Jewellery

On the question of the production of jewellery from such engraved designs, it is interesting to note the several points of similarity that exist in the procedure of the ornamentists of the sixteenth century and that of the English furniture-designers of the eighteenth. In both cases the original producers of the designs were practical craftsmen, who certainly executed objects after their published patterns; while the patterns themselves were employed extensively as models. In both cases, too, it is quite evident that in a number of instances fanciful designs were produced which were never carried out. Hence one can readily understand the difficulties that are encountered in attempting to determine the provenance of such small and portable objects as personal jewels, the engraved designs for which were in like manner widely distributed. But there is the strong probability, after all, that the greater number of jewels, after engraved designs of German origin, were executed in, or not very far distant from the locality in which the designs originated.

If designs are considered insufficient for the identification of jewels, there exists a means much more certain, and one which should surely prevent the attribution to Italians of jewels unquestionably the work of German craftsmen. It may be remembered that Cellini in his Trattati, in dealing with the goldsmith's art, advised jewellers to preserve castings in lead of their works in gold and silver. In many cases Cellini's recommendation has been literally carried out, and a considerable number of proofs struck by German jewellers of details of their jewels have fortunately come down to us. The Bavarian National Museum at Munich contains a highly important collection of these leaden casts, being a complete series used by a family of gold and silver workers in Augsburg for upwards of 250 years (from about 1550 to 1800). The jewellers of Augsburg were among the first in Europe, and these models of their productions, bearing strong traces of the influence of contemporary ornamentists, correspond in many details with original jewels dating from those times.

Examples of these lead models for jewellery exist in other collections, such as the Historical Museum at Basle. Of the same material but of infinitely higher artistic importance, are the lead models by the hand of Peter Flötner of Nuremberg. In addition to engraved designs, Flötner executed models for goldsmiths, carved in stone and boxwood. From these—of which original examples have survived—casts (so-called plaquettes) were made in lead, which were used as patterns for craftsmen in the same manner as engravings of ornament. Flötner's models, though issued mainly for workers in gold and silver plate, were employed also by the jewellers, and exercised considerable influence on their productions.

Few engraved designs for jewellery are prior in date to the year 1550, though nearly all the prominent painter-engravers delighted in exercising their inventive faculty in this direction. One or two plates of pendants by Brosamer, and a buckle and whistle by Aldegrever, represent almost the sole engravings of the kind before Virgil Solis—the first to devise a more ambitious series of jewels. Amongst the earliest is the Kunstbüchlein[124] or pattern book for goldsmith's work, by Hans Brosamer (about 1480-1554). These woodcuts, which are singularly attractive, are of a transitional character, with traces of Gothic design. They include two pages of pendants composed of stones between leafwork grouped round a central ornament and hung with pear-shaped pearls. One pendant consists of a niche between pillars—a similar style of ornament to that adopted by Androuet Ducerceau, and the first assignable instance, says Herr Lichtwark,[125] of the use of architecture in German jewellery of this time, though this same motive was frequently represented later on by Erasmus Hornick and Mignot. Three other pendants are in the form of whistles for wearing on the neck-chain. In an engraving for a whistle of a similar kind by Aldegrever (1502-1558), the lower part is formed of a case containing an ear-pick and a knife for the finger-nails. Except for this design (which finds a place in the background of his engraving of the pair of folding pocket-spoons of the year 1539), Aldegrever's only example of jewellery is the remarkable Gothic girdle-buckle with its buckle-plate and tag (dated 1537). The characteristic fig-leaf ornament of the early German Renaissance is better represented here than on any other engraving of the period.

More modern in style is Mathias Zundt (1498-1586), whose compositions (dated 1551-1554) are carried out with great fineness. Zundt lived at Nuremberg, his great contemporaries, Virgil Solis and Erasmus Hornick being natives of the same city.

It was to Virgil Solis (1514-1562), one of the most skilful and prolific of the German Klein-Meister, that the jewellers and other craftsmen of the day owed their finest inspirations. Virgil Solis's beautiful series of pendants are executed with great charm and delicacy. They bear the character of a transition from the graceful foliage of the early to the full Renaissance, with its fanciful architectural forms, its scroll ornament, arabesques, animals, and grotesque human masks and figures (Pl. XXVII, 1, 2).

