Jewelry

 

Jewelry are decorative objects worn on the person, traditionally of valuable materials and of skilled workmanship and attractive design. Fine jewelry usually has been made of precious metals and gemstones, including precious stones (diamonds, emeralds, sapphires, rubies, and pearls) and so called semiprecious stones, such as amethysts, opals, turquoise, and lapis lazuli. Bronze, steel, wood, bone, shell, coral, amber, glass, plastic, and other substances also have been used for jewelry.

  Men and women have worn jewelry since earliest times. Probably it has always been considered a form of adornment, but is has had other uses as well. Brooches and buckles served the practical function of holding clothing together. Beads and pendants often were considered to have mysterious powers, by virtue of their form or material, to protect the wearer from evil.  Rings, badges, and chains might indicate rank, honor, or office. Since jewelry traditionally has been costly, it has served as a mark of status and often as a form of investment. Thus the pleasure of personal embellishment, the comfort of magico-religious belief, and practical considerations were closely linked in a piece of jewelry.

  Over the centuries much valuable jewelry has been stolen and, stolen or not, broken up, reset, or melted down. Folk jewelry usually is an adaption of the styles of court jewelry, but in less expensive materials. Since the 20^th century, inexpensive, mass-produced costume jewelry, worn solely for adornment, has been within the reach of most people.

  Jewelry is closely related to other decorative objects made by jewelers, such as crowns, scepters, cups, watches, snuff boxes, and book covers. Jewelry making includes a great variety of techniques, such as metal working, gem cutting, and enameling.

Jewelry in The Ancient World

  During the Paleolithic Period, jewelry took the form of bracelets, pendants, and necklaces made of shells, teeth, bones, feathers, and stones. Most of these materials were found objects rather than worked. Much later, during the Bronze Age, as metalworking developed, the nobility wore fine jewelry of gold and other metals. Because a dead person’s prized possessions were placed with his body, most of our knowledge of ancient jewelry comes from tombs and graves.

Jewelry in Mesopotamia and Iran

Among the first gold objects worn as ornaments were diadems hung with thin gold leaves, bead necklaces, hoop earrings, and bracelets, made in the Tigris Euphrates Valley about 2500 B.C. and found in  Sumerian royal tombs on Ur (British Museum). They reveal a variety of skillfully applied techniques, including casting, engraving, repousse (raised designs hammered from the back), filigree (fine wire soldered to a surface), and granulation (minute gold pellets soldered to a surface). Cylinder seals, made of gemstones or glazed clay, incised or modeled, were used to stamp the soft clay before hardening in order indicate ownership. Although not jewelry, they were the ancestors of Greek and Roman engraved gems in seal rings.

  Iran, northeast of Mesopotamia, also produced gold jewelry, including beads, pendants, and fibulae (brooches like safety pins). Bronze ornaments with animal motifs, forming pins, bracelets, and useful implements, were made during the 1^st century B.C. Often these were inlaid with lapis lazuli and turquoise.

Jewelry in Egypt

By far the most complete record of ancient jewelry survives from Egypt because of the dry climate and elaborate burial customs.  Beads and amulets made of shell, faience (ground quartz), ivory, and gemstones existed from early times. Jewelry of the Middle Kingdom (2154-1570 B.C.) and later was made of gold, frequently inlaid with blue lapis lazuli, red cornelian, turquoise, or glass, or with cloisonné enamel (glass paste placed in compartments formed by metal wires or strips and fused to a metal surface by heat).  These colorful pieces included broad, beaded collars, pectorals (chest ornaments), beaded or gold bracelets, and anklets, belts, rings, and pendant earrings. Many had religious symbols, such as falcons, serpents, scarabs, and the ankh cross. Some of the most spectacular examples came from the tomb of the boy pharaoh Tutankhamen (about 1340 B.C.; Egyptian Museum, Cairo).

