FROM THE LATE 18TH CENTURY TO 1820
Few pieces of jewellery dating from the eighteenth century reach us in their original form:precious metal and stones,diamonds in particular,are rare and durable,and ornaments could be dismantled,the metal melted down and the gemstones reset in new mounts to keep up with the changes in taste and fashion.
A small number of diamond jewels in their original closed settings – where the backs of the stones are not visible – (see plate 2) survive in the shape of girandole earrings (see plate 10),the favourite eighteenth century motif consisting of a larger stone,cluster, or ribbon bow motif supporting three pear-shaped drops;necklaces designed as simple rivières;cluster buttons (see plate 29);starbursts,crescents or flowerhead borooches (see plates 20 and 22).
Until the gold discoveries of the 1840s in the United States of America,and later in South Africa,and the first appearance on the market of Cape diamonds in the 1870s, almost all precious jewellery sooner or later had to be remounted.
The regular flow of diamonds from South Africa,and the abundance of precious metal on the market,together with a new and widely spread wealth,changed the situation dramatically,and in the second half of the century the woman who could afford a new piece of jewellery did not have to unmount an old piece in order to have it made.In addition,more pieces of jewellery were handed down from mother to daughter in their original form and have thus survived.
The French Revolution is also partly responsible for the destruction of so much early jewellery.The republican ideals of the Revolutionaires profoundly influenced society, changing habits,life style,government,religion,and even the calendar.Jewels,considered at the time a reminder of the Ancien Régime,seemed to conflict with the new ideals and to be somehow out of fashion.An enormous quantity of jewellery left France,and was remounted abroad or was sold for survival;even the crown jewels were seized by the Revolutionaires and the Parisian jewellers,leaders of fashion in Europe,faced great hardship.
Very little jewellery was produced during the Revolution;such jewels as were made lack in imagination and are of rather poor quality.Somehow the ideals of the Revolution were not suited to jewellery;the rings,bracelets,and brooches in debased metal which have survived are decorated with the profiles of the heroes of the Revolution,Phrygian caps,guillotines and lictorian fasces.
A slow return to normality followed the establishment of the Directorate in France; the supplies of luxury goods accelerated and the jewellery trade started to recover.The feminine ideal was to emulate the classical purity of Greek statues;dresses were of very flimsy material,often dampened to cling more revealingly to the body,high waisted,and free from any unnecessary ornaments that might detract attention from the female figure.These tunics inspired by Greek and Roman antiquity favoured colours such as
Parures
Both precious and semiprecious stones were used for parures and demi-parures.Thus complete parures were made in aquamarines,pink and yellow topazes (see plate 8), amethysts,peridots,cornelians,garnets (see plate 7),and even moss or banded agate,for the less well off.
Par isian jewellers often mounted the stones within a very fine cannetille work, imitating a form of lace,enriched with leaves,rosettes and burr motifs.This fashion soon spread to England,where topaz and amethyst became the favourite stones,and in both
PLATE 6.A collection of late 18th century/early 19th century cut steel jewellery.Note,on the back of the brooch,how the faceted studs were riveted to the base plate.
PLATE 7.A gold and garnet demi-parure,late 18th century.The stones are all in closed settings,with foil enhancing the colour.Suites of this date are extremely rare.Note the archaic rose cutting of the stones.
PLATE 48.The elaborate metalwork of this parure which includes minute leaves, flowers and burr motifs in pink,yellow and green gold is typical of the 1820s.The topazes,remarkably well matched in colour and clarity, are in open settings. Availability of gemstones was limited at the time and in jewels such as these they would have normally been mounted in closed settings. This would have enabled the jeweller to match their colour by inserting a suitably coloured foil between the gemstone and the mount.Note the tooled and gilt red morocco case,also typical of the first two decades of the century.
FROM 1820 TO 1840
The year 1820 brought profound changes in fashion and jewellery design.The waistline dropped at last to a more realistic and natural position and it is this year, rather than 1815,which seems to mark the end of the Napoleonic classicism.