Erasmus Hornick likewise exercised a potent influence on the jewellery of the time. He engraved in 1562 a series of pendants, chains, and other jewels of the most delicate execution (Pl. XXVII, 4-6). The pendants in form of an architectural niche with the subject placed in the centre, are the prototype of all the jewels of this kind which we meet with subsequently in the prints of the Flemish engraver Collaert.

While many important engravings were being issued for the benefit of the jewellers of Nuremberg, a great quantity of jewellery was produced at Munich under the patronage of the Dukes of Bavaria. Duke Albert V had as court painter a skilful miniaturist, Hans Mielich (1516-1573), whom he employed to paint in the form of an inventory exact copies in miniature of his jewels and those of his wife, Anne of Austria, preserved in his treasury. In addition to these drawings, now in the Royal Library at Munich, are a number of others, which came into the possession of Dr. von Hefner-Alteneck, and on his death in 1904 were purchased for the sum of £2,500 for the Bavarian National Museum.[126] Though the majority of these drawings for jewellery, in themselves works of extraordinary beauty, were copies of objects then already in existence, the presence of jewels similar to Mielich's designs leads to the supposition that this artist exercised a strong influence on the jewellers of his day, and that a number of jewels were also executed at the command of the Duke from original sketches of his. None of the actual objects depicted by Mielich have survived, save a large gold chain set with pearls, rubies, and emeralds, which corresponds, particularly in its rich enamel-work, to one of the drawings lately added to the National Museum. This chain is known as the collar of the Order of St. George. The size and quality of its stones and the great beauty of the enamelled settings render it, without doubt, the finest article of its kind in existence. It is preserved in the Royal Treasury (Schatzkammer) at Munich, together with a number of other objects of the same type.

The last decades of the sixteenth century saw the appearance of a new species of ornamental design, whose chief advocate, Theodor de Bry (1528-1598), of Liège, with his sons Johann Theodor and Johann Israel, settled in Frankfort-on-the-Main about 1560. It is a rich and varied surface decoration, often of white upon a black ground, composed of scroll ornament richly set with flowers, fruit, grotesques, and figures of animals, the whole being charmingly designed, and engraved with great brilliancy of touch. In addition to his more famous knife-handles, de Bry executed several engravings for clasps, buckles, and metal attachments to girdles.

For the counterpart of the artistic style of de Bry one must look to the Low Countries and particularly to the work of the engraver Hans Collaert (1540-1622), of Antwerp, who developed remarkable fertility in the production of patterns for jewellery. Collaert's designs require special attention, because of the tendency, elaborated largely by him and other engravers of the school of Antwerp, towards exuberant cartouche ornaments with a mixture of extravagant and loosely arranged strap-work, and stud -or boss-work. This style, full of grotesques and arabesques, pervaded the work of every craftsman of the day, and dealt a final blow to any further development of pure Renaissance ornament. Collaert's chief series of pendants, eleven in number, published in 1581 under the title Monilium bullarum inauriumque artificiosissimæ icones, are probably the best known of all designs for jewellery of this epoch. One of these engravings, in particular, has been several times reproduced. It is a large pendant hung from a cartouche and surmounted by a figure of Orpheus with a lyre, with two seated female figures. The rest of the jewel is made up of scroll ornaments and bracket-shaped terminal figures, and is hung with three drop pearls. This pendant is of peculiar interest in connection with its bearing on what has already been said with regard to the attributions given to Cinquecento jewellery. Two striking instances of misapplied attributions of this kind may be quoted. In one[127] work the engraving in question is described as: "Pendant par Benvenuto Cellini (Musée de Florence)"; and in another[128] as: "Gehänge in der Bibliothèque nationale zu Paris nach seinem [Cellini's] Model gearbeitet!"

