The Czechoslovak graphic designer Alphonse Mucha (1860?939)

The possibility of tracing jewelry's historic itinerary derives primarily from the custom, starting with the most remote civilizations, of burying the dead with their richest garments and ornaments. Plastic and pictorial iconography梡ainting, sculpture, mosaic梐lso offer abundant testimony to the jewelry worn in a variety of eras.



It's probable that prehistoric humans thought of decorating your body before they considered using something that could suggest clothing. Before gold and silver were found, individuals who lived across the seashore decorated themselves having a great variety of shells, fish bones, fish teeth, and colored pebbles. People who lived inland used as ornaments materials in the animals they'd killed for food: reindeer antlers, mammoth tusks, and all sorts of types of animal bones. After they have been transformed from their natural state into various elaborate forms, these materials, as well as animal skins and bird feathers, provided sufficient decoration.

This era was then one which saw a transition from a nomadic life to some settled social order and also the subsequent birth of the very ancient civilizations. Most peoples settled along the banks of large rivers, which facilitated the introduction of agriculture and animal husbandry. Indirectly, this also resulted in the discovery of virginal alluvial deposits of minerals, first among which were gold and precious stones.

Over the years the limited jewelry forms of prehistoric times multiplied until they included ornaments for each part of the body. For that head there have been crowns, diadems, tiaras, hairpins, combs, earrings, nose rings, lip rings, and earplugs. For the neck and torso there have been necklaces, fibulae (the ancient safety pin), brooches, pectorals (breastplates), stomachers, belts, and watch fobs. For that arms and hands armlets, bracelets, and rings were fashioned. For the thighs, legs, and feet craftsmen designed thigh bracelets, ankle bracelets, toe rings, and shoe buckles.

Middle Western and eastern antiquity
Sumerian

Photograph:Sumerian gold and faience diadems from Queen Pu-abi's tomb, Ur, c. 2500 . In the British ?br />
 * Sumerian gold and faience diadems from Queen Pu-abi's tomb, Ur, c. 2500 BC. In the British ?br />

Probably the most ancient examples of jewelry are most likely those present in Queen Pu-abi's tomb at Ur in Sumeria (now called Tall al-Muqayyar), dating from the 3rd millennium BC. Within the crypt the upper part of the queen's body was engrossed in a sort of robe made of gold, silver, lapis lazuli, carnelian, agate, and chalcedony beads, the lower edge decorated having a fringed border made of small gold, carnelian, and lapis lazuli cylinders. Near her right arm were three long gold pins with lapis lazuli heads, three amulets the same shape as fish梩wo made of gold and something of lapis lazuli梐nd a fourth amulet of gold using the figures of two seated gazelles. On the queen's head were three diadems, each smaller than the main one below it, fastened to some wide gold band: the very first, which dropped to pay for the forehead, was formed of large interlocking rings, as the second and third were made of realistically designed poplar and willow leaves(see photograph). Above the diadems were gold flowers, on drooping stems, the petals of which had blue and white decorations. On the back from the headdress was a spanish-type comb, with teeth decorated with golden flowers. Huge golden earrings, the same shape as linked, tapered, semitubular circles, completed the decoration of the head. About the neck was a necklace with three rows of semiprecious stones interrupted in the centre by an openwork flower inside a gold circle. Many rings were worn about the fingers. There have been large quantities of other jewels梐mong them wrist and arm bracelets and pectorals梑elonging towards the handmaidens, dignitaries, and even the horses that formed area of the funeral train. As was the custom, the queen's attendants had killed themselves in the crypt following the burial ceremony.

As this description suggests, Sumerian jewelry forms, a lot more numerous than those of contemporary jewelry, represent almost every kind developed during the course of history. Almost all technical processes also were known: welding, alloys, filigree, stonecutting, as well as enameling. Sources of inspiration, aside from geometry (disks, circles, cylinders, spheres), were your pet and vegetable world; and expressive forms were based on an important realism enriched by a moderate utilization of colour.

Egyptian

Photograph:Tutankhamen, gold funerary mask based in the king's tomb, 14th century ; within the Egyptian ?br />
 * Tutankhamen, gold funerary mask found in the king's tomb, 14th century BC; within the Egyptian ?br />

The sensational discovery from the tomb of the pharaoh Tutankhamen (18th dynasty; 1539?292 BC) revealed the fabulous treasures that accompanied an Egyptian sovereign, both throughout his lifetime and after his death, along with the high degree of mastery attained by Egyptian goldsmiths. This treasure is now housed within the Egyptian Museum in Cairo to represent the largest assortment of gold and jewellery in the world. The pharaoh's innermost coffin was made entirely of gold, and also the mummy was engrossed in an enormous quantity of jewels (see photograph). More jewels were found in cases and boxes within the other rooms from the tomb. The diadems, necklaces, pectorals, amulets, pendants, bracelets, earrings, and rings are of superb quality as well as a high amount of refinement that has rarely been surpassed as well as equaled within the good reputation for jewelry.

The ornaments in Tutankhamen's tomb are typical of Egyptian jewelry. The perpetuation of iconographic and chromatic principles gave the jewelry of ancient Egypt梬hich long remained uncontaminated regardless of contact with other civilizations梐 magnificent, solid homogeneity, infused and enriched by magical religious beliefs. Ornamentation consists largely of symbols that have an exact name and meaning, having a type of expression that is closely from the symbology of hieroglyphic writing. The scarab, lotus flower, Isis knot, Horus eye, falcon, serpent, vulture, and sphinx are all motif symbols involved in such religious cults because the cult from the pharaohs and the gods and the cult of the dead. In Egyptian jewelry the use of gold is predominant, which is generally complemented by the use of the 3 colours of carnelian, turquoise, and lapis lazuli or of vitreous pastes imitating them. However, there would be a set, fairly limited repertoire of decorative motifs in all Egyptian jewelry, the artist-craftsmen created a wide selection of compositions, based mainly on strict symmetry or, in the jewelry made of beads, on the rhythmic repeating shapes and colours.