The naturalistic style flourished on both sides of the Channel.Leaves and flowers, stylised and subordinated to the general,formal design during the Napoleonic era,began to be more representational.After 1830 it was a triumph of roses,morning glories, fuchsias,cornflowers,ears of wheat and leaves of all varieties (see plates 72,73 and 74).
The revival of the Marie Antoinette style continued for a few years,supported by the less innovative jewellers who skilfully repeated and reinterpreted,in open settings, typical motifs of the eighteenth century such as elaborate scrollworks and girandoles (see plate 69),and formal clusters within rich foliate scrolls.Very often a transitional compromise between naturalism and formalism is detectable in jewels where stylised flowerheads are associated with rich scroll motifs (see plates 68 and 71).
After the long years of war in Europe,precious metals and stones were relatively rare
PLATE 53.A gold,ruby and diamond demi-parure,c.1830.The filigree cannetille decoration is absolutely characteristic of the 1830s.Note the chain decoration and the girandole design of the earrings and brooch.The screw-fittings are later,originally simple gold hooks would have been employed.The flat gold leaves are a hangover from the first quarter of the century.
PLATE 54.A fine gold,Roman mosaic and turquoise parure,c.1820.The gold scrolled tendril motifs anticipate cannetille decoration of the 1830s.These mosaics are unusual in their subject matter which is drawn from the commedia dell’arte and peasant costume.
‘Mme.Moitessier’,by Ingres, 1856.
National Gallery,London.
FROM 1840 TO 1860
The new wealth acquired by the middle classes around the middle of the century and the easier supply of precious metal guaranteed by the discovery of gold in California and Australia,had a positive influence on the jewellery industry, which flourished in the second half of the century.
In England Queen Victoria became an important influence on fashion.Her jewels in particular were carefully copied by the Court and the rest of society.Jewels were worn in great abundance,and intimate jewels of sentiment were in great favour.
In France,Louis Napoleon gave to social life a new interest in luxury after the moderate reign of Louis Philippe.In 1851,in an attempt to galvanise French commerce and industry,he sponsored the participation of French firms in the great Exhibition at the Crystal Palace in London.Jewellery was well represented,the French exhibitors triumphed and were compensated for their efforts by receiving numerous commissions. Lemonnier,Louis Philippe’s favourite jeweller,excelled with two parures made for the Queen of Spain in which the naturalistic inspiration was combined with a well balanced structural design.Lemonnier was praised for his fine taste and in particular his conception of the ‘ensemble’.He shared his London success with Dafrique,Rouvenat, Marrel,Rudolphi and Froment-Meurice.
In the 1840s,the world of nature,the Renaissance and the Middle Ages continued to provide sources of inspiration.The influence of the medieval designs by FromentMeurice (1802-1855),spread to England where Robert Phillips (1810-1881) was among the first to produce jewels which shared the same inspiration.Fantasy and originality were the characteristics of these ornaments in which human figures,angels, and heraldic and architectural motifs,were freely incorporated within elaborate foliage and strapwork frames (see plate 137).
Naturalism flourished in jewellery,assuming the forms of very realistic bouquets of flowers,branches,leaves,tendrils,bunches of grapes and clusters of berries.This interest in naturalism,stimulated by the romantic movement,spread to plant collecting and led to the introduction to Europe of new exotic species.Flower symbolism,very strong in the early nineteenth century,was still popular and only diminished in the second half of the century.
In the 1840s diamond-set bouquets of flowers,worn as brooches or hair ornaments, were decorated with cascades of diamond drops suggesting rainfall or seeds falling from the flowerheads.This decoration,known as ‘en pampille’,remained in fashion until the mid-1850s (see plate 113).Around the middle of the century,royal blue guilloché enamel and bright green enamel on engine turned and chisel-cut backgrounds were closely associated with diamond jewellery of naturalistic inspiration (see plate 118).Very often diamond spray brooches of this period were mounted ‘en tremblant’,with flowerheads set on watch springs,free to quiver when the piece moved.