Jewelry in Crete and Greece

The Mediterranean island of Crete, which traded with Egypt and the Middle East, encouraged the fashion for elaborate gold jewelry and engraved seals worn around the neck or in rings. The designs were commonly drawn from the animal world in naturalistic or heraldic style. A particularly fine piece of about 1600 B.C. is a gold pendant of two hornets at a honeycomb (Heraklion Museum, Crete). Other works include thin, gold daisy hairpins and gold bead necklaces and bracelets. In Mycenaean cities on the Greek mainland, craftsmen made similar gold jewelry. They also cut seals, used enamel, and made stamped gold and blue or turquoise glass beads.

 After the destruction of the Mycenaean cities by invading Dorians in the 12^th century B.C., jewelry declined. The early Greeks of the geometric period used chiefly bronze and gold fibulae. Not until the classical period (5^th and 4^th centuries B.C.) did jewelry, like other Greek arts, fully developed. Gold jewelry frequently was fashioned in the shape of miniature figures, birds, or animals, which formed pendants on necklaces or pendant earrings. A handsome 4^th century necklace from Tarentum consists of rosettes hung with hollow pendants in alternate shapes of heads and flower buds (British Museum). Often fine filigree and plait work were used. The predominant motifs for diadems were naturalistic flowers and foliage, made of thin beaten gold foil of such exquisite frailty that they seem to tremble in perpetual motion at the slightest touch of air. Intaglio-cut stone seals were set in rings, a fashion that has continued almost uninterrupted into modern times.

  During the Hellenistic period (2d and 2d centuries B.C), Greek jewelry continued in the classical tradition. But brilliant color, derived from gemstones and enamel, occasionally tended to substitute for excellence in workmanship, and bold relief took the place of earlier techniques. Cameos also were made.

  From the 6^th to the 3d century B.C Greek goldsmith north of the Black sea produced fine gold jewelry for the Scythians, a nomadic Asian people of the region. The jewelry was characterized by vigorous animal motifs stylized to fit the shape of the particular piece. Examples found in tombs are not in the Hermitage Museum, Leningrad.

Etruria and Rome

In Italy from the late 8^th century B.C. the Etruscans produced gold jewelry of almost unsurpassed splendor and technical perfection. It was distinguished by the excellence of its filigree, granulation, and pierced openwork. Fibulae covered with tiny animals and earrings shaped like boats or satchels were richly ornamented with granulation.

  In Rome from the 1^st to the 4^th century A.D., jewelers concentrated increasingly on the setting of gemstones, selected for intense color. They were cabochons-that is, cut to form a round polished dome. Roman cameos of the early empire reveal remarkable qualities and originality of concept. They include a series of large-scale pieces carved of shell, saronyx, oynx, or agate, exposing to full advantage, and as part of the design, the various colored strata of the material. Mythical subjects and portraits, especially those of the imperial family, predominate. These cameos were often copied in later times, particularly during the Italian Renaissance and the early 18^th century, but were never excelled.

  The Romans also worked in champlevé enamel, filling scooped-out cavities on bronze ornaments with glass paste, usually red or white, which firing fuse permanently to the bronze. Enameled fibulae, brooches, and buckles have been found in Europe wherever the Roman armies conquered. Other forms of Roman jewelry included simple gold earrings, necklaces of cabochon stones in bezels (boxlike settings), and cameo and gold openwork rings. The Romans were the first to give betrothal and wedding rings.

JEWELRY IN THE WESTERN WORLD

  Jewelry in the West variously reflects classical and Byzantine traditions, the style of migratory and other barbarian tribes, Christian influence, and, later, decorative-art styles.

Migration Period.

During the late Roman Empire and the Dark Ages, nomadic tribes from the East ranged over Western Europe. As wanderers who carried their belongings with them, they were far more skilled at metalworking and jewelry making than at large-scale arts, such as sculptures and architecture. These Teutonic peoples, including Goths, Vandals, Norsemen, and, Franks, produced a wealth of bronze and gold ornaments in distinctive tribal styles. A common form was the fibula, which was usually round, bird-shaped, or vertical, with a bow connecting a fan-shaped head and square foot. Fibulae were usually inlaid with garnets or red cloisonné enamel. Frequently they had abstract zoomorphic designs. Splendid examples of this fantastic animal style were found in the tomb of the 5^th century Frankish king Childeric I (Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris).

