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PLEASE CLICK ON PICTURE TO READ ENTIRE REVIEW

BY MANON KAVESKY


Title: Mardi Gras Treasures: Jewelry of the Golden Age
Author: Henri Schindler
Type of Book: Hard Cover
In Print for $35.00 better pricing available if you look around online
In Print: Yes
Pages: 160

Brief Description of Book:
Mardi Gras Treasures: Jewelry of the Golden Age covers Mardi Gras celebrations in New Orleans between the years of 1870-1930. These are popular years for jewelry collectors covering mid Victorian to Art Deco. Lavishly illustrated this book bursts with new color photos of jewelry and archival photos of the kings and queens of the Mardi Gras balls. Beautiful of society ladies and handsome gents wear fabulous costumes augmented with tons of jewels, crowns, tiaras, bracelets pins, stomachers, scepters. The archival photos are fascinating because they show how items were displayed. For example there are multiple photos of Victorian lovelies wearing dazzling rhinestone belts and stomachers with their wasp waist dresses. I don’t know if I have ever seen so many photos where the jewelry of the period is the star attraction.

Mardi Gras party favors are included, generally little pins or charms that were given to guests of the fabulous balls. The party favors were obviously treasured surviving for a hundred years or more! There are examples of carefully executed enamels, sterling silver pins, and charms that reflect the theme of a specific ball. For example the cover image a fan shaped pin features tiny pearls, luminous hard enamels, gold painted accents and etching, quite a deluxe party favor. The little fan pin was created for the Mistick Crew of Comus in 1892 to commemorate the ball “Nippon, the land of the Rising Sun”. Generally party favors weren’t created from precious materials but there is one example included of a gold dragonfly pin with a diamond that was presented to a party guest in 1898. The lucky lady never discovered which gentleman gave her such an over the top gift.

The average collector probably would not find one of the dramatic grande parures showcased in this book but the party favors would seem to be collectible if you know what you are looking for.

Written by a well-respected local history expert Henri Schindler this book is the final volume of a four-volume set that covers the different decorative elements of Mardi Gras: invitations, floats and the costumes are the earlier topics.

Quantity of Illustrations: almost every page 250 color plates
Score: 9

Quality of visual material: Great photographs of interesting items.
Score: 9

Quantity of Information: Lots of Mardi Gras history, which is a large part of the social and cultural history of New Orleans. This book does not focus on the creation of the jewelry or the materials used. It does not give any clue to the dimensions of the articles, but I don’t think that is the goal of this book.
Is the information thorough? Yes, written by a well-respected local historian and a designer of Mardi Gras Balls and parade floats.

Score:9

Quality of Information: This is a wonderful study about a regional topic.
Score: 9


User Friendly:
Is the book easy to read and follow? Yes easy to read. I really don’t know anything about the history of New Orleans and I learned a lot about this one of a kind city in the U.S.A. Is there a table of contents?
Is information easy to find? Yes, it is indexed
Score: 9

Average score 9
Is this book a must have? Yes, it is a must have because it is so darn cool!
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