{joo'-ul-ree} Jewelry, one of the oldest decorative arts, is a collective term for objects of personal adornment, prized both for their craftsmanship and for the intrinsic value of their precious materials. The earliest jewelry was probably amuletic, protecting its wearer from hostile forces, but as soon as social order developed, jewelry was used to denote rank--a function that survives today in regalia, badges of office, and military insignia. The social purpose of jewelry has been so important that during certain periods \Tsumptuary laws\t have regulated its use. The primary purpose of jewelry, however, would seem to be to adorn its wearer and enhance his or her glamour and sexual attraction. The character of the jewelry of a particular culture depends greatly on the raw materials that a region provides, on its climate--which dictates the nature of the clothing worn--and on its customs, both social and religious. Thus an abundance of gold and jade have determined the styles and symbolic uses of the jewelry of South and Central America. In India jewelry serves as both traditional decoration and as a family's financial investment. In the tropical regions of Africa, Central America, and the Pacific, jewelry is virtually all that is worn. In Japan, a country with a superb metalworking tradition, jewelry is hardly used however, except for women's hair ornaments consisting of pins and combs of bamboo and lacquered wood. THE ANCIENT WORLD Virtually all modern kinds of jewelry--necklaces, earrings, rings, bracelets, and their ornaments--were in use as early as 2500 BC in the Sumerian civilization (see \TMesopotamian art and architecture\t). Excavation of the royal tombs at Ur in Iraq has uncovered sophisticated jewelry such as a woman's headdress consisting of sheet-gold pendants on strings of lapis lazuli (c.2500 BC; British Museum, London). Sumerian goldsmiths used sophisticated metalworking techniques; coldhammering, casting, soldering, cloisonne, and particularly decorating with filigree (fine-wire ornamentation) and granulation, the use of minute drops of gold. Jewelry had begun to play an important role in Egyptian civilization (see \TEgyptian art and architecture\t) by about 3000 BC. A wall painting from a Theban tomb of the late 15th century BC depicts a metalworker using tongs and a blowpipe to anneal gold. Alongside him other men are drilling stone beads with bow drills while another threads a bead collar. The tomb of \TTutankhamen\t (r. 14th century BC) contained numerous pieces of fine gold jewelry embedded with precious stones. The art of fashioning gold jewelry reached the Mediterranean island of Crete from western Asia about 2400 BC. Diadems, hair ornaments, beads, bracelets, and complex chains have been found in Minoan tombs (see \TMinoan art\t). Asian techniques of filigree and granulation were introduced to Crete about 2000 BC, and evidence also indicates that Egyptian styles influenced Minoan jewelry. Minoan culture and its jewelry styles spread to the mainland of Greece, then dominated by the city-state of \TMycenae\t, about 1550 BC. Metalworking techniques reached northern Europe by about 2000 BC, and the earliest jewelry found there dates from between 1800 and 1400 BC. These artifacts include lunulae (spectacular, crescent-shaped neck ornaments of beaten gold), most of which were found in graves in Ireland, where gold was once plentiful (see \TCeltic art\t). There is evidence that the Celtic and early British people were trading with the eastern Mediterranean races by this time, exchanging gold for faience beads. By 1200 BC jewelry making was flourishing in central and western Europe, where bronze as well as gold was frequently used to make jewelry, and the spiral was the most common motif of decoration. The fibula-brooch seems to have been invented at this time. Twisted gold torcs, modeled on Scandinavian bronze prototypes, were made in the British Isles and northern France from the 5th to the 1st century BC. These massive circlets for the necks and arms were the characteristic ornament of the chiefs of the Celtic race. Celtic craftsmen also used enamel and inlay to decorate jewelry. By the 7th century BC the \TEtruscans\t of central Italy were also making fine gold jewelry. These people may have migrated from Anatolia, whence their metalworking skills seem to have been derived. The Etruscans brought to perfection the difficult technique of granulation, whereby the surface of the metal is covered with tiny gold grains. Gold was plentiful in Greece during