Jewellery

The most interesting and perhaps the best-known French peasant jewellery is that of Normandy and the Auvergne. The chief Norman jewel is the cross. The most usual form is that which occurs in the districts round St. Lô and Caen. It is of silver, formed of five high bosses, four round and one pear-shaped, each set with a large foiled rock crystal (commonly known as Diamant, Caillou, or Pierre d' Alençon) cut and faceted in the brilliant shape, and further ornamented with sprays set with small crystals in rose form. The lower limb of the cross, briolette or pear-shaped, is hinged, so as to render it less liable to get bent or broken in wear (Pl. LIII, 4). The spaces between the limbs are sometimes completely filled up with branched open-work set with small crystals. In the more northerly parts of France the cross is formed simply of large bosses set with crystals; but round about Rouen we meet with an abundance of spray-work. Other crosses of considerable size are formed of thin plates of pierced gold. The shape of the cross is indicated simply by crystal bosses, but its form is almost lost in the outline of the jewel. A favourite subject for representation on Rouennais jewellery is the Saint Esprit or Holy Dove. Employed as a breast-ornament or pendant, the Dove is either in gold or silver, mounted with crystals, or coloured pastes set close together. It is suspended from an ornament of open knot design, with a rosette-shaped slide above. In its beak is a branch, spray, or bunch of grapes, generally of coloured pastes. Peasant jewellery ceased to be worn in Normandy about 1840, when native costume was given up.

While Normandy relies chiefly on crystal quartz for its jewellery, the Auvergne can boast of a variety of gems, such as garnets, opals, spinels, and zircons, which are of frequent occurrence in the volcanic rock of Central France. The jewellery of Puy is mounted with cabochon stones in large high settings. Open-work circular pendants have a central boss with eight similar settings around. The Saint Esprit is also a popular jewel, but in these parts the form of the Dove is not completely carried out, the jewel being composed merely of five pear-shaped bosses to indicate the wings, body, head, and tail of the bird.

It is to be observed that the patterns of the jewels here alluded to are not entirely original inventions of the peasantry. As a matter of fact, they are often from precisely the same models as the jewellery in use in the seventeenth and early part of the eighteenth century, and are very similar in style to the large series of original designs in the National Art Library, South Kensington, executed about that time by the Santini family of Florence. Their technique is also traditional. This is shown by the presence on many of the peasant jewels of Southern France, as well as of other districts, of the painted enamel which came in about 1640, and continued in use for upwards of a century. While fashion has shifted scores of times since those days, types and styles of jewellery then set remained unchanged in these quarters until the great industrial revolution of the nineteenth century and the strange and universal decline of taste that accompanied it.

Holland is one of the few countries that have retained their peasant jewellery. Not only is it displayed in abundance on festal occasions, such as weddings, but it is worn in everyday life by the well-to-do natives of the country districts. Much jewellery is employed in Zeeland. The country belles wear jutting out on either side of the lace cap curious corkscrew-like ornaments of gold, silver, or gilt metal, on which they hang pendants sometimes tipped with pearls. In the land of Goes a square gold ornament is pinned close to the face inside the lace halo that surrounds the head. Coral necklaces are worn, and jet ones for mourning. Boys have earrings and gold and silver buttons near the throat. The head-ornaments of North Holland and Utrecht consist of a broad thin band of gold or silver which encircles the skull and terminates at each end with the above-mentioned spiral ornaments. These bands are covered by a white muslin cap or by a cap decorated with coloured designs. The women of Gelderland display costly caps of gold beaten out to fit each individual head. In Overyssel the lace cap terminates with gold ornaments, and the coral necklace has clasps of gold filigree. Men and boys wear flat silver buttons on the coat and gold at the collar. At the waist is a pair of large hammered discs of silver. The natives of the fertile country of Friesland possess vast stores of jewellery, generally of gold set with diamonds.