  The Celts, a non-Teutonic people who settled in Ireland and in Gaul and Britain before the arrival of the Romans, made torques of bronze, gold, or electrum (a natural alloy of gold and silver). These rigid hoops of twisted metal with ornamental ends were clasped around the neck or arm Some were hooked at the flattened ends. Celtic tradition lingered long in Ireland, even after the country was converted to Christianity in the 5^th century. Irish Celtic jewelry combined repousse, filigree, granulation, and champlevé and cloisonné enamel. Designs were abstract including circles and interlaced bands. A particularly fine example is the famous 8^th century Tara brooch (National Museum, Dublin). The Tara jewel is a penannular brooch,  a characteristic Celtic type consisting of a long pin sliding on an ornamental ring (usually broken) and worn on the shoulder. Cast in silver by the lost-wax process, it was decorated front and back with cloisonné enamel studs, bird’s heads finials, and panels of filigree interlacing similar to motifs in Irish illuminated manuscripts.

  Like other Teutonic peoples, the Anglo-Saxons, who invaded Britain, also used filigree, granulation, colored grass, garnets, and enamel. A large cloisonné enamel and gold brooch and other jewelry were found in a great burial ship discovered in 1939 at Sutton Hoo, Suffolk (British Museum. The famous Alfred jewel, made during the reign of Kind Alfred in the 9^th century, displays a half figure in enamel protected by a thick slab of rock crystal mounted in gold with granulation and in inscription around the edge.

Byzantine and Early Medieval Periods.

Because the establishment of Christianity ended the custom of burying valuable belongings with the dead, direct knowledge of Byzantine and early medieval jewelry is generally confined to that represented in mosaics and monumental effigies and to the few objects preserved in church treasuries or by chance. The rich jewelry of the 6^th century Byzantine court, which inherited many traditions of ancient Greece and Rome, is best seen mosaics in San Vitale, Ravenna, where the empress Theodora appears adorned in pearl diadem, necklaces, and pendant earrings. Later Byzantine jewelry was highly decorative and emphasized gold filigree, cloisonné enamel, and pearls.

  In early medieval Europe jewelers worked primarily for the church. The workshops of goldsmiths were located in or near monasteries or in cathedral precincts. The finest jewels were votive offerings made to adorn statues of the Virgin and other saints rather than as ornaments for personal use. Ecclesiastical jewelry, many pieces of which survive, influenced what personal jewelry there was. The style was a composite of barbarian and Byzantine elements and like other aspects of Carolingian and Ottonian art, of elements deliberately revived from the classical past. Although this style was most easily achieved in gold work, other techniques included cloisonné enameling and the ancient art of gem engraving. Gem engraving is splendidly exemplified in a rock crystal carved with the biblical story of Susanna in the late 10^th century. Some early medieval jewelry incorporated antique cameos and engraved stones, frequently surrounded by threaded pearls. Cabochon stones were held by four claws or a high bezel, often over a piece of colored metal foil to intensify the color.

  Among the most common ornaments were brooches, disc-shaped or ring-shaped, sometimes partly filled in. Some were inscribed with sentimental messages and given as tokens of love and friendship. Other had religious motifs. Rings were also important. Some were engraved with the owner’s initials or heraldic device and used for sealing documents. Others were signs of office. Still others were given as marks of affection. A rare example of personal jewelry is the treasure of the 11^th century empress Gisela, found at Mainz. It contains necklaces, earrings, and brooches, including a circular one surrounding a cloisonné enamel eagle inspired by barbarian bird-shaped brooches but in the new, more heraldic style.

Gothic Silver Period.

During the Gothic period (late 12^th to mid 15-th century), secular workshops in the towns gradually replaced monastic workshops, and more personal jewelry was worn. Jewelry, which could be pawned, broken up, or melted down, was used as a form of currency at a time when bank credit was just beginning. Such use is confirmed by inventories of the dukes of Burgundy and kings of France, describing jewels of which only a few survive.

