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The history of jewelry design
The possibility of tracing jewelry's historic itinerary derives primarily from the custom, beginning with the most remote civilizations, of burying the dead with their richest garments and ornaments. Plastic and pictorial iconography—painting, sculpture, mosaic—also offer abundant testimony to the jewelry worn in various eras.
It is probable that prehistoric humans thought of decorating the body before they thought of making use of anything that could suggest clothing. Before precious metals were discovered, people who lived along the seashore decorated themselves with a great variety of shells, fishbones, fish teeth, and coloured pebbles. People who lived inland used as ornaments materials from the animals they had killed for food: reindeer antlers, mammoth tusks, and all kinds of animal bones. After they had been transformed from their natural state into various elaborate forms, these materials, together with animal skins and bird feathers, provided sufficient decoration.
This era was followed by one that saw a transition from a nomadic life to a settled social order and the subsequent birth of the most ancient civilizations. Most peoples settled along the banks of large rivers, which facilitated the development of agriculture and animal husbandry. Indirectly, this also led to 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 every part of the body. For the head there were crowns, diadems, tiaras, hairpins, combs, earrings, nose rings, lip rings, and earplugs. For the neck and torso there were necklaces, fibulae (the ancient safety pin), brooches, pectorals (breastplates), stomachers, belts, and watch fobs. For the 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 Eastern and Western antiquity
Among the most ancient examples of jewelry are those found in Queen Pu-abi's tomb at Ur in Sumer (now called Tall al-Muqayyar), dating from the 3rd millennium bce. In the crypt the upper part of the queen's body was covered with a sort of robe made of gold, silver, lapis lazuli, carnelian, agate, and chalcedony beads, the lower edge decorated with 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 in the shape of fish—two made of gold and one of lapis lazuli—and a fourth amulet of gold with the figures of two seated gazelles. On the queen's head were three diadems, each smaller than the one below it, fastened to a wide gold band: the first, which came down to cover the forehead, was formed of large interlocking rings, while the second and third were made of realistically designed poplar and willow leaves. Above the diadems were gold flowers, on drooping stems, the petals of which had blue and white decorations. On the back of the headdress was a Spanish-type comb, with teeth decorated with golden flowers. Huge golden earrings, in the shape of linked, tapered, semitubular circles, completed the decoration of the head. On the neck was a necklace with three rows of semiprecious stones interrupted in the middle by an openwork flower in a gold circle. Many rings were worn on the fingers. There were large quantities of other jewels—among them wrist and arm bracelets and pectorals—belonging to the handmaidens, dignitaries, and even the horses that formed part of the funeral train. As was the custom, the queen's attendants had killed themselves in the crypt after the burial ceremony.
As this description suggests, Sumerian jewelry forms represent almost every kind developed during the course of history. Nearly all technical processes also were known: welding, alloys, filigree, stonecutting, and even enameling. Sources of inspiration, aside from geometry (disks, circles, cylinders, spheres), were the animal and vegetable world, and expressive forms were based on an essential realism enriched by a moderate use of colour.
The sensational discovery of the tomb of the pharaoh Tutankhamun (18th dynasty; 1539–1292 bce) revealed the fabulous treasures that accompanied an Egyptian sovereign, both during his lifetime and after his death, as well as the high degree of mastery attained by Egyptian goldsmiths. This treasure is now housed in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo and represents the biggest collection of gold and jewelry in the world. The pharaoh's innermost coffin was made entirely of gold, and the mummy was covered with a huge quantity of jewels. More jewels were found in cases and boxes in the other rooms of the tomb. The diadems, necklaces, pectorals, amulets, pendants, bracelets, earrings, and rings are of superb quality and of a high degree of refinement that has rarely been surpassed or even equaled in the history of jewelry.
The ornaments in Tutankhamun's tomb are typical of all Egyptian jewelry. The perpetuation of iconographic and chromatic principles gave the jewelry of ancient Egypt—which long remained unchanged in spite of contact with other civilizations—a magnificent, solid homogeneity, infused and enriched by magical religious beliefs. Ornamentation is composed largely of symbols that have a precise name and meaning, with a form of expression that is closely linked to the symbology of hieroglyphic writing. The scarab, lotus flower, Isis knot, Horus eye, falcon, serpent, vulture, and sphinx are all motif symbols tied up with such religious cults as the cult of the pharaohs and the gods and the cult of the dead. In Egyptian jewelry the use of gold is predominant, and it is generally complemented by the use of the three colours of carnelian, turquoise, and lapis lazuli or of vitreous pastes imitating them. Although there was a set, fairly limited repertoire of decorative motifs in all Egyptian jewelry, the artist-craftsmen created a wide variety of compositions, based mainly on strict symmetry or, in the jewelry made of beads, on the rhythmic repetition of shapes and colours.
The concept of symmetry was utilized in the small pectoral or pendant (3.3 × 2.4 inches [8.4 × 6.1 cm]) that belonged to Sesostris III in the 12th dynasty (1938–1756 bce) and is now housed in the Egyptian Museum. The superbly rhythmic composition is framed by an architectonic design obtained by leaving open all of 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 creating the design. The victorious pharaoh is represented by two lions with the plumed heads of falcons in a symmetric position in the act of trampling conquered Nubians and Libyans. Over the scene is the protective vulture of Upper Egypt with wings outspread. These memorial or dedicatory pendants, as well as other small jewels such as earrings, bracelets, and rings, consist exclusively of symbols.
Necklace beads—generally made of gold, stones, or glazed ceramic—are cylindrical, spherical, or in the shape of spindles or disks and are nearly always used in alternating colours and forms in many 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. Tutankhamun's menat is a long necklace composed of many rows of beads in different shapes and colours, with a pendant and with a decorated fastening that hung down behind the shoulders. The other, much more widely used throughout the whole period, was the usekh, which, like the vulture-shaped necklace from the tomb of Tutankhamun, also has many rows and a semicircular form.
Of the many diadems made by Egyptian artist-craftsmen, one of the earliest was discovered in a tomb dating from the 4th dynasty (c. 2575–c. 2465 bce). It consists of a gold band supported by another band made of copper, to which three decorative designs are applied. In the centre is a disk worked with embossing in the form of four lotus buds arranged radially. On the sides are two papyrus flowers linked horizontally at the base by a disk with a carnelian, while the upper line of the flowers comes together to create 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 is rigid and can be opened by means of a hinge. The front part is decorated with a vulture, whose outspread wings cover the front half of the bracelet. The whole figure of the bird is inlaid with lapis lazuli, carnelian, and vitreous paste.
A first sign of outside influence occurs in the 18th dynasty and consists of earrings, which are imported jewels, unknown in classical Egyptian production. Another evidence of the influence of foreign styles in some of the jewelry of the 18th dynasty is a headdress that covered nearly all of the hair, made of a network of rosette-shaped gold disks forming a real fabric (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City). Foreign influence increased to an ever greater extent during the last dynasties and with the arrival of the Greeks. Like all other forms of artistic expression, in spite of three centuries of the Ptolemaic dynasty (up through 30 bce), the great artistic tradition of Egyptian jewelry slowly died out, notably with the introduction first of Hellenism and then of the Romans.
The Bronze Age civilization that flourished on the Mediterranean island of Crete is known as the Minoan. Because Crete lay near the coasts of Asia, Africa, and the Greek continent and because it was the seat of prosperous ancient civilizations and a necessary point of passage along important sea trading routes, the Minoan civilization developed a level of wealth which, beginning about 2000 bce, stimulated intense gold-working activities of high aesthetic value. From Crete this art spread out to 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 bce.
Among the techniques used in Minoan-Mycenaean gold working were granulation and filigree, but the most widely used was the cutting and stamping of gold sheet into beads and other designs to form necklaces and diadems, as well as to decorate clothing. The kings from Period I of Mycenaean civilization (c. 1580–1500 bce), discovered in their burial places, wore masks of gold sheet, and scattered over their clothing were dozens of stamped gold disks. The disks reveal the rich variety of decorative motifs used by the Mycenaeans: round, rectangular, ribbon-shaped—including combinations of volutes, flowers, stylized polyps and butterflies, rosettes, birds, and sphinxes.
A pendant from a Minoan tomb at Mallia, Crete (Archaeological Museum, Iráklion, Greece), is one of the most perfect masterpieces of jewelry that has come down to us from the 17th century bce. 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 of the rings), with relief engravings of highly animated pastoral scenes, cults, hunting, and war, are also fine. Like those of the other jewelry forms, the ornamental motifs of the necklaces are varied, including dates, pomegranates, half-moons facing each other, lotus flowers, and a hand squeezing a woman's breast. During the late Mycenaean period, earrings appeared in the shape of the head of a bull, an animal frequently represented in early gold plate.
In addition to gold working, Minoan-Mycenaean craftsmen also excelled at engraving gemstones for seals and rings.
Phoenicia was a centre for both the production and exportation of jewelry, and it is to the trading done by this people throughout the Mediterranean that we owe knowledge of the products of civilizations in the most remote lands—northern Africa, Sardinia, Spain, and Italy. The period in the 8th and 7th centuries bce, during which Scythian-Iranian objects with their animalistic motifs were spread and consequently imitated throughout the Mediterranean countries, especially in Greece and Italy, is called the Orientalizing period.