The idea of symmetry was utilized about the small pectoral or pendant (3.3 ?2.4 inches, or 8.4 ?6.1 centimetres) that belonged to Sesostris III within the 12th dynasty (1938?756 BC); the superbly rhythmic composition is framed by an architectonic design obtained by leaving open all the nonfigurative part. The jewel is coloured with carnelian, turquoise, and lapis lazuli inlays, while the function of the gold separating these materials is limited to making the design. The victorious pharaoh is represented by two lions using the plumed heads of falcons inside a symmetric position in the act of trampling conquered Nubians and Libyans. Within the scene is the protective vulture of Upper Egypt with wings outspread (Egyptian Museum). These memorial or dedicatory pendants, as well as other small jewels such as earrings, bracelets, and rings, consist exclusively of symbols.

Necklace beads梘enerally made from gold, stones, or glazed ceramic梐re cylindrical, spherical, or in the form of spindles or disks and therefore are nearly always used in alternating colours and forms in several rows. The necklaces have two distinct main forms. One, called menat, was the exclusive attribute of divinity and was therefore worn only by the pharaohs. Tutankhamen's menat is a long necklace made up of many rows of beads in various shapes and colours, having a pendant and with a decorated fastening that hung down behind shoulders. Another, a lot more widely used throughout the whole period, was the usekh, which, like the vulture-shaped necklace from the tomb of Tutankhamen, also has many rows and a semicircular form.

Of the many diadems made by Egyptian artist-craftsmen, one of the earliest was discovered inside a tomb dating in the 4th dynasty (c. 2575朿. 2465 BC). It includes a gold band based on another band made of copper, to which three decorative designs are applied. In the centre is a disk caused embossing in the form of four lotus buds arranged radially. About the sides are two papyrus flowers linked horizontally at the base by a disk having a carnelian, while the upper line of the flowers comes together to produce a kind of nest in which two long-beaked ibis crouch. The floral and animal symbology is carried out with a style that interprets and characterizes the theme.

Among the treasures discovered in the tomb of Queen Ashhotep (18th dynasty) is a typical Egyptian bracelet. It's rigid and can be opened using a hinge. The front part is decorated with a vulture, whose outspread wings cover the front 1 / 2 of the bracelet. The entire figure of the bird is inlaid with lapis lazuli, carnelian, and vitreous paste.

An initial manifestation of outside influence occurs in the 18th dynasty and consists of earrings, which are imported jewels, unknown in classical Egyptian production. Another proof of the influence of foreign styles in certain of the jewelry of the 18th dynasty is a headdress that covered almost all of your hair, made from a network of rosette-shaped gold disks forming a real fabric (Nyc, Metropolitan Museum of Art). Foreign influence increased for an ever greater extent during the last dynasties along with the arrival from the Greeks. As with other types of artistic expression, in spite of three centuries of Ptolemaic dynasty (up through 30 BC), the great artistic tradition of Egyptian jewelry slowly become extinct, and also the introduction to begin Hellenism after which of the Romans led to the definitive decline of the most monumental cultural and artistic structure known throughout all history.

Aegean

The Bronze Age civilization that flourished on the Mediterranean island of Crete is known as the Minoan. Because Crete lay close to the coasts of Asia, Africa, and also the Greek continent and since it was the seat of prosperous ancient civilizations and a necessary point of passage along important sea-trading routes, the Minoan civilization created a level of wealth which, beginning about 2000 BC, stimulated intense goldworking activities of high aesthetic value. From Crete this art disseminate towards the Cyclades, Peloponnesus, Mycenae, and other Greek island and mainland centres. Stimulated by Minoan influence, Mycenaean art flourished from the 16th to the 14th century, gradually declining at the beginning of the 1st millennium BC.

One of the approaches Minoan-Mycenaean goldworking were granulation and filigree, however the most widely used was the cutting and stamping of gold sheet into beads and other designs to create necklaces and diadems, in addition to to brighten clothing. The kings from Period I of Mycenaean civilization (c. 1580?500 BC), discovered within their burial places, wore masks of gold sheet, and scattered over their clothing were a large number of stamped gold disks. The disks reveal the rich variety of decorative motifs used by the Mycenaeans: round, rectangular, ribbon-shaped梚ncluding combinations of volutes, flowers, stylized polyps and butterflies, rosettes, birds, and sphinxes.

Photograph:Minoan gold pendant of bees encircling the sun's rays, showing the use of granulation, from a tomb at ?br />
 * Minoan gold pendant of bees encircling the sun's rays, showing the use of granulation, from a tomb at ?br />

A pendant from the Minoan tomb at Mallia, Crete (Archaeological Museum, Ir醟lion, Greece), is one of the most perfect masterpieces of jewelry which has get down to us in the 17th century BC (see photograph). The Sun's disk is covered with granulation and is held up by two bees, forming the central part of the composition. Ring bezels (tops from the rings), with relief engravings of highly animated pastoral scenes, cults, hunting, and war, are also fine. Like those of another jewelry forms, the ornamental motifs of the necklaces are varied, including dates, pomegranates, half-moons facing one another, lotus flowers, along with a hand squeezing a woman's breast. During the late Mycenaean period, earrings appeared the same shape as the top of a bull, a pet frequently represented in early gold plate.