Very attractive peasant ornaments are still in use in Belgium. Long pendent crosses are worn, with earrings to match. They are of open-work floral and scroll designs, and are mounted with small rosettes set with rose diamonds—silver rosettes being applied to gold ornaments, gold to silver ones. The slide or coulant above the cross here forms part of the pendant, and is not, as in France, attached by the ribbon worn with it. The heart (Sacré Cœur) is not worn above the cross, as in France, but is used as a distinct ornament, as a rule in silver only. These open-work heart pendants, commonly found between Antwerp and Malines, and rarely elsewhere, have an opening in the centre hung with a movable setting, and a hinged crown-shaped ornament above. Instead of a crown is sometimes a flèche, two quivers and a bow—a love token. Flemish jewels, unlike the French, are set entirely with rose diamonds.

The peasant jewellery of Norway and Sweden is mainly of silver filigree. Precious stones do not take an important place in it. When used they are more often than not false, and are only sparingly applied for the sake of their colour. Particularly characteristic of almost all the ornaments of these parts are numerous small concave or saucer-like pieces of metal, highly polished, or small flat rings. They are suspended by links, particularly from the large circular buckle which is the chief article of jewellery. Most ornaments are circular in plan. Besides being executed in filigree, many of them are embossed or else cast—a style of work admirably displayed on the huge silver-gilt crowns worn by Scandinavian brides.

The peasant ornaments of Germany present many varieties of design. Silver filigree of various kinds is employed for almost all of them. In the northern districts amber beads are naturally the commonest form of necklace, while hollow balls of silver are also worn strung together. Large flat hair-pins are used, the expanded heads of which are ornamented with raised filigree. Swiss and Tyrolese peasant jewellery is largely composed of garnets or garnet-coloured glass set in silver filigree.

So numerous are the different types of Italian peasant jewels that it is impossible to mention them all. Every small district, nay, every township, seems to have possessed ornaments that differed in some detail from those of its neighbours. Many of them display reminiscences of the antique. Their manufacture follows—or did till quite recent years—the old methods; the natives of certain out-of-the-way districts in Umbria still working in very much the same manner as the ancient Etruscans. All ornaments are somewhat voluminous. The head is uncovered, and presents an extensive field for hair-ornaments. The Lombards have all sorts of hair-pins, often a couple of dozen, stuck in nimbus fashion, and through them crosswise is passed another pin with an oval head at each end. Earrings are likewise of considerable dimensions, but light in spite of their size. Their surfaces are very frequently set with seed pearls. The finest existing collection of Italian peasant jewellery is that in the Victoria and Albert Museum, purchased from Signor Castellani in 1867. Of great beauty is the jewellery of the shores of the Adriatic, and that of the Greek Islands, probably made by descendants of the Venetian goldsmiths, and commonly known by the title of "Adriatic" jewellery (Pl. LIV). It is of thin gold, on which are shallow cells filled with opaque enamels. Crescent-shaped earrings are formed of pendent parts hung with double pearls. Dating from the seventeenth century are elaborate and delicate pendants in the shape of fully rigged ships enriched with painted enamel and hung with clusters of pearls. Beautiful work of a similar nature was also produced in Sicily.

CHAPTER XXXV

The special capability of the early painters for representing articles of jewellery need merely be alluded to again, seeing the close connection already shown, that always existed between them and the goldsmiths, in whose workshops most of them passed their apprenticeship. Every jewelled ornament figured in their works is, in fact, designed with the full knowledge of a goldsmith versed in his craft.

The artists of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries are notorious for the extreme and elaborate minuteness of their painting of jewels. In the portraits of the time careful accuracy in depicting ornaments was the duty, and evidently the delight, of the painter. In every early picture the various details of costume and jewellery are rendered with scrupulous care and refinement. Though placed in the most prominent and decorative positions, jewellery was never, in the best works, allowed to intrude or to occupy an exaggerated place in the composition. For however minutely defined these accessories may be, they are so fused into the general design that they are only apparent if one takes the trouble to look for them.

