the
capacity of jewels not only to fascinate but also to create disorder and
controversy throughout history and across cultures.Pointon argues that what is
materially precious is invariably contentious. When what is precious is a finely
crafted artifact made from hard-won imported materials, the stakes become
particularly high?evidenced, for example, by the political fallout from Marie-
Antoinette's implication in the affair of the stolen diamond necklace.
Prodigiously rich in its range of reference and truly interdisciplinary in its
approach, this book challenges the reader to reassess the importance of material
things as powerful agents in human relations and in visual and verbal
representation.