 Gems continued to be cabochon, cut in plain, high bezels, but as the techniques of gem cutting advanced, they tended to become smaller and more regular in shape. Rectangular gems were often set in grooved quatrefoils. Others had a pyramid shape. Such stones were not brilliant but could be engraved.

  Rings came in great variety. Large rings of gild bronze were worn by bishops over their gloves on ceremonial occasions. They were usually set with a rectangular stone over foil and bore the bishop’s coat of arms. Signet, or seal, rings remained popular. They were set with an intaglio stone, antique or contemporary, or were engraved on metal ground. Some rings were inscribed with affectionate messages. Marriage rings of silver or gold had clasped hands.

  Brooches remained fashionable-round, ring, or shaped like stars, lozenges, or monograms, and often set with gems. A new form was the pilgrim badge, which was stamped out of pewter with a picture of a saint or his shrine and worn by pilgrims in their hats as mementos of their journey.

  In an age of credulity many people wore jewelry for its protective powers. Miniature statuettes of patron saints, especially of the Virgin, Sebastian, and Christopher, cast of silver or in silver gilt, were worn as pendants around the neck or from the belt. Reliquaries containing some holy object took the form of round box pendants with hinged lids engraved with saints and naturalistic foliage. Some had rectangular architectural shapes, with Gothic pointed arches and finials. Gems , set in brooches, pendants, or rings, especially when engraved with appropriate symbols, were believed to have special powers. For example, sapphires turned away the evil eye, and aquamarines ensured a happy marriage. Worn in pendants and rings, shark’s teeth and what were believed to be toadstones and bits of unicorn horn were thought to guard against dropsy and poisoning.

  Other types of Gothic jewelry included belts, enameled heraldic badges, gold chains of office, and enameled gold brooches and pendants. The last two types, made from about 1400 for the Burgundian court, are among the most delightful and original creations. They are frequently in the shape of a wreath of jeweled strawberry leaves surrounding white-enameled figures of couriers or animals and almost invariably have clusters adorned necklaces, used with the new fashion of low-necked dresses. Examples of such jewelry are a brooch with lovers in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Veinna, and a sequence of jewels in Essen Cathedral, West Germany.

Renaissance Jewelry

During the Renaissance, the amount of jewelry greatly increased, as is evident in paintings and in the many examples that still exist. Princes and merchants, grown rich from the growth of finance and manufacturing and from trade with India and the New World, displayed their wealth and prestige in the form of jewelry. They wore not only removable pieces-pendants, necklaces, chains, earrings, bracelets, belts, and rings- but also button, that, badges, and other jewels sewn onto their clothing and on nets and cords in women’s hair. Various assortments of these might form a matched set, or parure.

  There was a close link between goldsmiths and painters and sculptors. Many of the painters and sculptors, including Pollaiuolo, Verrochio, Botticelli, Durer, and Holbein the younger, trained in goldsmiths’ shops. Well-known painters and engravers supplied jewelry designs and pattern books, which circulated from shop to shop and were multiplied through engravings. As a result, a fruitful exchange of ideas and techniques took place, and the classical motifs and styles current in Renaissance architecture, sculptures, and painting set a new style in jewelry. Pendants in architectural form had classical columns and pediments. Other pendants and badges represented the pleasurable earthly pursuits of the gods: representations of Diana and her hounds and of the Three Graces far outnumbered the statuettes of saints of earlier centuries. The new style was also distinguished by fine miniature sculpture, frequently enameled in color, and by the use of gems. Increasingly available, gems had virtually replaced enamels by the end of the 16^th century. Pearls from India were especially favored; later, diamonds, forming the only actual link with antique styles, for classical jewelry was practically unknown at that time.

Types. The pendant, in all its magnificence was undoubtedly the most representative jewel of the period. It might be suspended from a delicate chain or jeweled necklace or girdle. Some, especially in Italy and Spain, were religious-crucifixes, crosses, and small reliquaries. Others were cameos. More complex pendants consisted of different openwork planes, held together by minute bolts and buts, or delicate gold figures often combined with colored enamels and gems. Jewels in the shape of shops, the full sails outlined by rows of seed pearls, were typical of Venice, a maritime power. Large baroque (irregularly shaped) pearls formed the bodies of birds, animals, and sea monsters.  Girdle pendants included miniature prayer books in jeweled bindings and pomanders ( containers that opened in sections like slices of an apple) for spices and scents, toothpicks, whistles, and charms.