the Hellenistic Age (323-30 BC), and Greek jewelry of this period is characterized by its great variety of forms and fine workmanship. Naturalistic wreaths and diadems were made for the head, and a variety of miniature human, animal, and plant forms were made up into necklaces and earrings. The so-called Heracles-knot, of amuletic origin, was introduced, and remained a popular motif into Roman times. In the 3d century BC polychrome effects were achieved in gold jewelry by the use of colored stones and glass. At first garnets, chalcedonies, and carnelians were used and later emeralds, amethysts, and pearls. The engraving of \Lcameo\ls also began at this time. Jewelry continued to be made in Greek styles during the early Roman Empire, when the chief centers of production were Alexandria, Antioch, and Rome, to which Greek craftsmen had migrated. There was an increasing emphasis on the decorative use of stones and a relaxation of standards in gold work. For the first time the hardest stones were used--uncut but polished diamonds, sapphires, and, notably, emeralds from newly discovered Egyptian mines. Colorful jewelry was a striking characteristic of the Migration period (4th to 8th centuries AD), which followed the collapse of the Roman Empire. Mediterranean goldsmiths continued to produce jewelry of great refinement, but the jewelry of the European tribes dominates this period. They produced abstract styles of great splendor which were worked in enamels and inlaid stones. The fibula-brooch reached extremes of size and elaboration. This is also the period of the penannular, or nearly circular, brooches of Ireland and Scotland, the finest-known example of which is the early-8th-century Tara Brooch (National Museum of Ireland, Dublin). From the 9th to the 13th century the technique of cloisonne enameling on gold was widespread, the finest pieces emanating from the workshops at Constantinople, the capital of the Byzantine Empire (see \TByzantine art and architecture\t). THE MIDDLE AGES AND THE RENAISSANCE After the creation of Charlemagne's empire in AD 800 and the Holy Roman Empire in 962, a fusion of northern and Mediterranean cultures occurred. The principal patrons of the arts became the emperor and the church, and jewelers worked in courts and monasteries. Jewelry design was based on the setting in gold of precious stones and pearls in colorful patterns. Precious stones, which were polished but still used in their natural form, were credited with talismanic powers; for instance, the sapphire, symbolic of chastity and spiritual peace, was used for papal rings. Antique cameo gems were especially prized and often set in early medieval jewelry and given a Christian interpretation. Until this time European jewelry had been produced mainly in imperial and monastic workshops, but by the 13th century a system of independent guilds of goldsmiths had become established in European capitals, which suggests that the craft had become more widespread. Gothic jewelry (see \TGothic art and architecture\t) reflects the chivalrous ethic of aristocratic society in its symbolism and frequent use of amatory inscriptions. Jewelry, which has always had close affinities with modes of dress, frequently took the form of brooches and other fastenings such as belt clasps. The ring brooch, the most common form of jewelry in the 13th century, was probably given as a token of love or betrothal. A pendants would occasionally be used as a \Treliquary\t. The use of earrings ceased entirely, because women wore elaborate jeweled headdresses that concealed the ears. About 1300, French jewelers began to use translucent enamels over engraved silver or gold. In the 14th and 15th centuries jewelry was an important feature of both male and female attire. Notably fashionable during the first half of the 15th century were jewels composed of enameled gold figures, flowers, and foliage modeled in high relief and frequently interspersed with clusters of pearls. These exquisite works of art--which include The Lennox, or Darnley Jewel, of enameled gold set with sapphires (c.1570; Collection of Her Majesty the Queen, London)--are among the finest jewels ever made. The affluence of the Spanish court during the 16th century, which was based on gold from colonies in the New World, set a standard for the other princely courts of Europe. At this time the art of engraving on metal was perfected, and thus designers were able to print and disseminate their ideas throughout Europe, with the result that it is extremely difficult to