It has been usual—while acknowledging the great influence of these engravings on the jewellery of the time—to doubt whether jewels exist which have been executed in exact imitation of them. To show that such designs were actually followed, we may point to a jewel figured by Herr Luthmer in his catalogue of Baron Karl von Rothschild's collection at Frankfort-on-the-Main, which follows in every detail the particular engraving by Collaert just mentioned as having been ascribed to Cellini. Collaert's influence was considerable in his day, and his compositions circulated not only in Flanders, but also in Germany and other prominent jewel-producing centres. Jewels are repeatedly met with, which, though they do not follow in every detail Collaert's published designs, are obviously inspired by them. A very notable example of such is a jewel, to be referred to subsequently (p. 247), in form of a gondola containing figures of Antony and Cleopatra, which was sold by auction in London for a very large sum a year or two ago. With Collaert were several minor designers of jewellery, such as Abraham de Bruyn (1538-after 1600), among whose engravings are seventeen models for pendants and portions of jewels in the style of the admirable French jeweller-engraver Etienne Delaune. Other Dutch and Flemish engravers of ornament belong more to the seventeenth century, and will be dealt with later.

At the furthest corner of Germany from Flanders was the ancient kingdom of Hungary, where jewellery was employed in almost Oriental profusion. The native costume is luxurious even at the present day, and in olden times the nobility made a practice of attaching to it a great part of their fortunes in the form of precious stones, which, in enamelled settings of button-shape, termed "boglars," were sewn on, or were mounted in aigrettes, or set in girdles or dagger-sheaths. Independent jewels enriched with enamel-work in the Renaissance taste were produced, too, in considerable quantity. Fine examples of the latter are preserved in the museum at Buda-Pesth; while to the exhibition held there in 1884 Cinquecento jewellery of great beauty and wealth was lent by noble Hungarian families. All these display striking similarity to the jewels executed at Augsburg, Prague, and elsewhere in the latter part of the sixteenth and the early years of the seventeenth century. In addition to those which betray the influence of foreign styles, there are jewels of native work, whose surface is enriched with the so-called Draht-Email. This "filigree-enamel," which was executed from the fifteenth to the seventeenth century in Hungary and throughout the valley of the Danube, is composed of bright opaque colours fired between cloisons or partitions composed of twisted wire.

CHAPTER XXIII

An incident of considerable interest is recorded to have taken place in the time of Francis I in connection with a supposed abuse of enamel on the part of the jewellers. The king's attention was drawn to the fact that when jewellery enamelled with opaque enamels, which were considered to weigh heavier than the clear ones, came to be realised, the enamel was so much pure loss. So, in spite of a protest by some of the leading goldsmiths, who declared that the proper execution of the majority of articles of jewellery was impossible without opaque enamel, an ordinance was passed in 1540 forbidding its use. After three years, however, the king relented, and again permitted the jewellers the full exercise of the resources of their art, provided there was no superfluous excess in the use of enamel.

Under the last Valois kings, Charles IX and Henry III, the production of jewellery in France, as elsewhere, was greater than at almost any other period. Vivid descriptions of the rich jewellery of this time are furnished by the chronicler Brantôme.

Actual articles of French Renaissance jewellery are, it must be confessed, of great rarity. Almost the only extant specimens are the wonderful mounted cameos in the Cabinet des Médailles of the Bibliothèque Nationale at Paris, the majority of which are presumably of French origin. From comparison of these with contemporary designs, the distinguishing features of the French jewellery of the time appear to be—a cartouche-shaped frame with comparatively unbroken outline, enriched with scroll ornament and occasionally with human figures and grotesques, a slight use of open-work, and the general employment of a central ornament.

Like the Germans, the French had excellent masters, who engraved models for jewellery of great beauty of design. The following are the chief maîtres ornemanistes who flourished in the sixteenth century:—Jean Duvet, known also as the Master of the Unicorn, born at Langres in 1485 and died about 1562, was goldsmith to Francis I and Henry II. His designs for small objects of personal use in the form of scrolls, flowers, and foliage, intended for execution in enamel, are among the earliest engravings in taille-douce produced for the purpose. Jacques Androuet Ducerceau (about 1510-about 1585) worked chiefly at Orleans. His numerous engravings in the form of cartouches with rolled and voluted frames show the type of design mainly employed for pendants. His actual models for jewellery, numbering upwards of fifty, comprise clasps and brooches, and many pendants, including earrings (pp. 241 and 269).

After Androuet Ducerceau, the most famous jeweller of this time was Etienne Delaune, called Stephanus (1518-1595). He is said to have worked under Cellini during the latter's residence in Paris. In 1573 he moved to Strasburg, where the greater part of his work was produced. A "little master" par excellence, he engraved with extraordinary delicacy a number of exquisite designs for jewellery. Two of his engravings of slightly different design, both dated 1576, represent the interior of goldsmiths' workshops, and are of particular interest in illustrating the practice of the goldsmith's art and the equipment of the workshop at this period.