In Etruria, to a much greater extent than elsewhere, the stimulus provided by the jewelry imported by the Phoenicians led to emulation that soon had imposing results. Alongside imported objects and mechanically repeated southwest Asian motifs, original forms, techniques, and styles developed that were the result of Etruscan taste. There was an entirely new concept, in which the goals of magnificence, impressive size, and a great wealth of decoration led to some of the most outstanding achievements in the history of jewelry. Technical virtuosity exploited all the resources available to filigree and above all to granulation, carried out with gold alone without chromatic inlaying.
Fibulae began to be made in forms other than the single leech, or boat, shape: with a dragon bow, lozenge-shaped, with a long foot. Like such ornaments as pendants and the heads of pins, fibulae were often decorated with gold dust, in which opaque granulated figures—ibexes, chimeras, sphinxes, winged lions, centaurs, horsemen, and warriors, nearly all of southwest Asian derivation—stand out against the smooth surface of the gold. One notable example is the fibula from the lictor's tomb in Vetulonia.
The most elaborate, complicated examples of Orientalizing Etruscan jewelry consist of very 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—set in series in alternating rows—form a plastic fabric, the details of which are of astonishing technical ability, while at the same time they suggest the evocative, mysterious animalistic symbolism of southwest Asian civilizations.
In the era that followed the Orientalizing period, Etruscan jewelry revealed Ionic influence (6th–5th century bce). The most beautiful examples are necklaces made of many flexible chains that cross each other 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, especially in the modeling of the pendant heads, of the Greek severe period, an influence that spread throughout the entire Etruscan territory, from Spina on the Adriatic coast of Italy to southern Italy. Even clearer evidence of the acceptance of imported forms is provided by a new shape, the bulla, a pear-shaped vessel used to hold perfume. Its surface was decorated with embossed and engraved symbolic figures.
Because gold was not readily available, jewelry was relatively rare in Archaic (c. 750–c. 500 bce) and Classical (c. 500–c. 323 bce) Greece. Examples do exist, however, and certain generalizations can be made. In the 7th and 6th centuries bce the jewelry produced in Attica and the Peloponnese shows evidence of strong stylistic influence from southwest Asia, the same influence that contemporary Etruscans skillfully applied to their jewelry. In the 5th century bce the Ionic style became predominant, taking the place of the Orientalizing period style. War scenes and animals of southwest Asian origin disappeared, for example, 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 in reality was more closely related to sculpture and to classic ideals of beauty than to decoration. Indeed, in its long history, Greek jewelry has the predominant character of sculpture in miniature and represents isolated figures or religious, mythological, or heroic scenes.
Greek expansion into Anatolia to the east, southern Italy to the west, and the Balkan Peninsula to the north resulted in the Hellenization of this entire area. Under the reign of Alexander the Great, 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 bce, the technical ability of Hellenistic goldsmiths reached the highest levels ever attained. A style both sumptuous and full of plastic vigour was created, in which meticulous arrangement of the decorative motifs resulted in the contrast and harmony, clarity and unity, rhythms and cadences that make some of these jewels complete works of art. The very fine technique and virtuosity in miniature is reflected in the creation of the first cameos and in disk earrings bearing pendants, often of minute proportions. A real masterpiece is an earring with a winged figure of a 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 make this earring a microscopic monument of sculpture.
Also worthy of high consideration are the magnificent diadems that came into wide use as a result of the Persian conquests made by Alexander the Great. One type is a rigid elliptical shape with a Hercules knot in the centre and pendants hanging down over the forehead. The Hercules knot was the most famous one used in ancient times, as it was considered a magic knot and, in jewels, took on the significance of an amulet. It also was used on bracelets, belts, and rings during this period. Another example, decorated with jewel-like enameled flowers, demonstrates the increasing use of colour during the Hellenistic Age.
One type of necklace that was commonly worn at this time was made of gold pieces, often hollow or filled with resin, that were fashioned into the shape of acorns, amphorae, and rosettes that sometimes alternated with stones or vitreous paste. In the 3rd century bce the bracelet in the shape of a serpent originated and remained popular through the Roman period. The serpent motif also was used for rings.
In ancient Rome, jewelry was used to an extent never seen before and not to be seen again until the Renaissance. Imperial Rome became a centre for goldsmiths' workshops. Together with the precious stones and metals that were brought to the city came lapidaries and goldsmiths from Greece and the Asian provinces. The gold ring, which under the republic had been a sign of distinction worn by ambassadors, noblemen, and senators, gradually began 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 only jewels but also magnificent gold and silver household furnishings, as shown by the objects found in Pompeii and nearby Boscoreale.
From the standpoint of style, Roman jewelry in its earlier phases derived from both Hellenistic and Etruscan jewelry. Later it acquired distinctive features of its own, 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 of the bulla, which they transferred to 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 a magical nature began to appear, such as the half-moon and the wheel with four spokes. In addition, as Roman jewelry freed itself of Hellenistic and Etruscan influences, greater use was made of coloured stones—topazes, emeralds, rubies, sapphires, and pearls. A strong preference was shown for engraved gems, so much so that they were considered collectors' items by wealthy people, including Caesar himself. The stones were set in bezels or supported by pins that passed through them. New techniques that came into use included opus interassile, with which a flat or curved metal surface was decorated with tiny pierced motifs, and niello, a method of enameling used primarily to decorate rings and brooches.
Many pendants were used in the earrings: from a ring a series 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 extremely varied production of gold mesh and chains, often containing inserted bezels set with stones or half pearls, while others had ivy or laurel leaves attached to them. Although pendants were not used on necklaces in the beginning, later examples have pendants in the form of embossed medallions. Precious stones, vitreous pastes, and cameos with golden frames also served as pendants for necklaces. Toward the end of the 3rd century ce, necklaces often bore medallions or gold coins with portraits of the emperors.
Middle Ages
Ancient Rome, which had brought its culture to other parts of Europe and to northern Africa and southwestern Asia, began to lose its vitality in the early Christian era; by the end of the 4th century ce, its civilization was in full decline. Although its power was gone, Roman culture was indelibly imprinted on Western civilization. The Roman Empire had embraced Christianity, although in reality it was the papacy that had embraced the Roman Empire. The intention of the Byzantine court (at Constantinople [now Istanbul], the new seat of imperial power) to maintain Roman supremacy in the field of the arts was forced to give way to a style more closely related to that of the Middle East. Partly for religious reasons, this style soon developed a new spirit and its own distinctive characteristics. The wave of iconoclasm—the controversy in the 8th and 9th centuries about the depiction of images in religious art—gave the decoration of jewelry, too, a basically ornamental nature, in which the techniques used to the greatest extent were filigree, opus interassile, and enameling, as well as the copious application of precious stones 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 use up through the 12th century. There are examples with pierced decoration, with filigree basketwork, and with the figures of enameled birds facing each other on a golden half-moon. The court jewels, if credit can be given to the figures shown in the mosaics in the church of San Vitale at Ravenna, must have been of astonishing splendour. Although the mosaics give only a sketchy idea, on the figures of Justinian, Theodora, and their retinue, precious ornaments can be distinguished that were of ceremonial magnificence suited to their rank.
For all practical purposes, Constantinople's artistic activities came to an end when it was conquered and looted during the Fourth Crusade in 1204.
After the Arab conquest of Iran brought it into the Islamic 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 in order to conform to the canons of Islam, which forbade the making of images. A 12th-century gold pendant in the form of a lion is a highly schematic rendering of this animal; it is decorated with granulation. Other techniques were filigree, encrustation with precious and semiprecious stones, and the use 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 women and diademed headdresses for men seem to have been fashionable in court circles. Under the Ṣafavid rulers, jewelry became more sumptuous and elaborate. In the 19th century, native traditions were altered by European influence, often with an eye toward European consumption. Traditional designs, however, have persisted in Zīnjanāb and among the Kurdish mountaineers of northwest Iran. Silver decorated with twisted wire arranged in scrolls is a feature of the former. The Kurdish goldsmiths also work in silver, which they decorate with chased or repoussé designs, sometimes reminiscent of motifs found on Sāsānian metalwork.
Jewelry worn by men and women in Turkey during the Ottoman period was probably influenced by 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, not many surviving pieces are earlier than the 19th century, when native tradition had been supplanted by a taste for Rococo jewelry.
In North Africa an independent tradition has been maintained by the Amazigh and Arab tribes. In design the jewelry of southern Morocco shows curious analogies to Byzantine jewelry—heavy silver plaques decorated with niello or cabochons that serve as diadems or headbands. In other parts of Morocco and in Algeria and Tunisia, popular forms of jewelry are headbands, breast ornaments, brooches, pendants, and a characteristic triangular-shaped shawl pin.
While in the Byzantine area classic forms of expression were being wiped out 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 with them, 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 beginning in the 4th century ce, and they remained there until the 9th century. In accordance with an ancient definition, they were called barbarians—that is, not Christians but foreigners. They also were considered barbarians because they were thought to have destroyed the Classical art of the Roman world.
Throughout all the provinces of the Roman Empire, these Teutonic tribes produced gold ware that shared a common well-defined style moderated according to the tastes of the particular regions in which they settled. The blend of Teutonic and Iranian, Scythian, Sarmatian, or Celtic styles produced ornaments that bore little resemblance to those of the great Classical tradition. Precious ornamentation, which represented the main artistic ambition of these nomadic peoples, was achieved with faience (decoration made of opaque coloured glazes), jewels, and enamels. Dominant also was braiding, which was done with strips of embossing, with bands of stones or enamel set in bezels, and also with filigree.