  One of the most characteristics Renaissance ornaments was the hat badge, or ensiegne, derived from the medieval pilgrim sign. Usually in portraits by such 16^th century painters as Bartolommeo Veneto, Francois Clouet, and Holbein. No other jewel seems to express so aptly, through the wearer’s choice of subject matter, his or her personality. The classical interests of Renaissance humanism account for the use of cameos and mythological scenes, although patrons’ saints continued to be a subject for representation.

  Necklaces were frequently of extravagant length, designed in sections and composed of pearls and other gems and enamel links. Some chains were of gold, others were enameled in brilliant colors or in black to enhance the effect of pearls. Several necklaces and chains were often worn together. Seal rings continued in favor. Other rings were set with stones in a high bezel that opened to reveal a relic. A new form was the locket, of enamel, gold, and gems, containing a miniature portrait.

Designers The methods of making jewelry were described by Benvenuto Cellini in his famous treatise on the goldsmith’s art. The new techniques and style spread rapidly from Italy to northern Europe and to Spain, tending to level national differences. In Germany the cities of Augsburg, Nurrenberg, Munich became centers of production. Local Painter-engravers, designers of highly original pieces, included Erasmus Hornick of Nuremberg, who engraved pendants in the shape of dragons and seahorses;  Hans Muelich of Munich, who designed architectural pendants as background for classical figures; and Virgil Solis of Strabourg and Theodore de Bry of Frankfurt, both noted for their versatility.

  In France, the maitres ornemanistes were at work. French design usually preserved a classic restraint. Etiene Delaulne engraved designs for watches, lockets, and pendants, composed of enameled figures on pierced scrollwork. Designs by the architect Jacques Androuet du Cerceau show his predilection for structural composition, scrollwork, cartouches, and caryatid figures. Hans Collaert of Antwerp promoted the taste for enameled mythological figures hung with pearls and other gems. Lighter, more symmetrical pendants with fewer figures were designed in the late 16^th century by Daniel Mignot in Augsburg and Paul Birckenhultz in Frankfurt.

  In England, where medieval tradition lingered until the mid-16^th century, Renaissance jewelry was introduced by Holbein through his portraits and designs for jewelers. Holbien’s strap work ornament, made by jewelers in black enamel on gold, was inspired by Hispano-Moresque metalwork. His caryatids and small nude figures reveal Italian influence. English jewelry included lockets containing a miniature set in enameled gold and surrounded by table-cut (flat-cut) rubies, garnets, or diamonds; chains of office and jeweled armorial badges, presented as tokens of royal favor. The Phoenix jewel (British Museum), cut from a gold medal of 1574, shows a likeness of Elizabeth I in a wreath of Tudor roses. Her portrait also appears in cameo pendants and on armada jewels, medals commemorating the defeat of the Spanish fleet, which were bordered by gems in enameled settings of great originality. Seal rings, such as that of Mary queen of Scots (British Museum), were also worn.

  In Spain, enriched by gold and gems from her colonies in the New World, gold jewelry with a lavish display of precious stones rain riot in an exuberance of color. Toward the end of the 16^th century, jewelry tended to be almost ostentatious in its profusion of stones, especially diamonds. They were table cut, which gave them a flat, mirror like surface.

Seventeenth Century Jewelry

The late 16^th century trend away from gold and enamel toward precious stones reached its in the height in the early 17^th century with the development of new diamond-cutting techniques in Amsterdam. The rose cut, with 24 or even 36 facets rising from a flat base to a point, exploited the reflecting qualities of the stone as earlier cuts had not. Enamel, if used at all, was white, and gold work in Spain or silverwork in other countries as open and airy, to set off the sparkling diamonds.