In addition to goldworking, Minoan-Mycenaean craftsmen also excelled at engraving gemstones for seals and rings.

Phoenician

Phoenicia, a centre for the production and exportation of jewellery, wasn't a resource of great originality. It's to the trading done by this people through the Mediterranean, however, that we owe knowledge of the products of the most highly developed civilizations in the most remote lands梟orthern Africa, Sardinia, Spain, and Italy. The period in the 8th and 7th centuries BC, during which Scythian-Iranian Oriental objects with their animalistic motifs were spread and therefore imitated throughout the Mediterranean countries, particularly in Greece and Italy, is called the Orientalizing period.

Etruscan

In Etruria, to a much greater extent than elsewhere, the stimulus supplied by the jewellery imported through the Phoenicians led to emulation that soon had imposing results. Alongside imported objects and mechanically repeated Oriental motifs, original forms, techniques, and designs developed which were the result of Etruscan taste. There is an entirely new concept, in which the goals of magnificence, impressive size, and a great insightful decoration led to probably the most outstanding achievements within the good reputation for jewelry. Technical virtuosity exploited all the resources open to filigree and above all to granulation, carried out with gold alone without chromatic inlaying.

Photograph:Etruscan fibula of sheet gold decorated with animals made by the granulation technique, from the ?br />
 * Etruscan fibula of sheet gold decorated with animals made by the granulation technique, from the ?br />

Fibulae began to be produced in forms apart from the single Oriental leech, or boat, shape: having a dragon bow, lozenge-shaped, having a long foot. Like such ornaments as pendants and the heads of pins, fibulae were often decorated with gold dust, by which opaque granulated figures梚bexes, chimeras, sphinxes, winged lions, centaurs, horsemen, and warriors, almost all of Oriental derivation梥tand out against the smooth top of the gold. One notable example is the fibula from the lictor's tomb in Vetulonia (see photograph).

The most elaborate, complicated examples of Orientalizing Etruscan jewelry consist of large brooches with fully sculptured decoration applied to a combined tubular and plate structure. The minutely designed granulated figures of sphinxes, winged lions, chimeras, winged griffons, and human heads梥et in series in alternating rows梖orm a plastic fabric, the facts of which are of astonishing technical ability, while at the same time they suggest the evocative, mysterious animalistic symbolism of western Asian civilizations.

At that time that followed the Orientalized one, Etruscan jewelry revealed Ionic influence (6th?th century BC). The most beautiful examples are necklaces made from many flexible chains that cross one another and bear different rows of embossed pendants in the shape of harpies, mermaids, Gorgons, and Sileni, interspersed with others such as pomegranates, acorns, lotus flowers, and palms. These show the clear influence, particularly in the modeling of the pendant heads, from the Greek severe period, an influence that spread throughout the entire Etruscan territory, from Spina about the Adriatic coast of Italy to southern Italy. Even clearer evidence of the acceptance of imported forms is supplied by a new shape, the bulla, a pear-shaped vessel used to hold perfume. Its surface was decorated with embossed and engraved symbolic figures.

Greek

Because gold wasn't easily available, jewelry was relatively rare in Archaic (c. 750朿. 500 BC) and Classical (c. 500朿. 323 BC) Greece. Examples do exist, however, and certain generalizations can be created. In the 7th and 6th centuries BC the jewellery manufactured in Attica and the Peloponnese shows proof of strong Oriental stylistic influence, the same influence that in Etruscan territory resulted in inside a much more magnificent form. In the 5th century BC the Ionic style became predominant, taking the place of the showy Oriental style. War scenes and animals of Oriental origin disappeared, for instance, from the wide oval ring bezels and were replaced exclusively by the human figure. These included naked riders on galloping horses; seated and standing maidens, depicted both with clothes and naked; and deities and mythological figures. This extremely refined repertoire the truth is was more closely associated with sculpture and to classic beliefs in beauty rather than decoration. Indeed, in its long evolution, Greek jewelry has the predominant character of sculpture in miniature to represent isolated figures or religious, mythological, or heroic scenes.

Photograph:Greek jewelry. (Top) Gold spiral bracelet of two snakes whose tails are tied in a Hercules ?br />
 * Greek jewelry. (Top) Gold spiral bracelet of two snakes whose tails are tied inside a Hercules ?br />

Greek expansion into Anatolia to the east, southern Italy towards the west, and the Balkan Peninsula to the north resulted in the Hellenization of the entire area. Underneath the reign of Alexander the truly amazing, a magnificent era for jewelry began. Hellenistic jewelry, much more so than painting and sculpture, underwent flourishing development in the art centres of the different regions under Greek rule. In the 3rd and 2nd centuries BC, the technical ability of Hellenistic goldsmiths reached the greatest levels ever attained. A style both sumptuous and full of plastic vigour was created, in which meticulous arrangement of the decorative motifs led to the contrast and harmony, clarity and unity, rhythms and cadences that make a few of these jewels complete works of art. The fine technique and virtuosity in miniature is reflected in the creation of the first cameos as well as in disk earrings bearing pendants, often of minute proportions. A genuine masterpiece is an earring having a winged figure of the woman driving a two-horse chariot (Museum of Fine Arts, Boston). The precision of its tiny details, the severity of style with which it is modeled, and the rhythmic dynamism of the figures get this to earring a microscopic monument of sculpture (see photograph).

