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Georgian
Jewelry
The
term Georgian refers to an era in English history during the reign of the
four King Georges I-IV, from 1714 - 1830. Like the term Victorian (used
for jewelry during Queen Victoria's rule), it is accepted in use as a term
that refers to certain styles of jewelry.
While
this time period saw a number of stylistic changes and is a broad, sweeping
category, the label is often used for jewelry with certain characteristics.
Sometimes the term is applied to jewelry of other countries (France, Italy,
United States for example) but its use is not entirely appropriate, but
generally still accepted as a means to refer to a time period and certain
styles of antique jewelry.
Eighteenth
Century
For
the privileged and elite, the century saw a great increase in evening pursuits
as improvements in candles gave rise to longer burning and brighter candles.
Thus balls and celebrations of extravagant proportions rose to exceptional
heights...giving rise to a divide between day and evening jewelry. Women
often wore pearls, garnets, moss agate or colored gems or paste in daytime.
The most formal evening events, courts, balls or receptions were the only
times appropriate for diamond jewelry.
Closed
backs were used on almost all gems and paste stones. Open backs were known,
but most examples we see today are closed. The full art of stone cutting
and allowing light through a gem to reveal its refractive properties had
not yet flourished.
In
addition, most stones were then foiled. Foiling is a metal coating, sometimes
colored, and painted on the back of a stone to enhance its brilliance.
Popular cuts were the rose cut, the old mine cut, and a few table cuts.
Brilliant
cuts also gained popularity. For colored gems often a flat cut was used
- the top being flat with a few facets on the edges.
For
metals, silver or gold was in use, but platinum was not yet discovered
and white gold was not found in jewelry. Rose gold, yellow gold, silver,
and sometimes green or red gold were employed. Most diamond jewelry was
almost always set in silver; the sentiments of the time were that the silver
color of the metal enhanced the properties of diamonds, where a gold surrounding
did not.
Be
that as it may, the backs of jewelry and ear wires were often gold to prevent
tarnish on skin and clothing. Colored gems were set in gold. Mounts or
bezels for jewels were often set in a closed setting, a cut away setting,
or a very early claw setting (often seen for early large pastes). The first
two mountings show a good bit of metal and come up around the sides of
the stone, encasing the stone in metal.
The
earlier part of the century stylistically saw a more ornate form of jewelry,
complex and frilly designs. As the years progressed and advanced into the
next century, the forms turned to more neoclassical inspiration of simpler,
geometric and formal derivation. It was also a great century for paste.
Even Marie Antoinette has her own paste jewelers - it was not just for
those who could not afford real gems. Some examples of the themes and motifs
used in the earlier 18th century were bows, floral designs, giardinetti
(garden), and feathers while later saw classical themes such as arrows,
quivers, lyres, intaglios, and geometric forms.
Types
of jewelry worn were the stomacher (a large element worn like a huge brooch
at the center of the stomach just below the breasts and trailing down the
front); aigrettes (elements for the hair); girandoles (three drop earrings);
pendeloque earrings (a bow and drop); necklaces sometimes secured by ribbons;
rings; slides - bracelets often worn in pairs usually slipped on a ribbon;
chatelaines; and buckles and buttons - for men for shoes and breeches and
clothing.
Nineteenth
Century Through 1830
Toward
the end of the earlier century and into the next, wars shattered through
Europe and affected life and thus jewelry. Often gold and precious gems
were in short supply as these items were given toward the war effort. Jewelry
used less metal, sometimes very thin, and canetille came into use. Canetille
using tiny wires wrapped to make a showier jewel with little metal. A romantic
era arose, sentimental and mourning jewelry again became popular at the
end of the 18th century and into the 19th. Regard rings, symbolic gems,
tokens of affection, lockets of hair all found great popularity. Gems were
small and less significant. Queen Victoria's reign brought about many changes
in temperament and thus the jewelry and fashion followed suite ending a
grand and elegant era in jewelry production.
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