Greek Gold

During the classical period in ancient Greece, the skill of Greek jewellers and the beauty of the designs they created raised their craft to a glorious miniature art. Published to accompany a unique exhibition, this catalogue describes and illustrates two hundred of the finest surviving pieces of Greek jewellery dating from the 5th to 3rd century BC. Drawn from the unrivalled collections of the Hermitage, St Petersburg, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, and the British Museum, many of the pieces are being exhibited for the first time. Jewellery from all over the Greek world, from Greece itself, from the fabulously rich Greek cities of Asia Minor, the Crimea and South Italy, and from partially Hellenised areas such as Cyprus, the Ukraine and Central Italy is brought together in the catalogue. An introductory section examines the way jewellery was made, how it was worn, and how it relates to other arts such as sculpture and drawing, as well as bringing out the stylistic differences between the work of jewellers in the various parts of the Greek world.