Also worth high consideration are the magnificent diadems that arrived to wide use as a result of the Persian conquests made by Alexander the Great. One type is really a rigid elliptical shape with a Hercules knot in the middle and pendants hanging down over the forehead. (The Hercules knot was the most famous one used in ancient times, because it was considered a magic knot and, in jewels, took on the significance of an amulet. It also was adopted on bracelets, belts, and rings during this period.) Another type, decorated with jewellike enameled flowers, demonstrates the increasing utilization of colour throughout the Hellenistic Age.

One sort of necklace that was commonly worn at the moment was made of gold pieces, often hollow or filled with resin, which were fashioned into the shape of acorns, amphorae, and rosettes that sometimes alternated with stones or vitreous paste. Within the 3rd century BC the bracelet the same shape as a serpent originated and remained popular through the Roman period. The serpent motif also was used for rings.

Roman

In the capital, jewelry was used for an extent never witnessed before and never to appear again before Renaissance. Imperial Rome became a centre for goldsmiths' workshops. Together with the precious stones and metals that were brought to the town came lapidaries and goldsmiths from Greece and also the Oriental provinces. The gold ring, which underneath the republic have been a sign of distinction worn by ambassadors, noblemen, and senators, gradually started to appear on the fingers of persons of lower social rank until it became common even among soldiers. The great patrician families in Rome and the provinces possessed not just jewels but additionally magnificent silver and gold household furnishings, as shown through the objects found in Pompeii and nearby Boscoreale (Louvre).

In the standpoint of style, Roman jewelry in the earlier phases derived from both Hellenistic and Etruscan jewelry. Later it acquired distinctive features of its, introducing new decorative themes and attaching greater importance to sheer volume (such as massive rings), in keeping with the rather pompous rhetorical spirit displayed at that point in cultural history.

The motif of a serpent coiled in a double spiral, copied from Hellenistic models, was frequently used for bracelets, rings, arm bands, and earrings. The Romans also used Greek geometric and botanical motifs, palmettos, fleeting dogs, acanthus leaves, spirals, ovoli, and bead sequences. From Etruscan gold jewelry the Romans took the strong plasticity from the bulla, which they used in necklace pendants sparely decorated with filigree or combined in completely smooth hemispheres in bracelets, headdresses, and earrings.

In Pompeii and Rome, jewelry began to take on Italian characteristics. New decorative motifs of the magical nature started to appear, such as the half-moon and the wheel with four spokes. Additionally, as Roman jewelry freed itself of Hellenistic and Etruscan influences, greater use was made of coloured stones梩opazes, emeralds, rubies, sapphires, and pearls. A strong preference was shown for engraved gems, so much so that they are considered collectors' items by wealthy people, including Caesar himself. The stones were occur bezels or based on pins that passed through them. New techniques that arrived to use included opus interassile, with which a flat or curved metal surface was decorated with tiny pierced motifs, and niello, an approach to enameling used primarily to brighten rings and brooches.

Many pendants were utilized in the earrings: from a ring a number of pieces hung down with square bezels or bands of small bullas alternating with stones, which in turn supported pendants in different shapes. There was an incredibly varied manufacture of gold mesh and chains, often containing inserted bezels set with stones or half pearls, while some had ivy or laurel leaves attached to them. Although pendants were not used on necklaces at first, later examples have pendants in the form of embossed medallions. Gemstones, vitreous pastes, and cameos with golden frames also served as pendants for necklaces. Toward the end from the 3rd century AD, necklaces often bore medallions or coins with portraits of the emperors.

Middle Ages
Byzantine

The capital, which in fact had brought its civilization to practically all the world that was known at that time, began to lose its vitality in early Christian era; by the end of the 4th century AD, its civilization was in full decline. Although its power vanished, Roman culture was indelibly imprinted on Western civilization. The Roman Empire had embraced Christianity, although in reality it had been the papacy which had embraced the Roman Empire. The intention of the Byzantine court (at Constantinople, the new seat of imperial power) to maintain Roman supremacy in the field of the humanities was instructed to cave in to a style more closely related to those of the center East. Partly for religious reasons, this style soon created a new spirit and its own distinctive characteristics. The wave of iconoclasm梩he controversy within the 8th and 9th centuries concerning the depiction of images in religious art梘ave the decoration of jewelry, too, a basically ornamental nature, in which the techniques accustomed to the greatest extent were filigree, opus interassile, and enameling, as well as the copious application of gemstones and pearls. Very complex decorations and arabesques were obtained with filigree, while enameling was favoured for representations of flowers and birds. Typically Byzantine were the half-moon-shaped earrings that were in wide consume with the 12th century. You will find examples with pierced decoration, with filigree basketwork, and with the figures of enameled birds facing one another on the golden half-moon. A legal court jewels, if credit can be given to the figures shown within the mosaics in the church of San Vitale at Ravenna, should have been of astonishing splendour. Even though mosaics give only a sketchy idea, about the figures of Justinian, Theodora, as well as their retinue, precious ornaments can be distinguished that were of ceremonial magnificence suited to their rank.

For those practical purposes, Constantinople's artistic activities came to an end when it was conquered and looted throughout the Fourth Crusade in 1204.

Islmic

After the Arab conquest of Iran brought it in to the Islmic community of peoples, rings, pendants, earrings, and necklaces of gold continued to be worn, and the Iranian tradition of animal art persisted, modified to some extent to be able to conform to the canons of Islm, which forbade the making of images. A 12th-century gold pendant in the form of a lion is a highly schematic rendering of the animal; it is decorated with granulation. Other techniques were filigree, encrustation with precious and semiprecious stones, and also the utilization of niello. From the 14th century onward, manuscript illustrations give some idea of the kind of jewelry worn by Persians. In Mongol and Timurid times, jeweled coiffures for ladies and diademed headdresses for males seem to have been fashionable in court circles. Under the bafavid rulers, jewelry became more sumptuous and elaborate. In the 1800s, native traditions were corrupted by European influence, often with an eye toward European consumption. Traditional designs, however, have persisted in Z+njanb and one of the Kurdish mountaineers of northwest Iran. Silver decorated with twisted wire arranged in scrolls is really a feature from the former. The Kurdish goldsmiths work in silver, which they decorate with chased or repouss?designs, sometimes similar to motifs available on Ssnian metalwork.