  A complementary trend was to set jewels with a number of smaller stones instead of a single large one. This development gave jewelers greater freedom of design. Stones were placed closely together, eclipsing their settings, and figures, as a consequence, went out of fashion. Among the most versatile French engravers to promote this style Gilles Legare, whose pattern books appeared in Paris in 1663. Also favored was painted enamel ornament on elaborate watchcases, miniature cases, lockets, and the reverse sides of many jeweled pieces.

  At the same times, there was a preference for floral mostif in an age when people were interested in gardens and exotic plants. A dainty chain in the Cheapside Hoard from the early 17th century (found in Cheapside, London in 1912) consists of daisies, marigolds, and other blossoms enameled in white and pastel shades (British Museum). The motif of painted enamel decoration frequently was a naturalistic bouquet in vivid color on a white ground. The tulip was swept often emphasized, reflecting the tulip craze that swept the Netherlands in the middle of the century. Gems were usually set in floral sprays or bouquets.

  Men wore less jewelry than in the past, but women continued to cherish it. A favorite form was the aigrette, a jeweled spray of feather worn in the hat, often supporting a real feather. Necklaces and pendants studded with pears emphasized graduated, ribbon-bow-shaped ornaments. Large brooches with baroque scrolls and foliage covered the whole bodice. Mourning jewelry, which began in the Renaissance, included rings and pendants with skulls and coffins and appropriate mottoes and lockets containing miniatures of the deceased.

Eighteenth Century Jewelry

Jewelry in the early 18^th century continued to emphasize sparkling diamonds. The fire of a deep stone was intensified by the brilliant cut, invented by the Venetian Vicenzo Peruzzi about 1700. Brilliant-cut stones had up to 58 facets and ended in truncated pyramids on top and bottom, which reflected more light than flat-bottomed, rose-cut stones. About mid-century, designs became even lighter, and delight in color returned. Diamonds surrounded by emeralds, rubies, garnets, topazes, and amethysts were combined in naturalistic floral sprays tied with ribbon bows. Glittering stones were set in matched include a stomacher ( a large triangular brooch, sometimes made in sections, that went from neckline to waist) or a seigne (a diamond-studded open work brooch in the form of a bow). Chokers were fashionable, and both men and women wore jeweled studs, buttons, and shoe buckles. They hung chatelaines from the waist, from which dangled watches, keys, seals, small writing tablets, needle cases, and other implements. Seal rings continued in use. Other rings were composed of a medley of colored stones, each representing a flower.

  Inexpensive versions of real jewelry began to be made for the middle class. Diamonds were limitated in paste (faceted lead glass, sometimes over colored foil). Paste, particularly effective when worn in candlelight is called strass in France, for Georges Frederic Strass, who invented it in Paris in the 1730’s. Precious metal was imitated in pinchbeck, an alloy of copper and zinc invented a process for casting replicas of intaglios in glass paste for use in rims and other seals. Marcasite (crystallized iron pyrites) was faceted to suggest diamonds. Cut steel and porcelain were also substituted for gems.

Nineteenth Century Jewelry

The neoclassical revival of the late 18^th and early 19^th centuries, inspired by archaeological excavations, the French revolution, and the Napoleonic empire, promoted a taste for ancient Greek and Roman jewelry. Lush curved lines were replaced by delicate straight ones, and cut stones were superseded by Wedgewood pottery copies of cameos and by cameos in stone or shell carved in Naples, with mythological subjects, portraits, or idealized heads. The lunette-shaped diadems worn by Empress Josephine and her ladies reflected classical style. Small mosaics of Roman ruins were made in Venice, mounted in gold or gilt metal brooches, earrings, and link bracelets. Similar jewelry, set with painted enamels, was made in Geneva, where enameling was much in demand for watch’ cases. These Swiss enamels frequently depicted figures in local costumes against mountains.

Later in the 19^th century, jet jewelry became popular, particularly in England during the widowhood of Queen Victoria, when black lockets, chains, and earrings were often worn by older ladies. Other mourning jewelry might contain a lock of hair of the deceased. Much late 19^th century jewelry revealed the eclecticism of the period- Gothic, Romantic, and East Indian styles and copies of antique designs, made by such skilled jewelers as Fortunato Pio Castellani, who rediscovered the Etruscan granulation technique.

