Jewelry Making: A brief history
Why?Studying the history of jewelry can provide a context for making it and can provide inspiration for design: forms, and motifs, composition and fabrication, as well as fixtures, fittings, and findings.
Our earliest ancestors were wearing jewelry even before they began to fashion clothes for themselves.
Body Adornment: Every country on earth has found some way to adorn itself.TattoosDecorative scarringBody piercingMakeup
This desire for adornment has influenced the techniques for jewelry making and drives civilizations and cultures to develop their own distinctive styles and methods of making.
Antiquity
Use of materials available:ShellsSeedsAnimal teethClawsStones
Beads were made by exploiting a natural hole in the object or piercing it at the thinnest point.
Jewelry before metal
Making of tools: Most of the ancient tools still survive today.
Annealing: discovered the need in the earliest stages of metalworking (ancient Egypt).
Production of wire: large amounts of wire are found in ancient jewelry.BeadsChainsSurface decoration
Techniques in metal
Early jewelry from this area:Brightly coloredRaw materials
The demand for these might have been a factor in the extensive trade networks.
Earliest examples of gold discovered in royal tombs
Sumerians skills as goldsmiths spread over Western Asia, Turkey and Greece.
Ancient Middle East
By 1900 BCE, jewelry was playing an important role in Egyptian culture. An incredible amount was preserved, as jewelry was extremely important in rituals surrounding death.
Dynastic Egyptian jewelry:Colorful polychrome effect with
symbolism.Broad collar (wesekh)Scarab beetle (pharaonic jewelry)Lotus flowerEye of Horus
Minoans: mastered techniquesFiligree (twisted threads of metal)Granulation (grinding of metal)Repousse (shaped by hammering)Gemstone engravers
MycenaeanComplex seals Colorful inlayEnamelsFine chain
A serpent wrapped around an arm or finger was a popular design
Greece: Bronze Age through Classical period
Early Etruscan:Technical proficiency and varietyGranulation
Roman:Colored gemstonesSimple, heavy settingsEgyptian emeralds, garnets, sapphires from
IndiaFine chiseled openwork
Etruscan and Roman
Byzantine society was hierarchical and the wearing of jewelry and the availability of certain types of ornament was strictly regulated through laws.
Adoption of Christianity led to new forms of jewelryPendant crossesNew iconographyFigural representation
CharacteristicsFine-chiseled openworkChasing and embossingColored stones that predominate over the gold work Gold Cloisonne
Byzantium and the Middle Ages
Ireland: rich in alluvial gold Large disks decorated with central crossesCrescent-shaped neck rings called lunulae
Central Europe: use of wire formed into spirals. In Ireland, Britain, and France cruciform strips of wire were twisted into long three dimensional spirals that were worn around neck or arm.
Early European
The Celts dominated Europe during the Iron Age and established a stylistic tradition that persisted in parts of Europe throughout the Roman period and beyond.
Celtic craftsman used enamels and inlay as early as 400 BCE.
The item most associatedwith the Celts is the Torc; part of the battle dress worn by both men and woman.
Functional jewelry
Celtic
Animal Motifs dominated Viking jewelryRepousse and filigree enhance basic cast
shapesChip-cutting: surface of the metal was
worked with a chisel to create facets that produced a glittering effect.
Most Viking jewelry was made of silver, generally woven and braided into torcs and bracelets.
Medieval jewelry: Materials used were valued for their intrinsic and medicinal propertiesInscriptions were popularDevotional jewelry was prominent
Viking and Medieval jewelry
Jewelry for the Twenty-First Century
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Influenced by culture and arts of ancient Greece and Rome. Classical architecture, decorative motifs, historical figures, mythological subjects, exotic animals all were inspiration for jewelry design.
Christian imagery remained current.Popular Tudor motifs were the monogram device
and the knot.Characterized by:
Vivid colorEnameled gold and precious stonesCameos and intagliosGem engraving
Renaissance to Revolution
With the change of fashion in the 17th century to flowing silk fabrics outmoded formalceremonial jewelry. A softer side emerged with pearls becoming popular. Botany was a characteristic motif, and the bow, while gold receded to provide merely a framework or setting for stones.
English jewelry in the mid 17th century was effected by the Civil War and Puritanism. Much commemorative jewelry was worn secretly after the execution of Charles 1st in 1649. Wedding rings were scorned.
Baroque
Rise of the gemstone and distinction between daytime and evening jewelry.
The Chatelaine: a decorative belt-hook or clasp worn at the waist with a series of chains suspended and mounted to hold household accessories such as scissors, thimble, watch, keys.
Foiling of stones to enhance sparkle.Naturalism; curving lines, leaves, and
feathers.Alternative materials: ceramic and glass.Discovery of Diamonds in 1725
Eighteenth Century
More accessible due to machine made jewelry and mass production. Designs were inspired by archeological discoveries and nationalism.
By the end of the century ideas of design reform had led to the founding of two new movements in Britain and Continental Europe: Arts and Crafts and Art Nouveau.
Nineteenth Century
With the introduction of mass production came large quantities of cheap jewelry.
Costume jewelryGold was passed through rolling machines to
produce large sheets of uniform thickness, which could then be stamped out into component parts for affordable jewelry.
Chain making was made by machines.Novelties: the Victorian era spawned a fondness for
eccentric and humorous trinkets. Everyday objects were incorporated into designs. Moving jewels powered by electricity.
Mass production
Characterized by: rise of the luxury jewelry houses and the rise of the individual designer, jeweler-artist.
Marked by the increase in the use of alternative materials.
Art Deco: borrowed from the modernist movements such as Bauhaus, Cubism, Neoclassicism characterized by linear forms and stylized abstracted geometric forms. The machine age with angular and cylindrical shapes to resemble inner workings of machines.
Twentieth Century
The rise of individual artist art schools.Self expression New materials were embraced, expected
forms and functions were challenged, and the boundaries between jewelry, sculpture, clothing and performance art were explored.
Paper jewelry
Jewelry since the 1960’s