In addition to recognised masterpieces, there exists a vast number of pictures obviously not by the first masters, which, though of only moderate quality, do not actually offend by their inferiority. These equally well serve to illustrate details of jewellery and dress. In a picture of the first order such details, of importance in themselves, sink into insignificance beside the splendid qualities of a work of art: in less important pictures the ornamental accessories are all in all. It would be of great value to students if all public collections that possess costumes and ornaments could bring together—as has been done with marked success in the Germanic Museum at Nuremberg—series of portraits specially chosen to illustrate these details, such portraits, like the actual articles of dress and jewellery, being, of course, old ones, not modern copies.

We may state, in general, that jewels figured in portraits are to be relied upon as being the actual objects possessed by the persons represented. All the early painters displayed, as has been said, a special love for jewel forms. They not only took their beautiful models as they found them, but being themselves mostly masters of the jeweller's craft, they devoted much attention to the adornment and the arrangement of the jewels of their models. It may be urged that painters are apt to indulge their fancy by decorating their sitters with jewels they do not possess, introduced to improve the colour or arrangement of the picture, or introduced in accordance with orders, like those of the good Mrs. Primrose, who expressly desired the painter of her portrait to put in as many jewels as he could for the money, and "not to be too frugal of his diamonds in her stomacher and hair."

It is unlikely, on the contrary, that any of the early painters departed from their usual methods of truth, reality, and accuracy; or, considering the elaborate detail with which they depicted jewellery, that they ever specially invented it for the portrait in which it occurs. It is much more probable that they worked from what they saw: for masters of painting have in all ages worked from models in preference to carrying out their own designs. An instance may be cited of the care which painters paid to the ornaments of their sitters. Preserved in the Archivio di Casa Gerini at Florence are certain unpublished documents[189] of the years 1579 to 1584 relating to the artist Alessandro Allori, in which is a list of the clothes and jewels that had been lent him from the wardrobe of the Grand Duchess, Bianca Cappello, when he was painting her portrait.

One or two of the peculiarities of artists in representing jewellery are worthy of being mentioned. It is to be observed that the presence or absence of gilding on jewellery often serves to distinguish between German and Flemish paintings. Holbein almost always employed gold upon golden objects; but in the works of Mabuse, so rich in elaborate detail, paint alone suffices to produce the effect. The artists of those days possessed a marvellous facility for imitating the brilliance of gold by colour alone.

In examining the jewellery of sixteenth and seventeenth century portraits numbers of what appear to be black stones are frequently to be seen. These were evidently intended to represent diamonds. From early times, when the custom existed of improving, as it was considered, the colour of all stones by the use of foils, diamonds—the old stones of Golconda and Brazil, different in colour and quality from the diamonds of to-day—were usually backed with a black varnish composed of lamp-black and oil of mastic. This tinctura, or colouring of the diamond, which is alluded to by Cellini, would account for the intense and clear blacks and whites used by the artists of the time in depicting that precious stone.

In the work of some of the finest painters of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, so masterly is the handling, that in the contemplation of broad effects one may fail to notice how much detail the artists were able to combine with such breadth. In fact the detail they displayed is hardly less precise than that of the earlier painters. Mr. Davies[190] has some interesting remarks to make on the different modes of depicting jewellery adopted by first-class painters—by the one who paints it in detail and the other who treats it with freedom. "The first paints you, touch by touch, his chains, his bracelets, his tiara, link by link, and gem by gem, with precision so great that if you called in a fairly capable goldsmith, of little or no intelligence, he would use them as a pattern and produce you an exact facsimile. The second obtains his result by summarized knowledge, letting his line lose itself and find itself again, a flash on a link, a sparkle on a gem suggesting all to the eye with a completeness which is fully as complete as the literal word for word translation of the other man. Call in a really intelligent goldsmith to this work and he would find it quite as easy as, or even easier than, the other to understand and reproduce from, but it would not do to make a tracing from, nor give as a pattern to one of his unintelligent apprentices."