Designs for jewellery are the most interesting of the engravings of René Boyvin (1530-1598), of Angers. He appears to have been influenced by the Italian artists of Fontainebleau, and his plates of jewel-ornament, engraved with great skill in the style of Il Rosso, show considerable ingenuity and fancy in the combination of faceted stones and large pearls with human and fantastic figures.

More influential perhaps than any of the designs of the time are those of Pierre Woeiriot of Lorraine, who was born in 1532 and died after 1589. In 1555 Woeiriot settled at Lyons, where he produced a large number of engravings for jewellery. These, showing the greatest variety of design, include numerous patterns for rings, a dozen earrings, and ten pendent ornaments (Pl. XXVII, 3). These masterpieces of engraving and composition were published at Lyons in 1555 and 1561.

Spain occupies a peculiar place with respect to its Renaissance jewellery. In the sixteenth century the Spanish Peninsula was perhaps the richest part of the civilised world. Even at a time when universal luxury in personal ornaments reigned, Spain made itself an object of note by its extraordinary display in this direction. The union under the same dominion of three of the most powerful countries of Europe coincident with the newly developed wealth of America resulted in a desire among all classes for a more luxurious style of living and for more sumptuous ornaments. The natural instinct of wealthy and cultured individuals to surround themselves with the choicest productions of the fine arts led to the importation of the best of such objects from other countries and of the first foreign craftsmen of the day.

Juan de Arphe, "the Spanish Cellini," himself of German extraction, devoted much attention to the naturalisation of Renaissance forms. Other jewellers also remained in so large a measure dependent on foreign influence, at first of Italian types, and then of the designs of French, German, and Flemish engravers of ornament, that it is often hard to arrive at a decision as to the precise provenance of their productions. But just as other works of art, the product of different countries, are stamped with certain indefinable characteristics, which in general circumstances may at once be detected, so jewels of Spanish origin betray the influence of national temperament in their composition and design. The series of drawings by Barcelona jewellers published by Davillier in his Recherches sur l'Orfèvrerie en Espagne, bear sufficient evidence of this native spirit.

Nevertheless, the majority of the surviving examples of the Renaissance jewellery of Spain approach at times very near to those of Germany. And there can be little doubt that the Nuremberg and Augsburg jewels which, as has been shown, were in vogue not only all over Germany, but in France and England and the Low Countries, were imported and imitated, as Davillier says, by the goldsmiths of Spain.

The most important Spanish jewels of the sixteenth century are in the form of enamelled pendants. Of these the Victoria and Albert Museum possesses a collection, excelled by that of no other public museum, which acquired at the sale in 1870 of the treasures of the sanctuary of the Virgen del Pilar at Saragossa.

A species of pendant which in Spain above all places has always been popular was the reliquary. It assumed numerous shapes; and among the many kinds of adornment it received were small panels of painted glass commonly known as verres églomisés.

This so-called verre églomisé, which had been handed down from antiquity and was used in the Middle Ages, was brought to high perfection at the Renaissance. Adopted from Italy, where it was also employed for jewellery, it met with considerable favour in Spain in the sixteenth century (Pl. XLIII, 4).

The process employed in its production consisted in covering the under side of a plate of glass or rock crystal with gold leaf. On this were traced the outlines of the design intended to be reserved in gold, and the remainder of the gold was then removed. In the painting which followed, the finest details, the high lights, the shadows and flesh tints were first executed. Then came in successive applications, transparent varnishes of different colours and thicknesses, in accordance with the value of the tones desired. Small pieces of silver leaf were applied to certain parts to reflect the light and heighten the effect; and the whole was finally backed with a sheet of metal.[129]

Verre églomisé appears to take its name from one Glomy, a French craftsman of the eighteenth century, who produced a special black and gold varnish which he applied to the back of glass. In a similar way his countrymen the Martins gave their name to the varnish of their invention. Verre églomisé, a somewhat unsatisfactory title, which came first into use in the latter part of the century, and was wrongly applied to paintings under glass of a similar order, has been retained ever since.