There was a highly varied production of fibulae. One of the most impressive for its size (14 inches [35.56 cm]) is the one in the shape of a bird found in Pietroasa, Romania (National Museum of History, Bucharest), whose body is covered with sockets of different sizes and shapes in which stones and enamel were meant to be set. The most widely used type of fibula was the so-called buckler variety, with a fan head, arched bridge, and flat or molded foot, with pierced work 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, made up of several circles with much decoration, were typical. The most magnificent examples are those from the 6th century from Alleberg and Färjestaden, Sweden (Museum of National Antiquities, Stockholm). A ring with zoomorphic braiding (Poldi Pezzoli Museum, Milan) was found in the same region. This technique was most widely used in the Celtic and northern Germanic regions of Europe, while in the British Isles, to judge from the magnificent jewels in the Sutton Hoo burial-ship treasure, it was the technique of enameling that reached extremely high levels. In northern Europe and Scandinavia the main gold-working techniques were filigree, embossing, and turning on a lathe.
As time passed, the different products of gold-working art in Romanized Europe 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 products are very few pieces of jewelry. As the graphic and plastic arts gradually developed, however, they documented the jewelry in use at the time. According to these sources, little jewelry was worn in the Romanesque period (c. 950–c. 1150).
In the 11th century, monastic workshops for the service of the church began to decline, disappearing one after another to be replaced by secular workshops. Gold-working activities in western Europe gradually freed themselves from the centralizing patronage of the church in order to serve the numerous courts and noble families, and in the 12th century the first goldsmiths' guilds were organized.
One of the most widely used 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 sign of office, and, as always, it served as a seal.
Another widely used ornament was the brooch. Most popular was the medallion type, which might be round, star-shaped, or pentagonal, while the diamond shape was less common. Ring brooches, which were open in the centre, also were popular. They took many forms, including round, pentagonal, and star-, heart-, or wheel-shaped. One outstanding bejeweled and enameled example—the Founder's Jewel bequeathed by William of Wykeham to New College, University of Oxford, in 1404—is in the shape of the letter M. The arches formed by the letter resemble Gothic windows, reflecting the importance of architectural elements in all forms of art at this time. Standing in the windows are the expertly modeled figures of the Virgin Mary and the Angel of the Annunciation, and the whole is surmounted by a crown.
Another fine example that typifies the plastic decorative repertory of the Gothic style is a silver belt buckle from Sweden (Historical Museum, Stockholm). Modeled in high relief on 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 that includes a seated person and a man kneeling in front of him (c. 1340).
Renaissance to modern
15th and 16th centuries
The "rebirth" 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—particularly in Italy in the grand duchy of Tuscany. Eighteen centuries after the great flowering of Hellenistic jewelry, Italian Renaissance jewelry once again achieved an expressive form worthy of comparison with the figurative arts. There was, in fact, no sharp division between the two. Nearly all the most famous artists responsible for the Renaissance artistic revival—Lorenzo Ghiberti, Filippo Brunelleschi, Antonio and Piero Pollaiuolo, and Sandro Botticelli—served apprenticeships in the goldsmiths' workshops, where gentlemen went to order medallions for their hats and where ladies went to have their jewels set.
Because of their elaborate workmanship, which meant that their artistic value was far greater than the intrinsic value of their materials, many pieces of jewelry have been handed down to modern times in public and private collections. Even more extensive evidence, however, is provided by paintings from this period that show the jewelry worn by both men and women. From portraits by Botticelli and Piero di Cosimo, one can see, for example, 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 worked out every line of the often extremely complicated ornamental design that had to harmonize with the movement of braids or unbound hair.
During the Renaissance there was an enormous increase in the use of jewelry throughout Europe. The courts of England, France, and Spain, the French duchy of Burgundy, and 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 centuries had not occurred on such a large scale. The nobility and the rich middle class followed this fashion, and even the youngest scions were covered with jewels, as evidenced by the portrait of the Medici princess by Il Bronzino, as well as many others. Francis I of France surrounded himself with famous artists like Benvenuto Cellini and Leonardo da Vinci. In Paris, artists such as Jean Duvet, Étienne Delaune, and the Fleming Abraham de Bruyn were the outstanding creators of designs for jewelry. Hans Holbein the Younger was the individual 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—a passion surpassed only by that of Elizabeth I. Henry possessed more than one magnificent parure, or set of matching jewelry, designed for him by Holbein, as well as several hundred rings.
As Holbein's portraits of Henry VIII suggest, the custom of wearing bejeweled clothing, which had begun gradually in the 14th century, flourished in the Renaissance. Even hat brims were decorated, with designs in pearls as well as with pendants of great value.
In Holbein's 1540 portrait, there is also a magnificent example of a popular necklace of the period. It consisted of wide gold bands decorated with embossing that formed medallions, in the centre of which were mounted large stones. From the necklace hung a pendant. Women rarely limited themselves to a single necklace, usually wearing a choker-type necklace made of pearls, with or without a pendant, together with a longer second necklace made of gold, with or without the inclusion of gems. A third necklace was often hooked to the clothing, on the shoulders, and formed a double loop, being lifted up in the centre and fastened to the bodice with a jeweled pin.
The precious ornament on which the artist-jewelers lavished all their creativity and technical ability was the pendant. At first this consisted of a decorative medallion enclosing a cameo with figures and subjects of Classical 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 with a great variety of subjects—animals, Tritons, mermaids, ships, sea monsters, and symbolic figures, sometimes in elaborate tableaux—fashioned in complicated openwork compositions comprising several linked pieces, in which the irregular shape of a large baroque pearl was often used for the body of an 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—as romantic tradition has it—poison.
17th century
Toward the end of the 16th century, the Renaissance style blended gradually into the manifestations of the Baroque period, which arose at different times in different countries. This gradual change in the style of jewelry was conditioned mainly by two factors. The first was of a technical nature and concerned improvements in the cutting of precious stones, while the second consisted of a great vogue for the cultivation of flowers. Floral and vegetable decoration therefore became the most fashionable theme for jewelry designers, and its popularity spread throughout Europe. The ornamental motifs of knots, ribbons, and Rococo scrolls also saw a considerable development. There was a corresponding decrease in the amount of figurative decoration, which finally completely disappeared. At first these ornamental forms were carried out in openwork gold jewelry, the majority of which was coloured with enamel. Later diamonds and other precious stones, whose popularity rose dramatically with the improvement in faceting techniques, became the real protagonists in the composition of jewelry.
During the 17th century the number of pieces of jewelry worn decreased, as did the fashion for male adornment. The last monarch to make heavy use of jewels was Louis XIV, and the word heavy is used here in a literal sense, the great weight consisting mainly of gems with which the monarch covered himself for official ceremonies. He had his own personal jeweler, Gilles Légaré, who was a guest in the Louvre palace. He was not the only sovereign, however, who enjoyed showing off his jewels, nor was Versailles the only court in Europe to follow the king's example. Those of London, Madrid, and Munich were not far behind. The precious ornaments worn by women started on the hat, on the side of which at least one striking aigrette (spray of gems) was fastened. Then came two or three 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. Often the heavy fabrics used for the clothing were embroidered with gold thread. It was during this period that a spectacular form of jewelry was created 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. With its heavily bejeweled composition of scrolls, leaves, and pendants on a gold framework that followed the curves of the body, even extending under the armpits, this jewel usually contained no fewer than 50 precious stones of different sizes. A famous example is the one in emeralds from the treasure of the Virgin of Pilar, now displayed in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London.
18th century
About 1725, Brazilian diamonds in large numbers were imported into Europe, and, during the course of the century, this stone became so popular that imitations were produced. The jewelry of this period seems to have been created to glorify and exploit the cutting of diamonds and other precious stones. The dense forms of Baroque jewelry were replaced by an entirely different conception, in which 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 large number of empty spaces in the composition as well as by its lack of symmetry in many cases. Wide choker necklaces with pendants were popular, and the stomacher brooch remained in style but in a lighter, airier form. The jeweled stems of the aigrette were often made so that they could sway back and forth in order to show off the sparkle of the diamonds that covered them. The brooch in the shape of a bouquet of flowers, comprising a variety of gems, became fashionable. As in the 17th century, both men and women wore jeweled buckles on their shoes.
A piece of jewelry that was widely used for daytime wear during this century was the chatelaine, on which, together with the watchcase, goldsmiths lavished some of their most highly refined work. The chatelaine was a pendant made of jointed, embossed gold components of different shapes and sizes, with scenes and designs in elaborate frames. It was fastened by means of a hook to the belt or waistcoat pocket, and from its protruding points hung decorative chains of various lengths, on which men fastened their watches, the keys for winding them, and other accessories. Women used the chatelaine to carry keys, scissors, and other objects.
During the last 30 years of the 18th century, the great sensation caused by the archaeological discoveries in Pompeii and Herculaneum caused art forms to turn toward Classical ideals of harmony and brought about a decisive change in European tastes and decorative forms. Curved lines no longer appeared in the ornamental repertoire, the new Neoclassical style being characterized by greater simplicity, together with severity of composition. Jewelry forms, too, were influenced by decorative motifs based on Greek and Roman models, and the cameo became fashionable once again.