  The discovery of diamonds in South Africa in the 180’s led to a renewed taste for diamond jewelry, usually in floral sprays and other conservative designs. Diamonds were no longer placed in closed-box settings over foil, however, but were held in open-backed settings by prongs, but were held in open-backed settings by prongs, allowing more light to reflect from the stones. Usually the settings were of silver to complement the diamonds, which had to be of better quality because more surface was visible. Commercial jewelers opened shops to provide fine quality precious jewelry to a larger market than had patronized individual jewelers in the past. Among them were Faberge in St. Petersburg (now Leningrad), who worked especially in enamel; Tiffany in New York; Cartier in Paris; Asprey in London; and Bulgari in Rome.

  Adopting techniques of the Industrial Revolution, manufacturers made limitation jewelry in ever-increasing amounts for a mass market. Birmingham; England; Pforzheim; Germany; and Valenza, Italy were centers of production. Many metal elements and most cameos were made by machine or with mechanical tools, although finishing touches were by hand. Electroplating speeded up the process of gliding. But the consequences of increased production were a decline in standards of design and execution.

  Peasant jewelry, of little actual value, is of interest because it continued styles that had gone out of fashion in urban society or adapted contemporary styles to cheaper materials, such as low-grade silver and gold, non precious gemstones, and paste. Filigree work is characteristic of many countries, especially along the Mediterranean. Scandinavian jewelry may retain traces of Norse interlaced design and may be ornamented with concave pendant discs. Dutch peasant jewelry includes gold, silver, and gilt spirals and other hair ornaments worn with lace caps.

Twentieth Century  

From the 1890’s to World War I, jewelry like other decorative arts, was influenced by the art nouveau movement, which emphasized aesthetics and fine craftsmanship in reaction to poor design and mass production. Such jewelers as Rene Lalique,  Georges Fouquet, and Lucien Gaillard in Paris; Philippe Wolfers in Brussels; and Louis Comfort Tiffany in New York designed highly original jewelry characterized by asymmetrical flowing lines and subtle colors in enamel and usually cabochon-cut gems, such as opals and moonstones. Lalique’s birds, butterflies, and dragonflies in opalescent or transparent enamel, veined with gold and heightened by pearls, were spectacular pieces but not easily worn.

  After World War 1, jewelry of the 1920’s and 1930’s expressed the tastes of a newly rich public that was more interested in the display od dazzling precious stones than in inventive design. The great commercial houses of the 19^th century as well as newer houses, such as Van Cleef and Arpels in Paris, supplied such work in a conservative style that met high standards of craftsmanship. Diamond bracelets and Paris of clips were popular. Stones were often emeralds-cut (rectangular, with a large, flat top and a tapering bottom) or banquette-cut ( a long rectangle). They were displayed in strong claw settings of platinum, which is harder than gold and, therefore, can be more precisely shaped. Strings of pearls-real, cultured, or imitation- of varying lengths became a fashion staple.

  Some jewelry, however was affected by the austere principles of the Bauhaus school of design in Germany, which eschewed decoration and advocated whatever materials, precious or non precious, would contribute to the proportion, line, and texture of good design. These principles were translated into art deco jewelry, with its shiny metal surfaces and sharp, geometric motifs. In Scandinavia they affected such jewelers as George Jensen of Copenhagen, who made simple, abstract shapes in heavy silver. Designers working for him, such as Henning Koppel and Nanna Ditzel, continued the same style, sometimes suggesting industrial techniques, into the 1970’s.

  After World War II, jewelers developed important techniques of mass production. Engine turning is a much faster method than hand engraving for cutting fine lines in metal to reflect light. Metal chain for bracelets and necklaces is of machine-made links that are no longer soldered by hand but moved through a soldering oven on an endless belt. Centrifugal casting uses pressure to force molten metal into the smallest corners of intricate molds to produce copies that need no hand finishing. Such techniques have greatly increased the production of costume jewelry.