A peculiar and characteristic species of pendent ornament, numbers of which were produced in the seventeenth century chiefly at Barcelona, are certain badges worn by members of religious corporations. They are of open-worked gilt brass enriched with white, black, and blue opaque enamels fused into recesses stamped in the surface of the metal. These badges, which are either triangular, oval, square, or oblong in shape, are formed of two parts—a frame surrounded with rayed patterns, and a central portion ornamented with various designs (Pl. LIII, 5). Among the latter designs are crowned monograms of Christ or the Virgin, with emblems such as palm leaves, and the device of a nail and the letter S interlaced—a rebus for "Esclavo." Fitted in the back is usually a miniature under crystal. In point of technique these enamelled badges offer an interesting comparison with the well-known English enamels of the same date applied mainly to objects such as candlesticks and fire-dogs. Pendent badges of the same designs exist in gold. The collection of Señor de Osma at Madrid contains several examples.

To the seventeenth century belong also the characteristic "lazos" or bow-shaped jewels worn as breast-ornaments, made of open-work gold set with emeralds, and occasionally with other stones (Pl. LIII, 1). Of the same style are rings, also set with emeralds, and particularly long earrings, which have always been popular in Spain. The backs of these jewels are engraved with floral designs. The greater part of the Spanish jewellery of the time is set with emeralds, which were acquired in quantities from Peru. Spain has always had a great reputation for these stones, which when of fine quality are still alluded to as "old Spanish emeralds." Emeralds are always subject to flaws and rarely free from them. The emeralds set in Spanish jewellery, though usually full of feathers, are nevertheless of great decorative value. Further reference will be made to Spanish work of the seventeenth century when the jewels of that period are dealt with.

The earlier Hispano-Moresque jewellery is of considerable rarity. It is often enriched with opaque enamel fired between cloisons formed of twisted wire. From the union of Moorish and Renaissance forms developed the Spanish peasant jewellery, usually fashioned of stout silver filigree parcel-gilt.

CHAPTER XXIV

"He wore a cap of crimson velvet, in the French fashion, and the brim was looped up all round with lacets and gold enamelled tags.... Very close round his neck he had a gold collar, from which there hung a rough-cut diamond, the size of the largest walnut I ever saw, and to this was suspended a most beautiful and very large round pearl. His mantle was of purple velvet lined with white satin, the sleeves open, with a train more than four Venetian yards long. This mantle was girt in front like a gown, with a thick gold cord, from which there hung large golden acorns like those suspended from a cardinal's hat; over this mantle was a very handsome gold collar, with a pendent St. George entirely of diamonds. Beneath the mantle he wore a pouch of cloth of gold, which covered a dagger; and his fingers were one mass of jewelled rings."[130]

Many a lively and detailed picture has been left us by the chronicler and lawyer, Edward Hall, of the equipage and adornment of Henry VIII on his coronation and at the court entertainments, and particularly of the famous meeting of the Cloth of Gold, where, in their insane desire to outshine each other, the English and French nobles entered into boundless extravagance in dress, and so loaded themselves with jewellery, that, in the words of Du Bellay, "they carried the price of woodland, water-mill, and pasture on their backs." Many are the elaborate descriptions of entertainments and pageants by the chroniclers Leland, Holinshed, and Stowe, in which rich jewellery figures; but Hall's Chronicle, the most minute in its accounts of contemporary fashions, teems with references to "Gold Smithe's woorke" and to the wealth of precious stones broidered on the garments. The passion for personal ornaments ran such riot that even foreign critics inveighed against Englishmen for their extravagance.