An English pottery manufacturer, Josiah Wedgwood, made a big contribution to the popularization of the new jewelry forms. An expert technician, he produced reproductions of classic cameos, calling upon sculptors like John Flaxman to work with him on the execution of oval, round, and octagonal plaques with figures done in relief in a white paste on a light blue, green, black, or pink background. These plaques, framed in gold, were used for all sorts of jewelry—medallions, pins, pieces of diadems, belts, bracelets, and rings.
19th century
The Industrial Revolution destroyed forever the ancient role of jewelry as a symbol of social rank. The social evolution created a market for a vast quantity of jewelry at prices the middle class could afford, and so jewelry, too, succumbed to the machine. Hundreds of different components for ornaments were produced by machines, an electric gold-plating technique was invented, metal alloys were used in place of gold and silver, and the production of imitation stones increased in both quantity and quality. Despite the growing dominance of the machine, however, the goldsmiths' technical ability remained at a high level.
The jewelry produced in the 19th century is characterized by a stylistic eclecticism that takes its inspiration from all past styles—Gothic, Renaissance, Greek, Etruscan, Roman, Rococo, Naturalistic, Moorish, and Indian, all tinged with the Sir Walter Scott–Lord Byron Romanticism of the period. The futility of transferring forms of artistic expression from an era in which they were the result of organic aesthetic development and of adopting them for objects that reflect only a gesture of romantic admiration is evident in the painting by Jacques-Louis David immortalizing Napoleon's coronation ceremony in 1804. The painting provides documentation on the precious ornaments worn by the ladies who were present. In their jewelry, the conventional, rhetorical Empire style appears as a strict, uninspired interpretation of Classical motifs, a far cry from the exquisite Neoclassicism of the 18th century.
Besides mass production, the 19th century saw the establishment of large artistic commercial firms that produced high-quality jewelry suited to the requirements of the prosperous new bourgeois class. While always satisfying very high standards in regard to technique and materials, these firms tended, from the aesthetic point of view, to reflect the tastes of a bourgeois clientele, which are usually quite traditional.
The oldest of the firms was the one founded by Peter Carl Fabergé in St. Petersburg in 1870, which took over from the firm his father had started in 1842. Fabergé attained great renown at the Universal Exposition in Paris in 1900, where for the first time he put on display all the imperial Easter eggs that he had created, together with a selection of other "luxurious objects." Fabergé used a greater variety of precious and semiprecious stones than almost any other jeweler in history. He had a strong preference for the Louis XVI style but also made numerous objects in the Italian Renaissance, Rococo, and medieval styles, as well as in the so-called old Russian style, which is a mixture of Byzantine and Baroque elements. Decoration with enameling, too, was one of the main specialties of the Fabergé firm.
In Paris in 1898 Alfred Cartier and his son Louis founded a jewelry firm of great refinement. The firm was distinguished for a production characterized by very fine settings, largely of platinum, which were designed so that only the precious stones, always selected from the very purest, were visible. At the beginning of the 20th century, Cartier was the most famous jeweler in the world, 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, one of the most original of the Art Nouveau artist-craftsmen) began producing silverware according to English "sterling" standards in New York City. In 1886 he introduced the Tiffany setting, a special type of fork for the setting of diamonds. Among his clients was U.S. Pres. Abraham Lincoln.
Other high-quality jewelry firms founded in the 19th century were Van Cleef & Arpels in Paris, Bulgari in Rome, Asprey & Company in London, Black, Starr & Frost in New York City, and Patek Philippe in Geneva.
The development of the movement called Art Nouveau at the end of the 19th century represented a reaction against the imitation of ancient styles and the emphasis given, in the creation of jewelry, to precious stones. The material used for Art Nouveau jewelry was prized not for its intrinsic value but for its ability to render a design or to carry out chromatic effects. The new jewelry was made from any material that would best express the new symbolic or decorative ideas. Vegetable and animal components, together with the feminine figure, formed the basis for compositions made of 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, René Lalique (1860–1945) achieved a position 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 compared to Renaissance jewels. They lean toward a symbolism carried out by the use of milky or watery blue-green colours; of stones such as the opal; of disquieting animals such as 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 used by Lalique to obtain pictorial and plastic effects in his jewels.
Unlike Lalique, the jewelers Georges Fouquet (1858–1929) and Henri Vever (1854–1942) expressed themselves through more synthetic geometric forms. The pendant representing a butterfly by Fouquet and the bracelet and ring for the actress Sarah Bernhardt (both in the Périnet Collection, Paris) show a carefully thought-out stylization.
The Czechoslovak graphic designer Alphonse Mucha (1860–1939), who worked in Paris, created a number of jewelry designs, transferring his brilliant talent as an illustrator to precious stones and metals.
In the United States the floral style in jewelry found one of its most highly personal interpreters in Louis Comfort Tiffany (1848–1933), one of the greatest of all American designers. In the creation of jewelry he expressed himself at first by transferring to Art Nouveau forms the colourful Asian 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 an international sensation.
20th century
The Art Nouveau movement came to an end at the beginning of World War I. The years that followed the war's end seethed with new excitement. In this new phase, the stylistic trends—particularly the nonfigurative—that began to emerge in the most advanced jewelry creations were closely linked to those of painting and sculpture. Cubism, Futurism, the abstraction of Piet Mondrian and other artists of the De Stijl group, Paul Klee's paintings, and above all the Bauhaus school (which aimed at integrating artistic disciplines with one another and with industrial techniques) provided a basis for the new forms used in avant-garde jewelry.
Compositions were based mainly on the interplay of geometric forms. Like Art Nouveau jewelry, creations of the Art Deco movement (named for the art displayed at the 1925 Paris exposition) used materials suitable for expressing the new stylistic language. Preference was given to the smooth, polished, satined surfaces of precious metals or even of steel. Diamonds and other precious stones were used sparingly, functioning largely as chromatic accents. In 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 of the nonfigurative styles.
During this period there were outstanding artist-jewelers such as Raymond Templier, Jean Fouquet, and René 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 to the art of jewelry. Some—such as Georges Braque, Jean Cocteau, Max Ernst, Jean Arp, Man Ray, Salvador Dalí, Yves Tanguy, and Jean Dubuffet—designed jewelry, while others—including Pablo Picasso, Alexander Calder, Alberto Giacometti, Gio Pomodoro—designed and made jewels.
One of the most recent developments in modern mass-produced jewelry is the use of plastic. This material, as well as providing colour, can have mineral fragments or dust embedded in it or can be used in combination with more or less valuable metals, producing pieces of jewelry whose composition may call for considerable effort and which may be of much interest.
Non-Western cultures
East Asian
Much of Chinese jewelry, of both recent and early date, displays the skill of the Chinese craftsmen, yet the work of the goldsmith or lapidary applied to personal ornament does not represent so distinct a branch of craft as it does in the West. Most of the jewelry is designed to adorn the costume rather than the person: necklaces, bracelets, and earrings are comparatively rare, headdresses and elaborate hairpins being the more common forms attached to the person. In the traditional costume of recent times, ornate hooks and buckles were used to attach girdles, and women wore strings of beads, often multiple and variously spaced, with decorative plaques and other larger ornaments interspersed. The beads might be attached to the neck, head, or waist, and their purpose was to dignify the whole figure, rather than to display the fine quality of a curiously wrought gem. In any case, the splendour of the stuff of the costume, with richly woven or embroidered ornament, provided the distinctions of rank and wealth, and jewelry was often dispensed with altogether.
In the time of the Shang dynasty, in the last centuries of the 2nd millennium bce, bone and ivory hairpins with ends carved in the form of birds or abstract figures were a popular adornment. The many finely wrought, small jade plaques of the period, depicting animals in profile, are in many cases clearly intended for sewing to the costume. The earliest evidence of gold ornaments belongs to the time about 400 bce, though these are harness mounts, or weapon parts, rather than jewelry in the usual sense. The latter is better represented by the belt hooks (said to have been adopted from the nomads of inner Asia) that were probably worn by both men and women. They were mostly made of bronze, with fine cast ornaments usually of abstracted dragon and bird heads. These belt hooks were inlaid with gold or silver foil, polished fragments of turquoise, or more rarely with jade or glass; sometimes they were gilded.
Toward the end of the Han dynasty, probably not before the later 2nd century ce, the art of granulation was communicated to China from the Hellenized region of the Black Sea coast. Granulation can be traced in China until about the 10th century ce, its discontinuation in the East curiously coinciding with the loss of the technique in the West. Granulation was combined with filigree, and hairpins, combs, earrings, and costume plaques survive in some quantity, particularly from the richly furnished tombs of the Tang dynasty (618–907 ce). There are plaques with birds and flowers delineated by soldered wire, inlaid with turquoise, on a ground of fine granulation that appears like a dust of gold.
The employment of the repoussé technique in gold and silver, particularly on the heads of combs, can be attributed to the Tang period but became more common in the Song dynasty (960–1279 ce). Meanwhile, hairpins of filigree, with heads shaped as butterflies or flowers, sometimes with pearls or small jade additions, continued the age-old fashion. A scented hairpin takes the place of the scarf or ring of European romance. They were called pu yao ("shaking while walking") and were loosely made so as to sway when the wearer moved. Gilded bronze and silver were the principal materials. There are accounts of elaborate headdresses, some no doubt of the kind representing a complete phoenix such as are to be seen on clay tomb statuettes of the Tang period, but no surviving examples of these can be attributed with certainty to the Song period. Jade ornaments during this period were still attached to the costume.