  Stylistically, much fine jewelry became more imaginative and innovative, often reflecting currents in other visual arts. Many avant-garde sculptors and painters also designed jewelry. Calder had made brass-wire pieces before World War II, and in the 1950’s and 1960’s, Dali, Ernst, Man Ray, Dubuffet, and the Pomodoro brothers designed distinctive pieces in surrealistic  and abstract styles. Braque and the Finnish sculptor Tapio Wirkkala produced outstanding imaginative designs. There were also freelance designs designer-draftsmen, such as Jean Schlum-berger, Duc de Verdura, gilvert Albert, Jean Lurcat, H.G Murphy, and Sigurd Persson in Europe and Harry Shawan and Philip Morton in the United States, who made unique pieces for individual clients. In all of this jewelry, design was a more important consideration than the value of the materials used.

JEWELRY IN THE NON WESTERN WORLD

  In the non-western world, jewelry has tended to keep its association with status, magico-religious belief, and investment longer than in the West. Distinctions are cultural rather than by period.

Pre-Columbian American Jewelry

The Indians of the Chavin civilization in Peru were working in gold about 800 B.C., hammering, cutting, soldering, and doing repousse. Later, other peoples of the Andes developed lost-wax casting and gliding. They also developed tumbaga, an alloy of gold and copper harder than either one alone. Forms included nose ornaments, earspools, pectorals, pendants, and ornaments sewn on clothes. There were also bead necklaces of gemstones, shell, or metal. The Mochica worked in gold and turquoise mosaic. Chimu gold jewelry included matched parures.

  Metalworking techniques probably spread from the Andes to Meso-America, where the Mixtec of southern Mexico applied them to locally found gold. Mixtec tombs contain gold jewelry made by beatin, lost-wax casting, repousse, and filigree. The Mixtecs also made the jewelry of the later Aztec people. Most pre-Columbian gold work was melted down by the Spanish and sent to Spain, and few examples remain. There are more examples of Mayan jewelry, which was chiefly of carved jade.

Africa Most tribal African jewelry was similar to that of Paleolithic peoples. In recent times, after contact with the West, some groups made necklaces, pectorals, and bracelets of tiny colored beads. In other tribes, women wore large metal labrets (lip plugs) or multiple neck-rings to make themselves unattractive to raiding neighboring tribes.

  The most sophiscated African jewelry is the gold work of the Ashanti people of Ghana, where there was a plentiful local supply of gold. Metalworking was known in the area perhaps as early as the 13^th century, and each tribal ruler had a court workshop. These shops produced ornamental discs to indicate royalty, as well as necklaces, pendants, bracelets, and rings. There were also amulets in animal and other shapes. Much Ashanti jewelry is in the British Museum.

India. Since earliest times, Indians have greatly admired jewelry, as suggested by sculptors’ relief and wall paintings of their gods, draped in jewels and a few thin scarves. Later, in the Mugal period, miniature paintings show both men and women courtiers wearing necklaces, pendants, earrings, nose ornaments, and rings on fingers and toes. Some bracelets were heavy gold and silver, embossed and ending in dragon’s heads, other were hollow or solid bangles of metal, pottery, or glass. Dancers’ anklets movement. Much jewelry combined pearls and vivid stones (usually table-cut or cabochon diamonds, rubies, garnets, emeralds, and turquoise) with gold and enamel, a technique for which Jaipur was famous. Color was emphasized, often in a scheme of white, red, and green.

China and Japan in the Far East, jewelry was less important than richly patterned garments, embroided, woven, or printed, that completely covered the body. The Chinese greatly valued  carved jade, however, as ceremonial pendants and plaques sewn on clothes and later as buttons, buckles, and beads at the neck or waist.

  Princesses wore flared ceremonial head-dresses that incorporated gold, pearls, jade, and other cabochon stones in animal and insect forms and wired to the headdress to shake as the wearer walked. On a simpler scale, decorative hairpins of glided bronze or silver with filigree and gemstones were similarly constructed.

  Elaborate hairpins were fashionable for Japanese women entertainers. Men’s jewelry consisted chiefly of the finely lacquered or inlaid inro (tobacco or medicine box) and carved netsuke (toggle fastener) worn at the waist.