By long established custom, watches and the higher grade of clocks form part of the jeweller’s stock, and he sells a few other articles of utility, such as purses and bags, but to all intents and purposes he shares with the artist and art-dealer the distinction of making a living by adding pleasure to the lives of others. The very word “jewelry” carries, in its root form, the idea of joy; and when a Senwosri princess, 43 centuries ago, smiled happily as she raised her brown arms to fasten the clasp of a new necklace, the jeweller of Memphis on the Nile no doubt took his little profit, as the jeweller of Memphis on the Mississippi takes his to-day, all the more gladly for being, in the oriental phrase, a “Distributor of delights.” Sour philosophers have always sneered at women for loving jewels, and most of all for piercing their ears and noses to vary its display, but the nose-ring that overhangs a thick Nubian lip is an expression of the same charming instinct that makes a child diversify the arrangement of her daisychains. And jewelry plays its part in the higher emotions as well as in the pretty vanities; witness the engagement ring, the marriage ring and all the uses, described in the Britannica, of jewels as religious symbols.
Specimens Reproduced
The article Jewelry (Vol. 15, p. 364), by A. H. Smith, the official in charge of the great jewel collection in the British Museum, contains nearly a hundred illustrations, half of them on plate paper, which include examples of every period and every variety of the jeweller’s art, and these, with the illustrations in other articles mentioned in this chapter, are so full of interest to the jeweller’s customers that he ought really to keep his Britannica at his place of business rather than at his house. It is, at any rate, amusing to recall that in a speech made by the Editor-in-chief of the Britannica, on the occasion of a banquet given to celebrate the completion of the new edition, he remarked that when he had chanced to take home the proof sheets of this article, to read them at night, he carefully kept them out of his wife’s sight lest they might suggest too tempting possibilities. The article divides modern jewelry into three classes:
(1) objects in which gems and stones form the principal portions, and in which the work in silver, platinum or gold is really only a means for carrying out the design by fixing the gems or stones in the position arranged by the designer, the metal employed being visible only as a setting;
(2) when gold work plays an important part in the development of the design, being itself ornamented by engraving (now rarely used) or enamelling or both, the stones and gems being arranged in subordination to the gold work in such positions as to give a decorative effect to the whole;
(3) when gold or other metal is alone used, the design being wrought out by hammering in repoussé, casting, engraving, chasing or by the addition of filigree work, or when the surfaces are left absolutely plain but polished and highly finished.
The “Personal Art” Movement
The second of these three classes includes the work which has completely revolutionized the theory of design, so far as the best class of trade is concerned, since the Paris International Exposition of 1900 first drew general attention to the exquisite creations of Lalique and his school. L. C. Tiffany, in the United States, and Philippe Wolfers, in Belgium, have done more than any designers other than the French to extend this new movement; but in England, Germany, Austria, Russia and Switzerland there has been a notable increase of individual effort and purpose, and a recognition of the possibilities of personal art as at any rate an important factor in the business. Side by side with this development new standards have been established in mechanical work. “Nearly every kind of gold chain now made is manufactured by machinery, and nothing like the beauty of design or perfection of workmanship could be obtained by hand at, probably, any cost.” The article, equivalent in length to about 35 pages of this Guide, contains a full review, amplified by the results of the most recent excavations (some of them undertaken expressly for the archaeological purposes of this edition of the Britannica) of the history of jewelry, Egyptian, Assyrian, Mycenean, Greek, Etruscan, Roman, Merovingian, Oriental and Renaissance.
Rings for Love and Murder
Ring (Vol. 23, p. 349), of which Prof. Middleton, long art director of the South Kensington Museum, is the chief contributor, is another copiously illustrated article. Among the curious items of information it contains, there is the unromantic origin of the engagement ring (which may be cited by the jeweller to prove that it should always be a costly one), the ancient Romans regarding it as a pledge to assure the donor’s fulfilment of his promise; the fact that the modern rheumatism ring had its medieval forerunner in the rings, blessed by the sovereign, which were worn as a preservative against cramp; and the description of the old poison rings, which were of two kinds: those merely affording, in the bezel, a secret receptacle so that the poison might be always at hand for suicide, and those provided with a hollow point to which, on touching a spring, the venom ran as in a snake’s fang, so that the murderer could give a fatal scratch while shaking hands with his victim. Brooch (Vol. 4, p. 641) traces, with many illustrations of typical specimens, the “fibula” or safety pin from its origin in Central Europe during the Bronze Age, through the modifications which introduced the bow shape, providing space for thicker folds of cloth, to the modern ornament. The long brooch is not a new fashion, for silver brooches no less than 15 inches in length have been found in Viking hoards of the 7th, 8th and 9th centuries. Ear-ring (Vol. 8, p. 798) describes ear “ornaments” of the most grotesque size. In Borneo the hole in the ear lobe is stretched to a calibre of 3¾ inches, but the Masai tribes in equatorial Africa far outdo this, stretching the lobes, year after year, until they can wear stone ear-plugs weighing 2 lbs. 14 ozs. each, with a diameter of 4½ inches; and they thus achieve the supreme elegance of making the two long flaps of flesh meet above their heads. It is also curious to note the custom of some oriental tribes of wearing one ear-ring only. Bracelet (Vol. 4, p. 359) describes the three distinct models worn by the Israelites, all of which the Authorized Version calls “bracelet,” although the original Hebrew has separate names for them. Armlets have always been conspicuous in the regalia of Eastern kings, and the pair captured at Delhi and taken to Persia by Nadir Shah in 1739 contain jewels valued at more than $5,000,000, including the famous “Sea of Light” diamond, which, although it weighs only 186 carats as against the 516½ of the largest fraction into which the Cullinan stone was cut, is unique as possessing the finest lustre of any known specimen. The 24 plate illustrations in the article Scandinavian Civilization (Vol. 24, p. 287), by Miss B. S. Phillpotts, show some exquisite designs of clasps, collars and pins exhumed in Denmark, Norway and Sweden, and supposed by some authorities to antedate the oldest Egyptian jewelry.