Jewelry survives in greater quantity from the Ming dynasty (1368–1644 ce) and gives an impression of greater taste for elaborate figural and floral designs in high repoussé relief and for the effect of semiprecious stones, which were prized for their colour. They are never elaborately faceted, being simply ground flat and beveled at the edge for the most part, and are set nearly always en cabochon, with little polishing, sometimes even retaining the irregularities of the pebble. The stones are invariably semiprecious: amethyst, agate, chalcedony, pink and other quartzes, and jade. Until modern times, this last has been the most admired of the stones, especially the white variety, which was used for spacers and linking pieces in the silk and beaded hangings of elaborate costumes. The plaques of silver repoussé with flowers and scenes of people were probably used only by men as belt ornaments. Apart from the signet ring, the use of which may not go back beyond Ming times, the male could affect jewelry only in his accoutrement.
From as early as 1000 bce until the 6th century ce, Japanese jewelry primarily consisted of comma-shaped objects—not usually more than an inch in length—carved initially of green jade and eventually of glass. Called magatama, these beads or pendants were sometimes pierced to be strung in a necklace. The symbolic meaning of the magatama, which were often placed in tombs, can only be guessed at. Similar beads also were popular in Korea from the 3rd to the 6th century ce.
In historical times, traditional Japanese costume, male and female, has never allowed the use of ornaments of precious metal or stone, so that nothing in the history of Japanese craft and taste corresponds to the jeweler's work of the West. Hairpins with elaborate heads were increasingly used in the Tokugawa (Edo) period (1603–1868) by women of the geisha and courtesan classes but not by women of other classes. In the same period, men were permitted the use of the inrō, a small tiered box for tobacco, medicines, confections, and the like, which might be beautifully painted in lacquer and inlaid with mother-of-pearl or precious metal, often in strikingly naturalistic designs. The ivory girdle toggle called netsuke, always delicately and often intriguingly carved, was the only other personal ornament that usage allowed.
The Indian subcontinent consists of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka, but at various times in history its domain had spread to include the neighbouring countries of Nepal and Myanmar (Burma) and parts of Afghanistan as well. Although there is some early archaeological evidence of rings, bracelets, and other types of jewelry from this region, most information on Indian jewelry comes from secondary sources such as sculpture and painting.
The area's earliest known urban civilization is called the Indus, or (after an important archaeological site) Harappan, civilization. It is dated roughly from 2300 to 1750 bce. From this period can be attributed a graceful bronze statue representing a nude dancer. The dancer's hair is braided and decorated, and she wears a necklace with three pendants. Her left arm is fully covered by armlets, and her right arm has an armlet at the elbow and another one near the wrist. This absolutely outstanding specimen provides documentation for the early establishment of the Indian practice of wearing multiple bangle bracelets. However, no other actual documentation of the way the pieces were worn is available for this period.
Bronze, stone, and ivory sculptures have been discovered dating from the 2nd century bce onward. These include two female figures found in Bharhut. The statues are mostly nude but wear veils on their heads and many different kinds of jewelry: hair ornaments, earrings, necklaces with round and cylindrical beads, chains, belts, coiled ankle bracelets, arm bracelets, and arm rings.
Extensive documentation on jewels from the 4th–5th century ce is provided by Buddhist statues and the cycles of wall paintings in the Ajanta Caves. Although certainly not the only source for the representation of jewelry, the Ajanta site is one of the most extensive and best preserved. The great variety of types of jewelry depicted and the dominance of polychromy indicate the high degree of development attained by the art of jewelry making.
The lavish use of polychrome jewelry was possible because of the ancient practice of pearl diving and because of the wealth and variety of deposits of precious and semiprecious stones to be found in India and the neighbouring countries of Sri Lanka, Thailand, and Myanmar. This situation of plenty, in combination with a favourable climate, helped goldsmiths and jewelers to proliferate and spread. The jewelers were exceptionally skilled craftsmen, but they left no records of their names.
In the Indus areas and in those under their influence, the setting, polishing, and piercing of precious and semiprecious stones underwent precocious evolution. Stonecutting was used throughout India, but it was generally considered preferable not to decrease the size of the stone. In examples of existing jewelry from later periods, gems were mostly polished but not cut. In general, there was a preference for a many-hued rich effect. Polychromy was related not only to India's rich resources but to the religious symbolism of gems and their arrangement.
During the Mughal Empire (1526–1761), rich rajas adorned themselves with jewels—on their turbans, on their ears, around their necks, inserted in their nostrils and between their teeth. The precious objects worn by women had great variety. For the head, women wore golden wreaths, large brooches, bands of gold leaves with a star in the middle set with gems, braids to be placed along the part in the hair, and tiaras in complicated shapes complete with many tinkling pendants. Some Indian women wore a jewel on the forehead or pierced the nose in order to wear a jewel in the left nostril. A variety of forms were used for earrings, in which pearls, filigree, gems, and coral appeared in floral compositions with contrasting colours. Lotus leaves made of gold sheet were worn at the nape of the neck with bunches of gold flowers next to them. Necklaces were worn in multiples and in many lengths, sometimes reaching the navel. Some necklaces were made of a combination of precious stones and pearls, while others were made of amulets in various shapes. A very early type of Hindu amulet called a nauratan was made of a gold plaque with nine precious stones fastened above it. A series of nauratans could be used to form a necklace. Jeweled belts followed the shape of the body and often had extra pieces that reached up to the neck or down to the bracelets worn around the thigh. Ankle bracelets were often linked by tiny decorative chains running down the instep to the rings on the toes.
Jewelry continued to play an important role in modern Indian dress. In the early 20th century the manufacture of synthetic gemstones grew quickly, providing traditional jewelry at more affordable prices for a larger market.
Southeast Asian
There is a long gold-working tradition among the peoples of Southeast Asia, whose jewelry shows evidence of Tibetan, Chinese, and Indian stylistic influence. The areas in which personal ornamentation with precious objects underwent the greatest development were Myanmar (Burma), Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam. Myanmar jewels are outstanding for the beauty of their designs and for the technical accomplishment of their workmanship. Typical of them are the conical headdress, reflecting the traditional architectural form of the stupa (Buddhist shrine), and the bejeweled rigid shoulder decorations with a raised line similar to that of pagoda roofs, worn by dancers in addition to arm and ankle bracelets, belts, and brooches made of gold and coloured stones. Although it has its own distinct characteristics, Myanmar jewelry was influenced by Indian styles, especially in regard to a taste for the overall effect—focusing on the entire composition of a piece rather than on each single jewel.
Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam were subject to greater Chinese influence because of their geographic position. In these areas, too, the principal documentation for the period when precious ornamentation experienced its most flourishing development is to be found in Buddhist sculpture. The outstanding forms of expression in the art of jewelry were thus linked to religious rites, contributing to the glorification of the figures worshiped by the cult.
It is to the Scythians, a seminomadic people from the Eurasian steppes who moved out from southern Russia into the territory between the Don and the Danube and then into Mesopotamia, that we owe a type of gold production which, on the basis of its themes, is classified today as animal style. During the early period (5th–4th century bce), this style appeared on shaped, pierced plaques made of gold and silver, which showed running or fighting animals (reindeer, lions, tigers, horses) alone or in pairs facing each other, embossed with powerful plasticity and free interpretation of the forms. The animal style had a strong influence in western Asia during the 7th century bce. Such ornaments as necklaces, bracelets, pectorals, diadems, and earrings making up the Ziwiye treasure (discovered in Iran near the border between Kurdistan and Azerbaijan) provide evidence of this Asiatic phase of Scythian gold-working art. The ornaments are characterized by highly expressive animal forms. This Central Asian Scythian-Iranian style passed by way of Phoenician trading in the 8th century bce into the Mediterranean and into Western jewelry.
Personal decoration in African cultures usually consists of modest though eye-catching material. Silver was the metal most commonly worked, especially in the northern coastal territories, and some forms used for ornaments were derived from the art of Islam. Decoration appears on objects such as bracelets, necklaces, rings, brooches, earrings, and belt buckles, and the techniques include embossing, filigree, and the insertion of coins or semiprecious stones that had been simply polished.
Regions such as Ethiopia, the Sudan, and the Bantu territory, partly because of their Egyptian-Nubian and Arabian origins and partly because they were the centres of a flourishing gold trade, developed a gold-working activity of fairly high quality, which was devoted mainly to the production of objects for the courts and for religious ceremonial use. These regions also were devoted to the production of personal ornaments such as embossed plaques, rings, necklaces, and tiaras.
The same observations hold true for the Ashanti culture in Ghana, from which there is a large collection of gold jewelry in the British Museum in London. The local chieftain of each Ashanti tribe had a private workshop for gold jewelry in his small court. In the 18th and 19th centuries the most magnificent court was that of the Asantehene (king of the united Ashanti state) in Kumasi, the Ashanti capital on the Gold Coast. A widely used object was the emblem of the "bearer of souls," a decorated disk that, together with other insignia, was borne by the king's pages. On the back of the disk was a little tube through which a gold wire or cord was run. The decoration of these disks consisted of a mixture of separate and varied embossed radial or spiral motifs, derived from sources in North Africa and Europe, which suggests a long history of transcultural communication and exchange. Rigid necklaces also were in use, as were rings, which instead of the bezel had fully sculptured figures of animals.
In the past the sandy dunes of Senegal provided alluvial soil from which the natives obtained much gold. There, as in other parts of Africa, the metal that was not exported was used to make ornaments for the tribal chieftains. These were very elaborate objects with complicated decorative motifs worked in embossing or punched freehand. The objects were characterized by the repetition of the designs used and by protruding hemispheres that were smooth or decorated, according to their size.
