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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How much creativity, risk taking, and thinking outside the box will

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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