Very attractive and valuable guides to the jewellery of the early period are the early Flemish-Burgundian paintings (p. 90), and those of the Italian masters of the fifteenth century (p. 167). The most fertile of sixteenth-century pictures for the present purpose are the German (p. 189), as may be judged from Herr Luthmer's Goldschmuck der Renaissance, in which are reproduced in colours a number of specimens of jewellery figured in contemporary pictures. In the second half of the sixteenth century and the early part of the seventeenth, the painters of the Low Countries especially excelled in the delineation of jewel forms. Among these artists are Sir Antonio More, Peter Pourbus, Lucas de Heere, Zucchero, Marc Gheeraerts, D. Mytens, Van Somer, and Janssens. By these and by numerous followers of Holbein, many pictures were painted, and exist in England at the present day. The technique of the great Dutch and Flemish painters of the seventeenth century, even of such as Frans Hals, was not incompatible, as Mr. Davies has shown, with the clear representation of personal ornaments.

The majority of pictures of the early part of the eighteenth century offer but slight indication of the jewellery of the time. The conventional style of portraiture which then found favour did not allow such individual characteristics as personal ornaments to obtain a place in the portrait. In the canons for painters laid down by C. A. Du Fresnoy of Paris, entitled De arte graphica, which ruled artists of the first half of the eighteenth century, it was particularly enjoined that "portraits should not be overladen with gold and jewels." "The portrait painters," as Reynolds expressed it in speaking of his predecessors as far back as Lely and Kneller, "had a set of postures (and ornaments too) which they applied to all persons indiscriminately."

Seeing the reliance that may be placed on the jewellery figured in the portraits of earlier times, it is not unnatural to expect such detail to be of considerable service in art criticism. In the identification of a portrait much may rest on the identification of its jewels: for "a portrait," as Mr. Andrew Lang says, "with the jewels actually owned by the subject, if not 'the rose' (for it may be a copy of a lost original) has certainly been 'near the rose.'" But critics seldom think of examining the numerous extant royal and noble inventories and other documents such as wills containing lists of jewels, and of comparing the jewels described in them with those displayed in portraits.

This method, neglected as a rule in criticism, has been employed by Mr. Lang with conspicuous success in his Portraits and jewels of Mary Stuart, and has served to identify the remarkable portrait of the Scottish Queen in the possession of Lord Leven and Melville. Interesting as it is when the jewels depicted in the portraits are identical with those described in their owners' inventories, it is even more so when the actual jewels thus represented have survived to the present day, such as is the case with the Penruddock Jewel shown in Lucas de Heere's portrait of Sir George Penruddock; the Drake Jewel in Zucchero's portrait of Sir Francis Drake; the Lyte Jewel in the portrait of Mr. Thomas Lyte; the earring of Charles I belonging to the Duke of Portland, shown in Van Dyck's portraits; and the earrings of Henrietta Maria in Lord Clifford's possession, shown in portraits of her painted by the same artist.

CHAPTER XXXVI

Besides being employed for jewellery, precious stones were made use of by the mediæval embroiderers to increase the effect of the coloured materials and gold thread in the decoration of their robes. But when we bear in mind the accurate descriptions given by Theophilus in his Diversarum Artium Schedula of the process of making false gems, it is only reasonable to assume that many of the so-called jewels were not in fact real gems, but imitations. Certain it is that in mediæval times the counterfeiting of precious stones was very largely carried on, while many accounts are preserved in early records of fines and other punishments inflicted on dishonest traders in gems who attempted to dispose of spurious stones, usually set in finger rings. In England and France during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries it was customary for the jewellers' guild of each town to have a rule prohibiting its members from setting paste gems in real gold or real gems in plated metal; from mounting Scottish pearls with those of the East; or mingling coloured glass, or false, with precious stones. As in earlier periods, a crystal or a colourless paste was made to imitate a coloured stone by backing it with a foil. At South Kensington an example exists, set in a gold ring of sixteenth-century German work (No. 1206-'03), of a white crystal, which is cut en cabochon and backed with a red foil, and bears a striking resemblance to a carbuncle (Pl. XXIII, 17).