In these regions, where the making of jewelry was directly dependent on what was obtained from local deposits, gold was the only material used. Some decoration was taken from imported models or introduced directly by European goldsmiths and persisted as a repertoire with a tendency toward ever greater repetition.
American Indian
Central and South American: pre-Columbian
The ancient peoples located in the region near the northern Andes (including Peru, Colombia, Ecuador, and Venezuela) achieved a high degree of artistic evolution. Gold mines were abundant in this area, and the goldsmith's art was highly developed. The gold was worked not only by itself but also in alloys with copper, silver, and other metals. The oldest surviving products, attributed to the Chavín culture in Peru, date to as early as 1000 bce. The subsequent Moche culture (c. 400 bce–500 ce) and the Nazca culture (both in Peru) also produced gold ornaments of high technical quality.
By the time Spanish explorers reached the region in the 16th century, they were astounded at the wealth and magnificence of the then-flourishing Inca empire. Unfortunately, the Spanish melted down most of the gold objects they found. Many examples remain, however—most of them discovered in graves. Study of these materials has revealed that there were several different centres of production and local styles.
The richest gold and mineral deposits, which are still productive, were those in Colombia. It is not possible to establish definite dates for jewelry from Colombia and Ecuador, but an approximate chronology indicates the San Augustin zone as the oldest, followed by Chitcha. In the latter area, the "Quimbaya treasure" and objects from the upper Cauca River (Calima style) represent jewelry of the greatest importance and magnificence. Other significant centres in Colombia include the Muisca region; Calima, famous for its breastplates, tiaras, and brooches; and Tolima. Although not strictly part of the Andes region, the Coclé region in Panama was strongly influenced by the Quimbaya style. It is particularly known for its striking gold pieces set with precious stones, including emeralds, quartzes, jaspers, opals, agates, and green serpentines.
In the civilizations of the Andes, gold was lavishly used on clothes. About 13,000 pieces of gold were found sewn into a single poncho from Chimú, Peru. On certain occasions the priests wore tunics made entirely of braided gold sheet applied to the cloth. One of the commonest ornaments worn by important personages and warriors was the nariguera, a gold ornament that was hooked to the nostrils and might be in the shape of a simple ring, a laminated disk, or an upside-down fan decorated with pierced work. The elite also wore pendants depicting gods or animals.
The most adorned and decorated section of the body was the head. Although gold and other precious metals were components of these ornaments, feathers and other brightly coloured materials were the most important features—the more elaborate the trimmings, the higher the social rank and class of the wearer. Examples of such headdresses can be seen in the great sculptured reliefs found in some ceremonial places.
Rings were rather rare, but there are necklaces with a seashell motif in different shapes arranged one after the other and necklaces with other stylized zoomorphic forms that are all alike. One of the most outstanding of these necklaces is from Chimú. It is composed of a row of gold beads to which are attached eight similar figures of a deity in a ritual pose (1100–1200).
Outstanding artistic development during the pre-Columbian era also took place in the region known as Mesoamerica (including about half of present-day Mexico, all of Guatemala and Belize, and parts of Honduras and El Salvador). When the Spanish reached this area in the early 1500s, they found magnificent monuments, which had been partly invaded and destroyed by woods and brush, but extremely few and scattered people. The reasons that induced the early inhabitants to abandon those places are still unknown, and many potentially illuminating written documents were destroyed by the Spanish. Nevertheless, historical research has determined that the region was inhabited from about 1500 bce first by the Olmec, then by the Maya, Mixtec, and other groups, and eventually—and until the time of the Spanish conquest—by the Aztec.
Only a few examples of jewelry from this region survive, namely some finely carved jades, which apparently were considered more precious than gold. Works of the goldsmiths' art are rare, although of a high quality. A few examples owned by the Museum of the American Indian in New York City are noteworthy, especially a Mixtec necklace that proves the high degree of technical skill attained. The necklace is composed of 40 small segments in the form of a tortoise's back, and from each segment hang three drop pendants.
Mixtec graves have yielded outstanding examples of objects such as gold pendants, jewels combined with turquoise mosaic, and quartz ear spools. The few examples that remain from the Aztec period suggest the stylistic influence of the Andes region. Of the decorative animal motifs, the most frequent is the serpent; of the ornamental motifs, the spheroid, disk, and sphere. Probably because the Mesoamerican area was poor in gold, objects made of this material date from about 1,000 years after those from the Andes (c. 14th century bce).
It is thought that ornamental objects in precious materials from the pre-Columbian civilizations, especially the older ones, had some religious function in addition to being used in burial rites. Stylistically, pre-Columbian objects show an unusual amount of charming expressiveness. Symbolic concepts were transferred from stone and pottery to gold through transfigurations that enhanced the plasticity of the forms, displaying at the same time an awareness of structure and of compositional rhythms that forms the main appeal of these objects.
North American
The diverse forms taken by personal ornamentation are related to the type of life led by the numerous ethnic and tribal groups scattered throughout the vast American territory. Some tribes, whose social organization permitted them to settle in one place for long periods of time, experienced the consequent changes of religious and artistic activities.
On the basis of archaeological finds, North American Indian territory was divided culturally into the following broad areas: the eastern forests, which includes the Great Lakes region and Florida, east of the Mississippi; the Great Plains, including the central part of the continent between the eastern forests and the Rocky Mountains; the Southwest, which corresponds to what are now the states of Arizona, New Mexico, southeastern Utah, and southern Colorado; the northwestern coast, from the bay of Yakutat in Alaska to the mouth of the Columbia River; and California, in the area included between the northwestern coast and the southwestern cultures.
The Great Plains and California produced no precious jewelry. Rather, the artistic production of the Great Plains involved primarily the decoration of clothing with leather and beadwork, and the forms of artistic expression from tribes of California were associated with perishable materials.
Personal ornamentation in all the native cultures of North America shows no connection with the pre-Columbian cultures of Central and South America. One of the most striking differences between the two is that in North America copper was much more frequently used than gold. In some parts of North America this metal may have been used before its use became known in the Western world, and at that distant time it was valued like gold.
As far back as the Archaic period, the practice of decorating shells with carving or champlevé enamel work was widespread. Feathers and turquoise (used for mosaic) complete the list of precious materials American Indians used for personal ornamentation.
On the whole, in their limited diversity, forms of artistic expression became traditional for particular cultures and were perpetuated by them. Even today, attempts are still being made to keep them alive.
In the southwestern cultural area the first objects used for personal ornamentation go back to the first half of the 1st millennium ce and consist of bracelets made from a shell carved in the shape of a frog, exquisitely sculptured in miniature; zoomorphic subjects on auricular disks; rings with bird and snake motifs in pierced work; and other shell jewelry covered with turquoise mosaics.
The Pueblo and Navajo tribes, which were part of the southwestern cultural area, made beautiful necklaces and pendants from turquoise mosaics, shells, and coral. The Pueblo Bonito discoveries document this activity from pre-Columbian times. At the beginning of the second half of the 19th century, the Navajo learned to work silver from Mexican craftsmen and developed this skill with great ability, reworking motifs of Spanish American origin in their traditional style.
In the Great Lakes region, where the Woodland culture was located, archaeological research has demonstrated the presence of copper ornaments as early as the 5th millennium bce. These consist of necklace beads formed of thin, narrow metal strips and of sheet metal in the shape of fish. The Hopewell finds include bobbin-shaped copper earrings and engraved sheets of silver, dated between 200 bce and 400 ce, together with ornaments that were sewn into clothing or inserted in headdresses. From the Mississippian Period there are pieces of embossed copper sheet and breastplates, disks, and plaques made of copper and shell with a wealth of engraved ornamental motifs, such as birds, Sun symbols, isolated heads, human skulls, eagles, rattlesnakes, hands with outspread fingers and an eye designed on the palm, crosses, and figures of warriors.
Beginning in the 17th century, the Seneca, Cayuga, Onondaga, and Iroquois tribes in the New York state region hammered, shaped, and cut European silver coins to be used for jewelry of all kinds. Also worthy of note among the Iroquois are bone combs with handles carved in zoomorphic shapes.
In the culture of the Indians on the northwest coast, the influence of Arctic and even of Asiatic peoples can be observed. Persons of very high rank wore a characteristic type of headdress, which was made of wood, in a conical shape with wide brim, surmounted by sculptured human and animal figures. Another type was shaped like a crown or diadem with a rectangular plaque worked in relief placed in the middle of a leather forehead band from which ermine tails and bunches of sea-lion bristles stuck out. The sculpturing on these plaques is highly refined, and the rich shell inlay with which they are decorated makes them look like jewels. The engraving on combs is also outstanding.
The sculptural style peculiar to this culture is characterized by a conventional, formal naturalism that is extremely vigorous and dynamic. Often the same object combines parts that are fully sculptured with parts in low relief, and the depth of the carving may vary greatly.
Objects called copper coins, symbols of maximum power and wealth, were in the form of a shield made of copper sheet in a standardized shape (trapezoidal above and rectangular below). The upper half was taken up by a design such as a head worked in engraving or embossing.