At the Paris Exhibition of 1855 Mellerio,Rouvenat and other Parisian jewellers offered splendid garlands and bouquets of flowers set with diamonds and embellished
stones,especially rubies;embellished with lava cameos;set with mosaics,both Roman and Florentine;or simply in carved ivory.
Less formal demi-parures were also in demand in the 1840s and 1850s.Generally made of gold repoussé work set with semiprecious gemstones,they combined two or three of the different ornaments of a parure:necklace and earrings,brooch and earrings, necklace and brooch,etc.
Earrings
Almost no earrings were worn in the 1840s as the hair completely covered the ears, those few which were worn were usually long (see plate 102).They gradually regained favour in the 1850s when the hair started to be brushed away from the ears.Their size was comparatively small.
Creole earrings,designed as crescentic hoops,were typical of the early 1850s,but flattened hoops,small spheres,or elongated beads were the most usual forms together with small clusters of leaves chased in gold and set with a gemstone as a bud or berry (see plate 104).Coral hoops and carved coral flowers were frequently worn as pendent earrings (see plate 101).More expensive diamond earrings were usually of conventional floral design.
from the mid-1800s,showing the various ways in which
PLATE 105.A collection of coral jewellery dating
coral was used.
PLATE 104.Two pairs of gold earrings typical of the early 1850s both in size and design.
PLATE 148.A diverse collection of gold,enamel and gem-set heart-shaped padlock clasp/pendants. This was an enduring motif throughout the 19th century,and this collection dates from between 1835 and 1855.
‘Leonora di Mantua’,by V.C. Prinsep.
National Museums and Galleries on Merseyside.
FROM 1860 TO 1880
The decades between 1860 and 1880 saw the peak of eccentricity in fashion. Skirts,supported by enormous crinolines,expanded to impractical dimensions, but the bust,in contrast,was tightly laced into uncomfortable corsets;the décolletages of ball dresses were generous.The hair was worn brushed away from the ears,gathered at the back of the head in cascades of curls or in elaborate chignons.Jewels were worn in abundance and earrings were particularly favoured.The jewellery trade flourished in both France and England.
France was once more ruled by an emperor.Eugénie,the wife of the new Napoleon, influenced tastes both in fashion and jewellery;in particular she admired the eighteenth century fashions and made Marie Antoinette her model.She supported the revival of eighteenth century crinolines and had part of the crown jewels remounted in Louis XVI style by Bapst.Her favourite stones were emeralds,which were soon to became the most sought after gemstone in France after diamonds.
The Second Empire in France brought a revival of Napoleonic designs and motifs. Tiaras of elaborate scrollwork suspended with diamond,pearl and emerald drops,and cameo jewellery,returned on a large scale.Cameo carving and gem engraving continued to be an Italian speciality in spite of the competition of German lapidaries from Idar Oberstein.The favoured material was agate,in most cases artificially stained by a process known for centuries:the stone was placed in a sugar solution which was absorbed by its porous layers,then subsequently fired so as to burn the sugar,staining black or dark brown the impregnated layers.The decorative motif was then carved in the white unporous part of the stone,against a dark background.Metallic salts were used to impart artificially the colours of cornelian,chrysoprase and the like (see plates 210, 212,213 and 214).
The eighteenth century was not the only revival of the time.The jewellers of the 1850s had already revived interest in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance,and continued to work in these styles for two decades or more.In the early 1860s,this eclecticism was further complicated by a new wave of Greek and Etruscan classicism. The pioneer of the classical revival,in Greek and Etruscan style,was Fortunato Pio Castellani (1794-1865).It is known that the early production of his Rome workshop was in the contemporary English and French taste,but there is no means of identifying it,since it was conventional and unmarked.
