"Mother Nature is the best designer" has served as the unofficial motto for Tiffany & Co since Charles Lewis Tiffany founded his company in 1837. This two-volume, slipcased set presents Tiffany's bejewelled plant and animal kingdom. Here the famed designers pay homage to the way nature has inspired the design of intricate jewellery and precious objects. Each book illustrates in detail how Tiffany's stylistic treatment of the plant and animal world has changed over 150 years. John Loring traces the influences of cultural and aesthetic movements on jewellery design and history from Edward C. Moore's Japanese 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 jewellery and the contemporary triumphs of Elsa Peretti and Paloma Picasso.