During the 16th century, European conquest and rule of the American continent interrupted production of the arts among the natives, who were forced to live under conditions that were far from favourable to the continuation of traditional artistic activities.Guido Gregorietti The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
Learn More in these related Britannica articles:
Egyptian art and architecture: JewelryGold provided Egyptian jewelry with its richness; it was used for settings, cloisonné work, chains, and beads, both solid and hollow. Soldering, granulation, and wire making were practiced. Precious stones were not used, but a wide range of semiprecious stones was exploited: carnelian, amethyst,…
history of Europe: The people of the Metal AgesMetal attachments became less common, but the fibula (a brooch resembling a safety pin) replaced the pin, and it became an object of fashion widely adopted and undergoing much regional development and elaboration.…
metalwork: Gold and silverJewelry from the later periods employs precious stones, pearls, gold, and silver in great variety. The old types are repeated, with symmetrical arrangements of rosettes and leaves for bracelets, necklaces, pendants, rings, and foot ornaments. Very fine work in silver filigree was executed at Cuttack…
dress: Ancient EgyptInstead, colour was provided by jewelry, in which semiprecious stones were widely incorporated. Among the most common types, the characteristic deep, decorative collar, worn by both sexes, was introduced early. These brightly hued bands were made of embroidered and beaded materials and set around the neck and shoulders either on…
dress: Sumptuary laws…silk, cloth of silver, chains, jewels, or buttons (which were then made of expensive materials or gems). They were not to wear the short coats or tunics worn by noblemen. Carters, plowmen, shepherds, oxherds, cowherds, swineherds, dairymen, and farm labourers were to wear only russet cloth at a shilling a…
More About Jewelry22 references found in Britannica articles
Assorted References
- development in Aegean civilizations
- African art
- ancient European art
- buttons
- In button
- Central Asian decorations
- dress


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As Mitt Romney sharpens his attacks on President Barack Obama's foreign policy, the Romney campaign faces its own backlash on the same front, with some in his own party accusing him of a neoconservative agenda. Former U.S. Ambassador and GOP presidential candidate Jon Huntsman discusses.
Former GOP presidential candidate Jon Huntsman re-affirmed his support for Mitt Romney on Friday, saying he plans to vote in November for the Republican presidential nominee.
"I support Mitt Romney," Huntsman, a former Utah governor and ambassador to China for President Barack Obama, told NBC's Andrea Mitchell in an interview this afternoon.
Romney and Huntsman hail from two of the most prominent Mormon political and business families in the country, and have long been considered rivals.
Perhaps underscoring that rivalry, when asked whether he's talked recently with Romney, Huntsman responded: "I don't ever talk to him."

subset: commoncrawl


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Car Hire Destinations in Russia
Car Hire Location in Russia
Nov 21, 2013
British Car Hire. Car Hire Location in Russia
Renting a car in Moscow - Airport Sheremeyevo is easy and secure through topgearcarhire.com .
Retype the city name to view more offices
Whether you use Moscow - Airport Sheremeyevo for a holiday or a business trip, you can always use our online car rental service even if you are on the go with our FREE iPhone/iPad APP.
With this app you can book while you are away and you can see exactly where our nearest rental suppliers is in relation to you.
Renting a car online is the way to get the best/lowest prices.
With a search at topgearcarhire.com all major and local car suppliers will be compared, in seconds, all on one website. There is no need to look any further.
One Way car hire allows you to pick your car up at Moscow - Airport Sheremeyevo and deliver your car to another location, for example, Moscow - Airport Domodedovo (DME).
On our website you can add additional drivers, child seats, insurance deductibles and navigation system (satnav). The extra insurance also covers the tires, roof, undercarriage and the loss of keys.
Moscow - Airport Sheremeyevo is one of the many locations in Russia where topgearcarhire provides this service. You can find Top Gear Car hire locations at airports, train stations, hotels and cities.
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Author Notes: Early in the week, I knew I wanted to combine coffee and orange. Yesterday, after sitting in my fridge defrosting for a day and a half, my whole chicken whispered to me "it's now or never." Since it was Wednesday, I did not have time for an overnight brine, so turned to Michael Ruhlman's quick brine. Substituting hot, freshly brewed coffee for water, I added cloves, star anise, whole black pepper and fresh oranges to the brine. Okay, brine finished, now how to proceed? A while back, I adapted Jamie Oliver's Chicken in Milk recipe and remembered how incredibly tender the finished chicken turned out. This time, with the coffee brine, cooking the chicken in milk seemed to make sense, and just to round out the coffee-milk pair, I rubbed the brined chicken in brown sugar before browning in a little butter. I was curious to see how it would turn out, and frankly a little nervous. When I took the chicken out at midnight, after an hour and forty minutes, the chicken was dark, splitting and sitting in a pool of rich sauce. Although not the prettiest bird I've ever seen to come forth from the oven, it was rich and flavorful, extremely tender (falling off the bone!) with sweet and smoky undertones. - gingerroot
Food52 Review: We nicknamed this recipe "Breakfast Chicken," since it includes all three arms of the morning triumvirate: coffee, orange juice and milk. Like pork braised in milk, gingerroot's roast chicken emerges from the pot tender and melting, and it has a beautiful burnished exterior wherever the skin hasn't been submerged in the liquid. The spiced coffee and orange brine infuses the meat with a smoky fragance -- the flavor is subtle but discernable, and unlike anything we can recall. - A&M —The Editors
Serves: 4
For the Chicken
4 -5 lb whole organic chicken
2 1/2
tablespoons brown sugar
1 1/2
tablespoons unsalted butter
cups 1% milk
For the Coffee brine
liter hot, freshly brewed bold coffee
ounces kosher salt
teaspoons whole black peppercorn
star anise
teaspoon whole cloves
juicy navel oranges, halved
ounces ice
- Combine salt, peppercorns, star anise, and cloves in a small pot. Lightly crush spices with the back of a large spoon. Squeeze orange halves over mixture, and then add halves. Pour hot coffee over mixture, stir and cover pot with lid. Allow brine to steep for ten minutes.
- Meanwhile, pat chicken dry, removing giblets and neck. Place chicken in a 2 gallon sized zip lock or other plastic bag.
- Place the ice in a large bowl. Add coffee brine and stir until ice melts. Pour brine in bag with chicken (including oranges), seal and allow mixture to sit at room temperature for two to three hours. Then pat chicken dry and let it dry out for an hour in a bowl placed in the refrigerator.
- Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.
- Remove chicken from refrigerator, pat dry and rub both sides with brown sugar.
- Heat butter in a Dutch oven over medium heat, brown chicken on both sides. Add milk, cover, and transfer to oven. Cook for an hour with the lid. Remove lid. Continue to cook for another 30-40 minutes, or until internal temperature of chicken is 165 degrees.
- Pull meat off the bones and serve with wilted greens and rice. Be sure to spoon some of the sauce over the meat, if desired.
- Your Best Recipe with Coffee Contest Winner!
- This recipe is a Community Pick!
More Great Recipes:
Anise|Chicken|Clove|Coffee|Milk/Cream|Make Ahead|One-Pot Wonders|Slow Cook|Gluten-Free|Entree


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IBelieveInYou wrote:I'm in terrible need of a beta reader at the moment, as I'm feeling extremely self conscious of my story, and it would help me a lot. Of course my grammar and syntax need more help than anything, as I'm not a native English speaker, but I am painfully worried for my characterizations. The only problem is that my fic is modern AU therefore I'm not sure if someone would like to beta it. I have the first few chapters written. It would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.
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Circle and Light
Scorhill stone circle at sunrise with the clouds brilliantly reflecting the early morning sun. Scorhill stone circle is located in Dartmoor national park near Frenchbeer, a settlement in Devon, England.
Wrecked Beach
Wreck at Crow Point in Northern Devon
Collecting Sand
A copper container washed up on the beach near the wreck at Crow Point in Northern Devon, UK
Smiling young goat
Valley of the Rocks Sunrise
Sunrise along the coastal path near the valley of the Rocks in Exmoor National Park
3 lambs sitting in the morning sun
Worn and weathered
What is left of a wooden breaker worn by the sea an other elements on the northern coast of Somerset near Porlock Wear, UK
Cleeve Abbey
Cleeve Abbey entrance gate
Yong lambs near thier mother on a farm in Somerset
Breaker Decay
Dunster Beach Sunrise
Engine House
Burrow Farm Engine House, An engine house for a Cornish pumping engine, built approximately 1860 at Burrow Farm Mine by Henry Skewis, Mines Captain. It has an associated drying shed to the west, used for drying miners' clothing.
Burrow Farm Engine House
Tarr Steps
This is the Tarr Steps in Exmoor National Park in early spring
Fuzzy Friend
One of the fuzzyer Dartmoor Ponies with it's mane blowing in the wind. This pony was near the Towlesworthy tors
Brentor Frame
Framing Brentor Church in the bushes
Over the valley
Horse looking toward the Brentor church as it moves to another grazing location.
Pony Profile
This horse just wanted to get a close look at me and came closer and closer allowing me to capture a nice portrait lite by the afternoon sun.
Stare down
A white horse on Dartmoor getting closer and closer...
Posing Pony
A Dartmoor pony with the backdrop of Dartmoor's hedge rows and granite topped tors.
Brentor Pano
A very scenic church sat on top of a hill overlooking the English countryside. Brentor Church or the 13th Century Church of Saint Michael De Rupe is on the western edge of Dartmoor in Devon, England.