Jewelry worn by women and men in Turkey during the Ottoman period was probably relying on the fashions current in Iran. Objects of adornment were jeweled turban aigrettes, rings, earrings, necklaces, and armlets. A technique popular in Turkey from the 16th century onward was the encrusting of jade and other hard stones with jewels attached to the surface by delicate floral scrolls in gold. Unfortunately, very few surviving pieces are sooner than the 19th century, when native tradition had been stifled with a taste for Rococo jewelry.

In North Africa an independent tradition continues to be maintained through the Berber and Arab tribes. In design the jewellery of southern Morocco shows curious analogies to Byzantine jewelry梙eavy silver plaques decorated with niello or cabochons that function as diadems or headbands. In other parts of Morocco as well as in Algeria and Tunisia, popular types of jewelry are headbands, breast ornaments, brooches, pendants, along with a characteristic triangular-shaped shawl pin.

Teutonic

While in the Byzantine area classic types of expression were being destroyed by the development of a skillful class of artisans who impressed their entirely ornamental taste on jewelry produced solely for decorative purposes, in the rest of Romanized Europe a huge, complex movement of peoples was taking place. Bringing their tradition of polychrome decoration together, these peoples swarmed over the old declining Greek-Roman artistic civilization. Goths, Vandals, Huns, Franks, and Lombards emigrated, extending their conquests into central, northern, and southern Europe from the 4th century AD, plus they remained there until the 9th century. Prior to an old definition, these were called barbarians梩hat is, not Christians but foreigners. They also were considered barbarians simply because they were thought to have destroyed the classical art from the Roman world.

Throughout all the provinces of the Roman empire, these Teutonic tribes produced gold ware that shared a typical, well-defined style moderated according to the tastes from the particular regions by which they settled. The blend of Teutonic and Iranian, Scythian, Sarmatian, or Celtic styles produced ornaments that bore little resemblance to people of the great classic tradition. Precious ornamentation, which represented the main artistic ambition of these nomadic peoples, was achieved with faience (decoration made from opaque coloured glazes), jewels, and enamels. Dominant also was braiding, which was completed with strips of embossing, with bands of stones or enamel set in bezels, and also with filigree.

There was a very varied production of fibulae. One of the most impressive because of its size (14 inches) may be the one in the shape of a bird found in Petroasa, Rom. (National Museum of History, Bucharest, Rom.), whose body is engrossed in sockets of different sizes and shapes in which stones and enamel were meant to be set. Probably the most popular kind of fibula was the so-called buckler variety, with a fan head, arched bridge, and flat or molded foot, with pierced operate in various shapes. Equally common were disk fibulae, either flat or with concentric embossing, while S-shaped fibulae and belt buckles were rarer.

Rigid necklaces, comprised of several circles with much decoration, were typical. Probably the most magnificent examples are those in the 6th century from Alleberg and F鋜jestaden, Sweden (Museum of National Antiquities, Stockholm). A diamond ring with zoomorphic braiding (Poldi Pezzoli Museum, Milan) was found in the same region. This method was most favored within the Celtic and northern Germanic regions of Europe, while in the British Isles, to evaluate from the magnificent jewels in the Sutton Hoo burial-ship treasure (British Museum, London), it was the technique of enameling that reached higher than normal levels. In northern Europe and Scandinavia the primary goldworking techniques were filigree, embossing, and activating a lathe.

As time passed, the different products of barbaric goldworking art took on a more definite stylistic identification according to the various races and locations.

Western European

The widespread adoption of Christian burial rites put an end to the custom of burying the dead with all their jewelry. Thus, beginning with the 8th century, almost the only important gold products handed down to modern times were those preserved in abbey and cathedral treasures or by imperial and royal courts; among these gold goods are not many pieces of jewelry. Because the graphic and plastic arts gradually developed, however, they documented the jewelry in use at that time. According to these sources, little jewelry was worn in the Romanesque period (c. 950朿. 1150).

Within the 11th century, monastic workshops for that service of the church started to decline, disappearing one to another to be replaced by secular workshops. Goldworking activities in the european union gradually freed themselves in the centralizing patronage of the church in order to serve the numerous courts and noble families, as well as in the 12th century the first goldsmiths' guilds were organized.

Probably the most popular ornaments in medieval Europe was the ring. To it was attributed ever more symbolic and religious value, as well as ever greater importance as a talisman, good omen, and manifestation of office; and, of course, it served like a seal.

Another popular ornament was the brooch. Most popular was the medallion type, which might be round, star-shaped, or pentagonal, as the diamond shape was less frequent. Ring brooches, which were open in the centre, also were popular. They took great shape, including round, pentagonal, and star-, heart-, or wheel-shaped. One outstanding bejeweled and enameled example梩he Founder's Jewel bequeathed by William of Wykeham to New College, University of Oxford, in 1404梚s the same shape as the letter M. The arches formed by the letter resemble Gothic windows, reflecting the significance of architectural elements of any type of art at this time. Standing in the windows are the expertly modeled figures from the Virgin Mary and also the Angel from the Annunciation, and the whole is surmounted by a crown.