Castellani,fascinated by the jewels of the antique,produced jewels in Greek and Etruscan style in collaboration with two of his sons,Alessandro (1823-1883) and Augusto (1829-1914).By the end of the 1850s the Castellani workshop in Rome had become an attraction for English visitors,producing splendid gold jewellery,making use of decorative motifs drawn from the classical repertoire such as shells,rosettes,urns,amphorae,rams’ heads and the like.The Castellanis approached antiquity with a new open-mindedness; until then,jewellers seemed to believe that there was nothing to be learned from the
PLATE 156.A diamond parure,c.1860,the lozenge-shaped pendant is some 20 to 30 years earlier.This charming suite of jewellery shows an early use of the butterfly as decorative motif.All leaves and flowerheads in the necklace are detachable,as is the large butterfly.
PLATE 157.A gold necklace with pendant and locket,Indian,probably Madras,around 1880.Tourist jewellery from the Raj.
Jules Louis Machard,1891, ‘Before the Ball’. Sotheby’s.
FROM 1880 TO 1900
The end of the century was characterised by a reaction against mechanicallyproduced jewellery.Technical progress and mechanisation made jewellery affordable by the masses but lowered rather than improved the quality of the pieces.The lockets and bracelets that were produced in the last decades of the century in very low carat gold,repetitive in design,roughly made and badly finished,could hardly be called ‘jewels’.The public started to reject the fashion of wearing a multitude of pendants,always similar in design,and sets of jewels in debased gold.
The situation was similar all over Europe.At the beginning of the 1880s fashionable women,seemingly wearied of a succession of revivals in jewellery design,of ‘second hand’ styles and of jewels in which technical skill and erudite research of decorative motifs substituted art,creativity and spontaneity,temporarily abandoned jewellery almost completely.
In England the situation was complicated by a rebellion against Victorian excess in decoration,its ostentation and taboos.The young women of the Aesthetic movement abandoned all ornaments and enjoyed wearing on their simple dresses a plain string of amber beads;they also enjoyed the jewels from India,with their irregularly-shaped or uncut stones,or with the features of Ganesha or other Hindu gods in repoussé gold and silver (see plate 157).
The ornaments of the day were small,delicate and unostentatious,and diamonds disappeared for a time from day wear.At night,for court and formal occasions and at balls, jewels were still worn but in moderation;the preference was given to one beautifully made ornament,set with good quality stones,rather than several mediocre pieces.
Between 1887 and 1890,so little jewellery was worn in England,that many jewellers were concerned for their survival,but jewels did not disappear,and the 1890s saw a revival of their popularity,but with less exuberance.
The desire to break with tradition,to return to artistic jewels,where materials were functional to design,and where spontaneity of inspiration was more important than intrinsic value,is best exemplified by French art nouveau jewellery.The highly decorative,rich,poignant and often opulent nature of the art nouveau style,was particularly well suited to the purpose of jewellery – to enhance feminine beauty.
Art nouveau was short lived in jewellery,lasting only from about 1895 to 1910,but although its influence was very strong in the first decade of the twentieth century,its roots, development and full maturity are to be found in the nineteenth century.Nature,and its association with femininity,was the leitmotif of art nouveau as it had been one of the most powerful trends of the nineteenth century,but it took on a totally different aspect, abandoning rhetorical and imitative realism,to embrace imagination,creativity and vividness of interpretation.The aim of art nouveau was to evoke rather than to portray or copy nature.
In jewellery,art nouveau would not have been possible without the botanical obsession of Oscar Massin,and without the discovery of Japanese art which opened the way to stylisations of the natural world,characterised by a strict economy of
PLATE 301.A gold,enamel,pearl and diamond necklace,by Carlo and Arthur Giuliano,c.1890-1900.The crescent scrolls flecked with black enamel are a characteristic feature of their work at this time.
PLATE 302.A gold,enamel and gem-set necklace,by Giacinto Melillo,c.1900. The design of this necklace is rather archaic but shows that Renaissance/archaeological jewellery was still popular in Italy.The red stones are synthetic rubies and this is a very early example to employ such stones.
PLATE 303.A necklace in gold,opal,plique-à-jour enamel and diamond,by L.Gautrait,c.1900,which compared with the demi-parure of plate 287 shows a far more typical art nouveau design.A brooch and pendant by Arthur and Georgie Gaskin,c.1900-5,characteristic of British Arts and Crafts design.