Boathouse on the banks
Shortly after dawn as the sun illuminates the old quaint boathouse and the surrounding coutryside. The boathouse sits along side the river Avon near the village of Bantham along Englands southern coast.
Sun kissed Arch
Early morning on a quite beach as the sun starts to illuminate the cliff tops, buildings, and arch. This is South Milton Sands and Thurlstone Arch/Rock, near the village of Thurlston in the southern part of Devon, England
Emo Ponies
Pony Pose
Two Dartmoor ponies standing soaking up the morning sun to warm up from a cold evening.
Sunrise at Sharp Tor
A hazey morning from the sea mist capturing the rocks stacks of the tor and pink clouds rising above.
Milkyway over the Great Links Tor
Early morning in Dartmoor national park in England to capture stars along with the nebulae of the milkyway galaxy. Great Links Tor is on towards the edge of the darkest area's in Dartmoor to increase the chances in capturing the milyway.
Double take
Two Dartmoor ponies standing in the dry grass making sure I'm no threat
Staple Tor Sun Kissed
The mornig sun hitting the great staple tor looking south twoard the other staple tors.
Sunrise at Staple Tor
Early morning just before dawn on a late winter morning in Dartmoor National Park. This picture is a combination of 3 images taken with a 24 mm tilt shift lens, shifting the lens to capture each image. After merging the pano, only basic level adjustments within lightroom were made to produce the final photo.
Posing Horse near Haytor
Horse grazing west of Haytor stands nice and still for me to take a picture of it.
Horses standing in opposite directions near Haytor
A couple horses soaking up the sunlight
Black and White Close up of a dark horse
Getting close enough to a horse to his shadows reflection in his eye
Horse sunning itself in the morning sunlight
At the start of a hike a few horses where grazing and basking in the sunlight
Profile of a horse on Dartmoor
Horses grazing near Hunters Tor in Dartmoor National Park.
Black and White Horse on Dartmoor
Windswept horse on Dartmoor
Setting sun over the Frenchbeer reservoir
On the south bank of the Frenchbeer reservoir watching the sun set
Black and White silhouette of a tree in the Frenchbeer reservoir
Long exposure looking into the sun on the north side of the reservoir
Autumn colors line the shores of the River Teign
A river of color as the Fall leaves reflect onto the water below
Single yellow leaf in the River Teign
Found a nice yellow maple leaf (I think) floating near the shore of the River Teign
Singing European Robin
Capture the European robin mid song as it looks kind of like the it's shouting at me not to take it's picture.
Spider hanging in it's web
Spider hanging upside down over a flowering plant
Postbridge Clapper Bridge from middle of the East Dart River
The only clapper bridge over the East Dart River
Postbridge bridge from the Postbridge Clapper Bridge
The main bridge at Postbridge
Dartmoor National Park at dusk around Haytor
A lone tree near Haytor as the light fades away from the day
Haytor Silhouette at Dusk
After the sunset the clouds in the upper atmosphere start to change colors
©Tim Crabb Photography • all rights reserved
timcrabb.com201603Exmoor00612395Agricultural buildingBabyDevonDevonshireEnglandEuropeEuropeanFarmNatureSomersetUnited KingdomWildlifeanimalsbabiesfamilygrazegrazinglamblambslivestocklookingnaturalsheepspringstandingwoolwoollenwoollyyoung
From Wildlife


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The last "real" Jaguar.
The XK is now the oldest vehicle in the Jaguar line and is certainly the most traditional-looking — the styling harks back to the 1998 XK8. Still, the car hardly feels like a stodgy old-timer. Its sonorous 5.0-liter V-8s, regardless of power output, respond instantly to the tap of the gas pedal. The interior, restyled a few years ago, closely follows the modern aesthetic of the XF and the XJ. The XK was the last Jag to abandon the old-school J-gate shifter for a rotary shifter. Subtle design tweaks have made the XK more aggressive-looking without robbing it of its clean elegance. The XKR-S, new for 2012, is the most powerful Jaguar you can buy, and it handily outguns the likes of the Porsche 911 Turbo S. This year, its aggressive suspension tuning trickles down to other XKs in the form of an option package. But the XK, regardless of trim, is not as sharp as the best sports cars and, in convertible form, doesn't always feel rigid enough. The XK faces new internal competition from the smaller, cheaper, more sporting F-type that joins the lineup in the spring. Even so, the XK's blend of comfort and capability should still please many buyers.
BMW 6-series
Chevrolet Corvette
Porsche 911
new for 2013
The suspension tuning from the XKR-S is now available as an option for all models. Twenty-inch wheels are now standard.
Front, side, and side curtain air bags; ABS; traction and stability control; and tire-pressure monitoring are standard.
Intoxicating exhaust note
Excellent chassis
Mind-reading six-speed auto
Looks older than it is
Rear seats are useless even by sports car standards
Base Price Range: $79,875–$138,875
DRIVE: Rear-wheel
BODY STYLES: Coupe, convertible, 2+2-passenger
ENGINES: 5.0L V-8, 385/550 hp, 380/502 lb-ft
5.0L supercharged V-8, 510 hp, 461 lb-ft
TRANSMISSION: 6-speed automatic
CARGO SPACE: (coupe) 11.7 cu ft; (convertible, top up/down) 11.1/7.1 cu ft


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The new SoC is the BCM2837, a quad-core 1.2GHz 64-bit ARMv8-A Cortex-A53 (up from a quad-core 900 MHz ARMv7 in the Pi 2).
Also the VideoCore is now clocked at 400MHz for video processing (up from 250MHz) and the 3D graphics processor running at 300MHz (up from 250MHz).
One of the most welcome changes is the addition of onboard WiFi and Bluetooth. The WiFi is compatible with 2.4GHz 802.11 b/g/n networks and the Bluetooth 4.1 supports BLE (Bluetooth Low Energy) both are supplied by the BCM43438.
Other components are (sadly), pretty much the same as the Pi 2. 1Gb RAM, 4 USB 2.0 ports, 10/100 ethernet, HDMI port, 3.5mm analog audio and composite video jack, CSI and DSI connectors for cameras and displays, microSD slot and the same 40 GPIO pins.
A new kernel with WiFi/Bluetooth drivers is already available and at the moment the Raspberry Pi Foundation are evaluating if porting to 64bit the official NOOB OS.
New Raspberry Pi 3 on RPiTC:
- Compared with the base Raspberry Pi 2 the CPU is running at a 33% faster clock rate (1.2GHz vs 0.9GHz) the more modern core also means a more efficient instruction set (especially when performing operations on 64-bit values). I don't know if is possible to overclock the new CPU like the old Pi1/Pi2 so compared to the standard RPiTC2 v1.99 the difference in clock is just 0.1Ghz.
- VideoCore and VP higher clock will not give any performance boost to our RPiTC.
- Integrated WiFi is a good news, we spare a USB port :)
- Bluetooth is also a good addition, can't live without my all-in-one keyboard+trackpad combo :)
- 1Gb RAM is enought for RPiTC, we didn't need more in most configurations (browser like iceweasel/chromium will still suffer a lot...)
- USB 2.0 ports hub has been improved, now some power hungry devices will work, but still v2.0 not v3.0
- 10/100 ethernet, no Geth, really? Well...
Last RPiTC2 v1.99 will partially work in the new Raspberry Pi3 board. Ill release (in two weeks) a new RPiTC3 ready version fully compatible with Pi2 and Pi3. In the meanwhile if you want to test the new Pi3 with RPiTC2 you have to manually update the Kernel and the blobs files.
I have no plan to create a 64bit RPiTC OS version, at the moment most TC related client are ARMv7 only.
Here some benchmarks:


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January 13, 2011 to February 28, 2011 – California As part of a statewide initiative to create a green workforce, Efficiency First has selected CleanEdison to provide training through a grant from the State of California Clean Energy Workforce Traini… Organized by Ryan Williams | Type: bpi, leed
January 22, 2011 at 6pm to January 31, 2011 at 7pm – Anywhere in the United States Energy Audit Training Centers Organized by Jeff Rogers | Type: bpi, online, training
January 24, 2011 to January 28, 2011 – Tucson, AZ Come to sunny southern Arizona in January! BPI training affiliates' American Infrared Consultants will offer our 5 day Building Analyst course the last week of January. This class will be held in ou… Organized by Jerry Lawrence | Type: classroom, and, field, training
January 24, 2011 at 8:30am to January 28, 2011 at 5pm – Western Massachusetts CET's BPI Building Analyst class is a five-day intensive preparation to take BPI's written test and field exam. The training provides an overview of basic building science concepts, combustion safety… Organized by Lisa Karlin | Type: training
January 25, 2011 to January 27, 2011 – Charlotte, NC Registration Form The Air Barrier Association of America invites you to join the hundreds of installers and contractors who are improving the quality of commercial building envelopes. The next SPF In… Organized by Lori Flood | Type: installer, training, course, for, abaa, certification
© 2019 Created by Building Performance Association Powered by


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Penny Martin
Penny Martin is Editor in Chief of The Gentlewoman magazine, before which she was Chair of Fashion Imagery at London College of Fashion, University of the Arts London from 2008–11, and Editor in Chief of SHOWstudio from 2001–08. Penny has lectured internationally, has served on numerous arts juries and has curated numerous exhibitions. She contributes to many magazines including Fantastic Man and W.
- Penny Martin presents a live stream.
- Penny Martin posts an article.
- Penny Martin creates a blog post.
- Penny Martin posts an article.