Another fine example that typifies the plastic decorative repertory from the flamboyant Gothic style is really a silver belt buckle from Sweden (Historical Museum, Stockholm). Modeled in high relief about the buckle plate is a gentleman on horseback approaching a lady followed by his servant. The three-lobed buckle ring is modeled in a complex design which includes a seated person along with a man kneeling before him (c. 1340).

Renaissance to modern
15th and 16th centuries

The 搑ebirth?of Classicism, which combined all artistic expression in a single orderly, rational approach, found a fertile creative field in gold jewelry. During the Renaissance the jeweler's art reached truly high levels梡articularly in Italy in the grand duchy of Tuscany. Eighteen centuries following the great flowering of Hellenistic jewelry, Italian Renaissance jewelry once again achieved an expressive form worthy of comparison with the figurative arts. There was, actually, no sharp division between your two. Nearly all probably the most famous artists accountable for the Renaissance artistic revival桳orenzo Ghiberti, Filippo Brunelleschi, Antonio and Piero Pollaiuolo, and Sandro Botticelli梥erved apprenticeships within the goldsmiths' workshops, where gentlemen visited order medallions for their hats and where ladies visited have their jewels set.

Because of their elaborate workmanship, which resulted in their artistic value was much better than the intrinsic worth of their materials, many pieces of jewelry happen to be passed down to modern times in public and private collections. Even more extensive evidence, however, is supplied by paintings from this period that show the jewellery worn by both men and women. From portraits by Botticelli and Piero di Cosimo, one can see, for instance, that as early as the second half of the 15th century the elaborate decoration of women's hair with precious materials had become a real art, in which goldsmiths and craftsmen carefully exercised every type of the often extremely complicated ornamental design which had to harmonize with the movement of braids or unbound hair.

Photograph:Queen Elizabeth of England, showing the queen adorned in Renaissance ?br />
 * Queen Elizabeth of England, showing the queen adorned in Renaissance ?br />

Throughout the Renaissance there was an enormous increase in using jewelry throughout Europe. The courts of England, France, and Spain, the French duchy of Burgundy, and also the Italian duchy of Tuscany indulged in extravagant contests, trying to outdo each other in the display of gold, gems, and pearls, a phenomenon that for hundreds of years hadn't occurred on this type of large scale. The nobility and also the rich middle class followed this manner, as well as the youngest scions were engrossed in jewels, as evidenced through the portrait from the Medici princess by Il Bronzino, as well as many more. Francis I of France surrounded himself with famous artists like Benvenuto Cellini and Leonardo da Vinci. In Paris, artists for example Jean Duvet, 蓆ienne Delaune, and the Fleming Abraham de Bruyn were the outstanding creators of designs for jewelry. Hans Holbein the Younger was the person who was most responsible for the introduction of Renaissance jewelry from the Continent into England, where he found fertile ground, thanks to Henry VIII's great passion for jewels梐 passion surpassed only with that of Elizabeth I (see photograph). Henry possessed more than one magnificent parure, or group of matching jewelry, created for him by Holbein, as well as several hundred rings.

As Holbein's portrait of Henry VIII suggests, the custom of wearing bejeweled clothing, which in fact had begun gradually within the 14th century, flourished within the Renaissance. Even hat brims were decorated, with designs in pearls as well as with pendants of great value.

Photograph:Anne of Cleves, portrait by Hans Holbein younger, 1539; in the ?br />
 * Anne of Cleves, portrait by Hans Holbein the Younger, 1539; within the ?br />

In Holbein's portrait there is also a magnificent example of a popular necklace from the period. It consisted of wide gold bands decorated with embossing that formed medallions, in the heart of which were mounted large stones. In the necklace hung a pendant. Only rarely were women content to limit themselves to some single necklace, usually wearing a choker-type necklace made from pearls, with or with no pendant, plus a longer second necklace made of gold, with or without the inclusion of gems. Another necklace was often hooked towards the clothing, on the shoulders, and formed a double loop, being lifted up in the middle and fastened towards the bodice having a jeweled pin.

The precious ornament on which the artist-jewelers lavished all their creativity and technical ability was the pendant. In the beginning this consisted of a decorative medallion enclosing a cameo with figures and subjects of classic derivation, such as busts of women and pagan deities. These figures were later enriched with inserts of gold, enamel, and gems, which enhanced the polychrome effect. Still later, the figures were freely modeled in brilliant polychromy having a huge assortment of subjects梐nimals, Tritons, mermaids, ships, sea monsters, and symbolic figures, sometimes in elaborate tableaux梖ashioned in complicated openwork compositions comprising several linked pieces, where the irregular shape of a large baroque pearl was often employed for your body of the animal or a centaur's torso.

Throughout Europe the ring enjoyed wide popularity in an unlimited variety of types, including those with a bezel that could be opened and used as a container for relics, symbols, or梐s romantic tradition has it梡oison.

17th century

Toward the finish of the 16th century, the Renaissance style blended gradually in to the manifestations of the Baroque period, which arose at different times in various countries. This gradual change in the design and style of jewelry was conditioned mainly by two factors. The first was of the technical nature and concerned improvements within the cutting of precious stones, as the second consisted of an excellent vogue for the cultivation of flowers. Floral and vegetable decoration therefore had become the most fashionable theme for jewelry designers, and its popularity spread all through Europe. The ornamental motifs of knots, ribbons, and Rococo scrolls also saw a considerable development. There is a corresponding reduction in the amount of figurative decoration, which finally completely disappeared. In the beginning these ornamental forms were completed in openwork gold jewelry, nearly all that was coloured with enamel; later diamonds along with other gemstones, whose popularity rose dramatically using the improvement in faceting techniques, became the real protagonists in the composition of jewelry.

