How do you write about 200 years of jewellery history? Curator and expert Melanie Grant took on the challenge

A ring by Pueblo artist Richard Chavez, featuring lapis lazuli, coral, turquoise, and 14-karat gold, from The Jewelry Book by Melanie Grant.

In the jewellery world, there are plenty of coffee-table books touting big luxury houses, historical guides on eras, books that spotlight a single style of jewellery and educational texts focused on stones and techniques. But there is nothing that covers the world of adornment the way The Jewelry Book does.

Edited by Melanie Grant and published by Phaidon, The Jewelry Book is a compendium of the 300 most important jewellery world figures from the past 200-plus years. Familiar names such as Cartier, Bulgari and Harry Winston are included.

Melanie Grant.

But more fascinating are the Indian and Asian designers such as Hong Kong native Austy Lee,