This love of jewellery was largely due to foreign fashions, which hitherto discountenanced, were growing popular at Court, in consequence of the increasing communication with the Continent. From the commencement of Henry's reign merchants and craftsmen from abroad swarmed in numbers into London, and Hall, who shared the characteristic English antipathy to all things foreign, gives an instance of an invasion by these alien artificers. It was on the occasion of a magnificent embassy from France in 1518 in connection with the betrothal of the Princess Mary to the Dauphin that there came, he says, "a great number of rascals and pedlars and jewellers, and brought over divers merchantize uncustomed, all under the color of trussery [baggage] of the ambassadors." In accordance with the system of his predecessors in pursuit of their own personal interests, Henry VIII extended his protection to the foreigner, while the example of the French Court, the rivalry with Francis I, and the foreign proclivities of Wolsey and Cromwell induced him to patronise extensively foreign jewellers and merchants in precious stones. Occasionally Henry was a sufferer in his transactions with sharp Italian dealers; and Cellini relates a story of how a Milanese jeweller counterfeited an emerald so cleverly that he managed to palm off the same for a genuine stone on the sovereign of "those beasts of Englishmen," as he elsewhere terms them, for 9000 golden scudi. And all this happened, because the purchaser—who was no less a person than the King of England—put rather more faith in the jeweller than he ought to have done. The fraud was not found out till several years after.

A considerable number of the foreign craftsmen patronised by the King were Italians; but in jewellery the French influence seems to have predominated—judging by the frequent mention of jewels of "Paris work," and by the fact that the majority of the jewellers mentioned in the "King's Book of Payments,"[131] bear French names. Among those of foreign extraction the following were the most prominent: Robert Amadas, John Cryspyn, Allart Ploumyer, Jehan Lange, Cornelius Hays, Baptist Leman, John Cavalcant, John Baptista de Consolavera, Guillim Honyson, Alexander of Brussels, John of Utrecht, and John (Hans) of Antwerp. The mention, however, of such names as John Angell, Morgan Fenwolf (a Welshman), John Freeman, John Twiselton, Thomas Exmewe, Nicolas Worley, John Monday, and William Davy indicates the English nationality of several of the royal jewellers—though it is well to remember the common tendency of the time to Anglicise foreign names.

Throughout the first half of his reign Henry placed huge orders in the hands of these craftsmen, but advancing years and an exhausted treasury appear to have somewhat diminished his expenditure on personal ornaments. Some interesting correspondence between the above-mentioned Jehan Lange, a jeweller of Paris, and certain of his native townsmen has been preserved.[132] "The King," he writes in 1537, referring to certain jewelled garments he had submitted to His Majesty, "was very glad to see such riches. He said he was too old to wear such things, but he has offered 4000 cr." To Allart Ploumyer he writes: "The King always makes good cheer, but he has grown cold, and we have not quite sold everything; for the gentlemen have spent their money in the war." "I find the King," he says in another place, "disinclined to buy, for he has told me he has no more money, and it has cost him a great deal to make war."

In spite of Lange's complaints, it was only just before his death that Henry VIII acquired a famous and magnificent historical jewel, the great pendant of Charles the Bold, last Duke of Burgundy.[133] In its centre was set the wonderful diamond—a deep pyramid five-eighths of an inch square at the base—believed to be the first on which Louis de Berghem tried his newly invented method of cutting. Around it were set three balas rubies, styled from their equality in size and weight the "Three Brothers," which, owing to their fine quality, were set open, without the foil with which stones were then usually backed. Between these were four enormous pearls (Pl. XXV, 3). According to the universal custom of his day, the Duke, accompanied by all his treasure when campaigning, carried this jewel with him, partly to have it constantly under his personal supervision, and partly because of the magic properties then attributed to precious stones. Captured by a common soldier from his tent after his memorable defeat at the battle of Granson in 1475, the pendant came into the possession of the magistrates of Berne, and from them was purchased by Jacob Fugger, of the opulent merchant family of Augsburg, whose son, after keeping it for several years, disposed of it to Henry VIII. Fifty years later the jewel was still intact, and in James I's inventory of the crown jewels in 1603, it is thus described:[134] "A fayre Flower,[135] with three greate ballaces, in the myddest a greate pointed dyamonde, and three greate perles fixed, with a fayre greate perle pendaunte, called the Brethren." The last we hear of this famous jewel is in 1623, when it is described in the same words in the list of jewels removed from the Tower by James I, and handed over to his jeweller Heriot to be refashioned for the use of Charles and Buckingham on their visit to Spain. That it was then remounted is evident from the King's letter to his son, in which he says: "I send for your wearing the Three Brethren, that you knowe full well, but newlie sette."