attribute 16th-century jewels to any particular country by their style. The earliest of these designers were Virgil Solis (1514-62) and Erasmus Hornick (c.1540-c.1583) of Nuremberg and the Frenchman Etienne Delaune (1520-c.1595). The most striking and influential of Hornick's designs were for figurative pendants of legendary subjects. A slightly later development of this style of pendant included a framework of abstract ornament or architectural elements, which dominated the form of the jewel and usually rendered it symmetrical. The engraved designs of Hans Collaert (1540-1622) are typical of this style, which seems to have been used principally by south German jewelers. The most famous artist-goldsmith of this period was Benvenuto \TCellini\t, who worked first in his native Italy and later for Francis I of France. Cellini is known mainly through his autobiography and his sculpture; no jewelry has survived that can be ascribed to him with certainty. FROM THE 17TH CENTURY TO THE PRESENT DAY Figurative designs became less fashionable in the 17th century, when there was a shift of interest to formal designs using faceted gems and pearls. The uncut, or cabochon, gem is rarely found in jewelry after 1640. The Golconda diamond mines were opened in India during the 17th century, and Dutch merchants supplied diamonds for the European market. Consequently, Amsterdam became the center for the trading and cutting of gems and has remained so. By the middle of the 17th century the new, many-faceted "rose" style of cutting had superseded the old, square "table" cut. Stones were set in close proximity, and their settings played a smaller part in the overall effect. Silver was frequently used with diamonds to make the setting less visible. Delicate floral designs in enamel were used to decorate the backs of finer jewels. Since this time diamonds have tended to dominate jewelry. Gilles Legare (fl. c.1660), court jeweler to Louis XIV of France, was responsible for some of the finest designs of the late 17th century. Louis XIV was the last monarch to wear large numbers of jewels. Among Legare's designs are the Sevigne, or bow ornament, a form of jewelry that has never lost its popularity, and girandole pendants, a form used for brooches and earrings that remained fashionable until the end of the 18th century. Black-enameled mourning jewelry and the memento mori jewel, a reminder of human mortality, reflected the somber Counter-Reformation mentality of the 17th century. Eighteenth-century fashions were lighter and more frivolous. The sparkle of diamonds cut in the new "brilliant" style, invented in Venice between the end of the 17th and the beginning of the 18th century, echoed the glitter of the cut-crystal chandeliers at evening festivities. Other innovations of the period included the informal spray of flowers entirely formed of stones, a type of jewel that required the utmost skill of the jeweler, and parures, matched sets of jewels consisting of necklace, earrings, and brooches or clasps of various sizes. Although, from 1725, there was an abundant new source of diamonds in Brazil, there was also a large demand for imitation, or paste, diamonds. Paris, the fashion center of the world, was severely disrupted by the French Revolution of 1789, however, and diamonds became unfashionable during the period of austere republicanism that followed, when only simple gold jewelry inspired by classical antiquity was worn. Neoclassical designs were well suited to the imperial pomp of the First Empire (1804-14) of Napoleon I. His wife, Josephine, had a passion for antique cameos, which she had made into magnificent parures. Ornamental combs, worn at the back of the head, were added to parures. Diamonds soon returned to favor in the Napoleonic court, and there was a renewed interest in colored stones; but these were worn in rigidly formal settings, unlike those of the 18th century. The jewelry of the period immediately following the First Empire was bourgeois in character, as was every other decorative art. The fashion was for light filigree, or mechanically stamped-out gold jewelry, set with pale-colored semiprecious stones that produced a rich effect at a comparatively low cost. This style originated in Britain, where the domestically minded and sentimental Queen Victoria set the mood for British society. Much Victorian jewelry, such as lockets and brooches incorporating miniature portraits or locks of hair, was sentimental in feeling and low in intrinsic value. The Victorian enthusiasm for keepsakes