Throughout the 17th century the amount of bits of jewelry worn decreased, as did the fashion for male adornment. The last monarch to create heavy utilization of jewels was Louis XIV, and the word heavy can be used within a literal sense, the truly amazing weight consisting mainly of gems that the monarch covered himself for official ceremonies. He had their own personal jeweler, Gilles L間ar? who had been a guest within the Louvre palace. He wasn't the only sovereign, however, who enjoyed showing off his jewels nor was Versailles the only real court in Europe to follow along with the king's example. The ones from London, Madrid, and Munich weren't far behind. The valuable ornaments worn by women started on the hat, on the side of which a minumum of one striking aigrette (spray of gems) was fastened. Then came 2 or 3 heavy necklaces, each of which might have a pendant, then a belt that followed the pointed shape of the bodice. Other jewels were inserted along the armholes, shoulders, and wrists, and at least four rings were worn on the hands. Usually the heavy fabrics used for the clothing were embroidered with gold thread. It had been during this period that a spectacular type of jewelry was made in Spain, which in a more subdued form spread throughout Europe: the stomacher brooch, which covered a woman's entire bodice, from neckline to waist. Using its heavily bejeweled composition of scrolls, leaves, and pendants on a gold framework that followed the curves from the body, even extending underneath the armpits, this jewel usually contained no fewer than 50 gemstones of different sizes. A famous example may be the one in emeralds in the treasure from the Virgin of Pilar, now displayed in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London.

18th century

About 1725, Brazilian diamonds in good sized quantities were imported into Europe, and, during the course of the century, this stone became so popular that imitations were produced. The jewellery of this period seems to have been designed to glorify and exploit the cutting of diamonds and other gemstones. The dense types of Baroque jewelry were replaced by an entirely different conception, where the design was to appear in gems alone, while the metal setting was concealed to the greatest extent possible. The greater lightness that resulted was increased by the many empty spaces within the composition in addition to by its lack of symmetry oftentimes. Wide choker necklaces with pendants were popular, and also the stomacher brooch remained in style however in a lighter, airier form. The jeweled stems from the aigrette were often made so that they could sway back and forth to be able to showcase the sparkle of the diamonds that covered them. The brooch the same shape as a bouquet of flowers, comprising a number of gems, became fashionable. As in the 17th century, both women and men wore jeweled buckles on the shoes.

A bit of jewelry that was widely used for daytime wear in this century was the chatelaine, which, together with the watchcase, goldsmiths lavished some of their most highly refined work. The chatelaine was a pendant made of jointed, embossed gold aspects of different sizes and shapes, with scenes and fashions in elaborate frames. It had been fastened using a hook to the belt or waistcoat pocket, and from the protruding points hung decorative chains of various lengths, which men fastened their watches, the keys for winding them, along with other accessories. Women used the chatelaine to carry keys, scissors, along with other pretty much useful objects.

During the last 30 years from the 1700s, the great sensation caused by the archaeological discoveries in Pompeii and Herculaneum caused artistic representations to turn toward classical beliefs in harmony and caused a decisive alternation in European tastes and decorative forms. Curved lines no more appeared in the ornamental repertoire, the new Neoclassical style being characterized by greater simplicity, as well as harshness of composition. Jewelry forms, too, were influenced by decorative motifs depending on Greek and Roman models, and also the cameo became fashionable once again.

An English pottery manufacturer, Josiah Wedgwood, made a big contribution towards the popularization from the new jewelry forms. An expert technician, he produced reproductions of classic cameos, calling upon sculptors like John Flaxman to work with him about the execution of oval, round, and octagonal plaques with figures done in relief in a white paste on the light blue, green, black, or pink background. These plaques, framed in gold, were utilised for those sorts of jewelry梞edallions, pins, pieces of diadems, belts, bracelets, and rings.

19th century

The Industrial Revolution destroyed forever the traditional role of jewellery denoting social rank. The social evolution created a marketplace for a vast quantity of jewelry at prices the center class can afford; and so jewelry, too, succumbed to the equipment. Hundreds of different components for ornaments were produced by machines, an electric gold-plating technique was invented, metal alloys were used in host to silver and gold, and also the production of imitation stones increased in both quantity and quality. Despite the growing dominance from the machine, however, the goldsmiths' technical ability remained at a high level.

The jewellery manufactured in the 19th century is characterized by a stylistic eclecticism that can take its inspiration from all past styles桮othic, Renaissance, Greek, Etruscan and Roman, Rococo, Naturalistic, Moorish, and Indian, all tinged using the Sir Walter Scott朙ord Byron Romanticism of the period. The futility of transferring forms of artistic expression from an era by which these were the result of organic aesthetic development and of adopting them for objects that reflect only a gesture of romantic admiration can be seen within the painting by Jacques-Louis David (Louvre, Paris) immortalizing Napoleon's coronation ceremony in 1804. The painting provides documentation about the precious ornaments worn by the women who were present. Within their jewelry, the conventional, rhetorical Empire style appears as a strict, uninspired interpretation of classical motifs, a far cry from the exquisite Neoclassicism from the 18th century.

Besides mass production, the 1800s saw the establishment of large artistic commercial firms that produced high-quality jewelry suitable for what's needed of the prosperous new bourgeois class. While always satisfying high standards in regard to technique and materials, these firms tended, from the aesthetic point of view, to mirror the tastes of the bourgeois clientele, that are usually quite traditional.