About the year 1536 the great painter Hans Holbein, who had come to England several years previously, entered into the service of Henry VIII, and it was between that date and his death in 1543 that he executed those masterpieces of design for jewellery which will ever stand as a landmark in the history of the subject. There is no evidence to show that Holbein himself worked in the precious metals. But brought up under similar influences as had moulded the great Italian artists of the Renaissance, Ghiberti, Pollaiuolo, Verrocchio, Francia, and Ghirlandaio, who combined the arts of painting, architecture, and sculpture with the jeweller's craft, he had been well grounded in the limitations of his materials, and knew how far the draughtsman could display his skill in this direction.

The most important of Holbein's designs for jewellery are preserved in the British Museum, to which they were bequeathed by Sir Hans Sloane in 1753. The collection, originally mounted in a quarto volume, termed Holbein's London Sketch-book, is now remounted and systematically arranged. The designs, comprising 179 separate items, are for the most part drawn with a pen with black ink, and then some slight touches of brown put in for the shadows. Several of the designs have the ground blackened, the ornaments being left in white. Some of the jewels, entirely coloured and often touched up with gold, are designed for enamelling in high relief; some are perhaps designed for execution in niello, though it is not improbable that these were intended to be ornamented with black champlevé enamel. The most attractive are the patterns for jewels enriched with precious stones and enamels, the majority of which were for neck pendants intended to hang from a chain, ribbon, or silken cord, itself sometimes shown in the drawing (Pl. XXVI).

The design of a few of these pendants is based upon the prevailing custom of wearing initials of the name either in embroidery or in pure gold attached to the garments. Some curious instances of this fashion are recorded by Hall, particularly in his graphic account of what took place at a masque given by Henry VIII at his palace at Westminster. Upon the King's invitation to divide the rich garments of the maskers sewn with letters of "fine and massy gold in bullyon as thicke as they might be," which generally went as largess to the ladies, a rabble of citizens, who were allowed to look on, broke in, and "ranne to the Kyng and stripped hym into his hosen and dublet, and all his compaignions in like wyse. Syr Thomas Knevet stode on a stage, and for all his defence he lost his apparell. The ladies like wyse were spoyled, wherfore the Kynges garde came sodenly, and put the people backe, or els it was supposed more inconvenience had ensued." So pure was the gold of which these letters were composed that it is recorded subsequently that a "shipeman of London who caught certayn letters sould them to a goldsmyth for £3. 14. 8"—quite a considerable sum in those days.

In the same way jewelled initials were also frequently worn in the form of pendants and a jewelled B can be seen hanging from the neck of Anne Boleyn in her portrait in the National Portrait Gallery. Holbein's drawings contain several beautiful instances of this type of design, generally completed with three pendent pearls. One of them has a monogram of the initials R and E in chased and engraved gold set at the four corners with two rubies, an emerald, and a diamond. Another has the letters H and I (probably for Henry and Jane Seymour) with an emerald in the centre; and a somewhat similar jewel, formed of the sacred monogram, is worn by Jane Seymour in her portrait by Holbein at Vienna.

The designs for the larger pendants, mostly circular or lozenge-shaped, are set with sapphires, diamonds, rubies, and pearls, and terminate with large pear-shaped pearls. The spaces between the stones are filled with chased or enamelled arrangements of scroll or leaf work.

The smaller jewels, which might also have been worn as enseignes or badges on the hat, or as brooches, are of open goldwork with leaf or ribbon ornament set with stones and pearls. They include a very beautiful design of a half-length figure of a lady in the costume of the period holding between her hands a large stone, upon which is the inscription well laydi well (Pl. XXVI, 9). The fifteenth-century traditions seem to have influenced Holbein in the design of this jewel, which at once calls to mind the Flemish-Burgundian brooches (an example of which, in the British Museum, has already been mentioned) ornamented with similar figures, full-faced, and holding a large stone before them.

The jewels actually executed from these designs were probably the work of Hans of Antwerp, known as John Anwarpe.[136] He was a friend of Holbein, and one of the witnesses of his will; and his portrait, painted by Holbein, is now at Windsor. Hans of Antwerp appears to have settled in London about 1514, having perhaps been induced to do so by Thomas Cromwell, who in early life resided for a time in Antwerp as secretary to the English merchants there. It was presumably Cromwell who, as "Master of the King's Jewel House," was instrumental in procuring for him the post of the King's goldsmith. His name occurs several times in Cromwell's accounts, and it was in accordance with the latter's "ryght hartye commendations" that he obtained the freedom of the Goldsmiths' Company of London. The chief duty of the King's goldsmith was to supply the New Year's gifts (estrennes), so popular at that time. These usually took the form of personal ornaments, and it seems likely that Holbein's famous sketches were specially designed for this purpose.