led to a curious fashion for wearing jewelry made of woven human hair. Nineteenth-century design was dominated by historical revivals. The \TGothic Revival\t inspired outstanding jewelry by Francois Desire Froment-Meurice (1802-55) in France and the architect A. W. N. Pugin (1812-52) in England. France's fortunes increased with industrialization and, during the brief period of the Second Empire of Napoleon III (1852-70), the Parisian jewelers again rose to great heights of achievement. The Empress Eugenie had a preference for 18th-century styles and favored diamonds and pearls. Diamond setting reached a peak of technical virtuosity in the late 1860s with the monture illusion, an elaborate gem-encrusted framework associated with the jeweler Oscar Massin. During the same period, a vogue for archaeologically correct jewelry originated in Italy, following discoveries of Greek, Roman, and Etruscan gold jewelry. South African diamonds were first brought to Europe in 1869 and supplied an enormous market for jewelry among the newly rich of the United States and South America, who were principally interested in displaying their wealth. Large and valuable stones were often set in solitaire or as necklaces of single stones, called rivieres. A somewhat mechanical technical excellence prevailed, and jewelry making became increasingly industrialized. The later prosperity of the 19th century also encouraged the growth of large commercial establishments that produced jewelry of superb craftsmanship. The most famous of these firms were those of Peter Carl \TFaberge\t, which originated in Saint Petersburg, Russia, and of Charles Lewis \TTiffany\t in New York. A movement devoted to reforming the applied arts came into being in the last half of the 19th century and began to affect jewelry about 1895. Although this development originated in the British \TArts and Crafts movement\t, the most progressive jeweler was the Frenchman Rene \TLalique\t. His work was a return to the true goldsmith's tradition, and his designs in the \TArt Nouveau\t style can best be compared in brilliance to the imaginative jewelry of the Renaissance, although they are profoundly original and owe little to past styles. The profession of the artist-jeweler has become firmly established in the 20th century, notably in Scandinavia, where Georg Jensen (1866-1935) set a high standard of artistry and craftsmanship in his simple mass-produced jewelry. Jewelry from the prestigious international houses, such as Cartier, Chaumet, Boucheron, Van Cleef and Arpels, and Tiffany, continue the conservative tradition of formal gem-set jewelry in which more regard is paid to ostentatious display than innovatory design. The future of jewelry is perhaps in the hands of the numerous independent artist-jewelers working in many parts of the world, who are now beginning to receive deserved attention from the public. Betty Elzea Bibliography: Aldred, Cyril, Jewels of the Pharaohs (1971); Blury, Shirley, Jewelry: British and European, 1790-1910 (1990); British Museum, London, Jewelry Through 7,000 Years (1976); Cartlidge, Barbara, Twentieth-Century Jewelry (1985); Evans, Joan, A History of Jewelry, 1100-1870, 2d ed. (1970; repr. 1989); Flower, Margaret C., Victorian Jewelry, rev. ed. (1973); Fregnac, Claude, Jewelry from the Renaissance to Art Nouveau (1965; repr. 1973); Gere, Charlotte, Victorian Jewelry Design (1973); Gregorietti, Giovanni, Jewelry through the Ages (1969); Higgins, Reynold, Greek and Roman Jewelry, 2d ed. (1980); Hughes, Graham, Modern Jewelry: 1890-1963 (1963); Jessup, Ronald F., Anglo-Saxon Jewelry (1953); Mascetti, D., and Triossi, A., Earrings (1990); Mason, Anita, and Maxwell-Hyslop, K. R., Western Asiatic Jewelry, c.3000-612 BC (1971); Muller, Priscilla E., Jewels in Spain, 1500-1800, (1972); Mulvagh, Jane, Costume Jewelry in Vogue (1988); Newman, Harold, An Illustrated History of Jewelry (1987); Packer, Diane, An Illustrated Dictionary of Jewelry (1963); Proddow, Penny, and Healy, Debra, American Jewelry (1987); Rogers, Frances, and Beard, Alice, 5,000 Years of Gems and Jewelry (1940); Rosenthal, Renate, Jewelry of the Ancient World (1975); Rossi, Filippo, Italian Jeweled Arts, trans. by Elizabeth Mann Borgese (1958); Smith, Harold C., Jewelry (1908; repr. 1973); Snowman, A., Kenneth, The Master Jewelers (1990); Steingraber, Erich, Antique Jewelry (1957); Stronger, Susan, et al., A Golden Treasury: Jewelry from the Indian Subcontinent (1989); Tait, Hugh, ed., Jewelry: Seven Thousand Years (1987). See also: \Tgems\t.