The oldest of the firms was the main one founded by Peter Carl Faberg?in St. Petersburg in 1870, which took over in the firm his father had were only available in 1842. Faberg?attained great renown in the Universal Exposition in Paris in 1900, where the very first time he put on display all of the imperial Easter eggs that he had created, plus a selection of other 搇uxurious objects.?Faberg?used a greater number of precious and semiprecious stones than almost any other jeweler in history. He had a strong preference for that Louis XVI style but also made numerous objects within the Italian Renaissance, Rococo, and medieval styles, as well as in the so-called old Russian style, which is a combination of Byzantine and Baroque elements. Decoration with enameling, too, was one of many specialties of the Faberg?firm.

In Paris in 1898 Alfred Cartier and the son Louis founded a jewelry firm of great refinement. The firm was distinguished for a production characterized by very fine settings, largely of platinum, that have been designed to ensure that only the gemstones, always selected from the very purest, were visible. At the beginning of the 20th century, Cartier was the most famous jeweler on the planet, supplying jewels to the king of Portugal, the duke of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, the grand dukes and princes of Russia, the Prince of Wales, and other notables.

In the United States in 1851 Charles Lewis Tiffany (father of Louis Comfort Tiffany, probably the most original of the Art Nouveau artist-craftsmen) began producing silverware based on English 搒terling?standards in New York City. In 1886 he introduced the Tiffany setting, a special kind of fork for the setting of diamonds. Among his clients was President Abraham Lincoln.

Other high-quality jewelry firms founded within the 1800s were Van Cleef & Arpels in Paris, Bulgari in Rome, Asprey & Company in London, Black, Starr & Frost in Nyc, and Patek Philippe in Geneva.

The introduction of the movement called Art Nouveau after the 1800s represented a reaction against the imitation of ancient styles and also the emphasis given, in the creation of jewelry, to precious stones. The fabric employed for Art Nouveau jewelry was prized not because of its intrinsic value however for being able to render a design in order to carry out chromatic effects. The brand new jewelry was made from the material that would best express the brand new symbolic or decorative ideas. Vegetable and animal components, with the feminine figure, formed the basis for compositions made from flowing lines of rich plastic and chromatic effect and antistructural, dynamic design on a high artistic level.

In Paris, through the works he presented at the Salon du Champ de Mars in 1895, Ren?Lalique (1860?945) achieved a situation of European renown and importance. Lalique personified the Art Nouveau jeweler-artist, his works providing evidence of such highly personal taste that they can be when compared with Renaissance jewels. They lean toward a symbolism carried out by the use of milky or watery blue-green colours; of stones like the opal; of disquieting animals like the snake, the owl, the octopus, and the bat; and of feminine figures, usually enigmatic, mysterious, and dreamy. Enamel, ivory, vitreous paste, and engraved glass were often utilized by Lalique to obtain pictorial and plastic effects in the jewels.

Unlike Lalique, the jewelers Georges Fouquet (1858?929) and Henri Vever (1854?942) expressed themselves through more synthetic geometric forms. The pendant representing a butterfly by Fouquet and also the bracelet and ring for the actress Sarah Bernhardt (both in the Pinet Collection, Paris) show a carefully thought-out stylization.

The Czechoslovak graphic designer Alphonse Mucha (1860?939), who worked in Paris, made a number of jewelry designs, transferring his brilliant talent as an illustrator to precious stones and metals.

In the usa the floral style in jewelry found one of its most highly personal interpreters in Louis Comfort Tiffany (1848?933), one of the greatest of American designers. In the creation of jewelry he expressed himself at first by transferring to Art Nouveau forms the colourful Oriental and Byzantine style that so fascinated him. Later he adopted Lalique's French Symbolism, on which he set his own stylistic mark. His development of the richly coloured, iridescent Favrile glass created a global sensation.

Twentieth century

The Art Nouveau movement came to an end at the outset of World War I. Time that followed the war's end seethed with new excitement. In this new phase, the stylistic trendsarticularly the non figurativehat began to emerge in the innovative jewelry creations were closely linked to those of painting and sculpture. Cubism, Futurism, the abstractionism of Piet Mondrian and other artists of the de Stijl group, Paul Klee's paintings, and above all the Bauhaus school (which targeted at integrating artistic disciplines together with industrial techniques) provided a foundation for the new forms used in avant-garde jewelry.

Compositions were based mainly on the interplay of geometric forms. Like Art Nouveau jewelry, creations from the Art Deco movement (named for that art displayed in the 1925 Paris exposition) used materials ideal for expressing the new stylistic language. Preference was handed to the smooth, polished, satined surfaces of precious metals as well as of steel. Diamonds along with other gemstones were used sparingly, functioning largely as chromatic accents. Within the same piece of jewelry, coral could be combined with diamonds, regardless of the great difference in intrinsic value, because their sole purpose was to satisfy the aesthetic requirements from the nonfigurative styles.

During this period there have been outstanding artist-jewelers such as Raymond Templier, Jean Fouquet, and Ren?Robert in France, H.G. Murphy in England, and Wiwen Nilsson in Sweden.

Later, artists of great international renown devoted some of their creative efforts towards the art of jewelry. Someuch as Georges Braque, Jean Cocteau, Max Ernst, Jean Arp, Man Ray, Salvador Dali, Yves Tanguy, and Jean Dubuffetesigned jewelry, while othersncluding Pablo Picasso, Alexander Calder, Alberto Giacometti, Gio Pomodoroesigned making jewels.

Probably the most recent developments in modern mass-produced jewelry may be the utilization of plastic. This material, in addition to providing color, might have mineral fragments or dust embedded in it or may be used in conjunction with more or less valuable metals, producing bits of jewelry whose composition may call for considerable effort and which can be of great importance and interest.