ELIZABETH—MARY STUART

However remarkable the Court of Henry VIII was for its profusion of jewellery, that of Queen Elizabeth, who inherited the Tudor love for display, was still more extravagant. Throughout her reign—a period marked also upon the Continent for its prolific production of jewellery—the fashion set by the jewel-loving Queen for a superabundance of finery maintained its sway. The country suddenly becoming wealthy, was tempted, like one not born to riches, to use the whole in outward show, and this display was rendered comparatively easy by the influx of gold and precious stones after the Spanish conquests in America.

Numerous portraits of courtiers and court ladies afford ample evidence of the prevailing fashions in jewellery, while the portraits of the Queen herself, all overburdened with ornaments, are too well known to need detailed description.[137] "There is not a single portrait of her," says Walpole, "that one can call beautiful. The profusion of ornaments with which they are loaded are marks of her continual fondness for dress, while they entirely exclude all grace, and leave no more room for a painter's genius than if he had been employed to copy an Indian idol, totally composed of hands and necklaces. A pale Roman nose, a head of hair loaded with crowns and powdered with diamonds, a vast ruff, a vaster fardingale, a bushel of pearls, are features by which every body knows at once the pictures of Queen Elizabeth."

An excellent description of the jewellery of Elizabeth towards the close of her brilliant reign is given by Paul Hentzner, who visited England in 1598: "The Queen had in her ears two pearls with very rich drops; she wore false hair and that red; upon her head she had a small crown; her bosom was uncovered, and she had on a necklace of exceedingly fine jewels. She was dressed in white silk, bordered with pearls of the size of beans, and over it a mantle of black silk shot with silver threads; her train was very long. Instead of a chain, she had an oblong collar of gold and jewels." To a courtier who knelt to her, "after pulling off her glove, she gave her right hand to kiss, sparkling with rings and jewels."

The best of all representations of that "bright occidental Star" is her faded waxwork effigy, still to be seen in Westminster Abbey—no other than the one which on the 28th of April, 1603, was carried on her coffin to the Abbey. It shows the veritable passion Elizabeth possessed for pearls. Her stomacher is encrusted with large Roman pearls, while strings of pearls hang round her throat and neck. Her earrings are circular pearl and ruby medallions, with huge pear-shaped pearl pendants.

Full of detail are the records of costly "juelles" that have come down to us, particularly in the list, preserved in the British Museum,[138] of the New Year's gifts presented to the Queen, from the fourteenth to the thirty-sixth year of her reign. The practice of exchanging presents on New Year's Day attained extraordinary proportions at the Court of Elizabeth, and was supplemented by birthday presents, which, as Her Majesty's weakness for jewellery was well known, took for the most part the form of personal ornaments of every kind. The very accurate accounts that were kept by the officers of the Queen's wardrobe of every item in her enormous store of jewellery is witnessed by a number of curious entries in her wardrobe-book of losses of jewellery sustained by Her Majesty.[139]

In addition to numerous inventories and wills full of information concerning the jewellery of the period, we have at our service, as in Roman times, the works of social satirists, such as The Anatomie of Abuses, by Philip Stubbes (1583), and Bishop Hall's poetical satires of 1597, to which we are indebted for many valuable details. In accepting these it is well to bear in mind the common tendency of every age to ridicule its own fashions; yet, in spite of Puritan narrowness, and the exaggerated indignation of the satirist, it is manifest that extraordinary luxury and extravagance in dress and jewellery were prevalent not only at Court, but among all classes of the community.

Of greater importance, however, than the information to be gleaned from pictorial and literary sources is that derived from the actual jewels themselves, a considerable number of which, through all the changes and chances of more than three centuries, have been handed down still practically intact, and retaining the chief feature of their decoration—their exquisite enamel. Shakespeare, while appreciating the charm of its harmonious combination of colours, recognised, it appears, the delicacy of this beautiful medium, when in the Comedy of Errors he makes Adriana say:—