Many books on precious stones, both old and new, give receipts for the manufacture of imitation gems, made of flint glass and coloured with oxides according to the originals they are intended to counterfeit. Apart from these are false gems produced with really fraudulent intent. Since imitation stones cannot resist the file, it is the practice, besides backing a crystal with coloured foil, to back a thin layer of genuine stone—intended to resist the test when examined for hardness—with a layer of glass coloured as required. Another process of fabrication consists of placing a layer of glass between two layers of true stone. The place of the join in the "triplet" is hidden by the collet of the setting, and the deceit can only be detected by unsetting the stone and soaking it in chloroform. Another means employed for changing and improving the colours of stones is by heat, for the colour of nearly all gems is affected by heating.

Not pastes only but clear crystals have long been palmed off on the unwary for diamonds. Perhaps the best-known of these were crystals of quartz found in the Clifton limestone near Bristol, which went by the name of Bristol diamonds. They are alluded to as worn in the ears by the fop described in Lenton's Young Gallant's Whirligigg (1629). Quartz crystals found in the tin mines of Cornwall, and similar stones from the neighbourhood of Harrogate, still known respectively as Cornish and Harrogate diamonds, were also much employed for jewellery from the sixteenth century. Transparent stones from various parts of the Continent are given the names of the localities in which they are found. In France, rock crystal, cut in rose or brilliant form, went generally by the name of Pierre d' Alençon or Caillou du Rhin.

Of the transparent glass paste termed Stras or Strass we have already spoken. Though an imitation, the paste of eighteenth-century jewellery does not necessarily belong to the category of frauds and counterfeits, since it possesses a certain originality of its own, and does not appear to have been generally worn with intent to deceive. False or mock pearls on the other hand seem in some way to be rather more associated with deception, though they also can be made to serve for decorative purposes entirely apart from any such intent. To reproduce the lustre or "orient" characteristic of oriental pearls, use is made in the fabrication of imitations of a pearly essence known as essence d'orient, obtained from the silvery scales on the underside of a fish called the bleak. Beads of blown glass slightly opalescent and treated with acid to produce an iridescent surface are coated internally with a film of the essence, and wax is then introduced to give the bead the desired weight. Other mock pearls are made up of a vitreous composition formed largely of the pearl essence. Their surface when burnished presents a fine lustre. These are generally termed Venetian pearls. Roman pearls are formed of external coatings produced by frequent dippings into a solution made of the pearliest parts of the oyster.

From earliest times frauds have been committed in connection with the precious metals. The goldsmiths and jewellers of the Middle Ages were forbidden to work in base metal, to use false stones of glass, or to put coloured foil beneath real stones. They were further expressly forbidden to manufacture personal ornaments for secular use of gilt or silvered copper or brass. Documents in the archives of the City of London contain many references to the perpetration of fraud in passing off as real, objects of brass or latten that had been silvered or gilded. In 1369 a conviction and punishment by the pillory took place for selling to "divers persons rings and fermails of latten, of coloured gold and silver, as being made of real gold and silver, in deceit, and to the grievous loss, of the common people"; and in 1376 a workman was imprisoned for having silvered 240 buttons of latten, and thirty-four latten rims for gipcières, and having "maliciously purposed and imagined to sell the same for pure silver, in deceit of the people." From actual objects that have survived it would seem that the more heinous offence was not infrequently committed of plating with silver the baser metals of tin, lead, and pewter. The statutes of the goldsmiths ordained that no jeweller should sell any article of silver unless it was as fine as sterling, "nor sett it to sell before it be touched" with the leopard's head and maker's mark. But exceptions were always made in favour of small articles of jewellery "which could not reasonably bear the same touch." Such materials as pinchbeck and Similor and the plated objects of modern times hardly fall within the present category.

Actual forgeries of personal ornaments can scarcely be said to have been committed until comparatively recent years—not, in fact, until the demand for specimens of old jewellery on the part of the antiquary and connoisseur rendered their reproduction profitable.[191]

Owing to the high prices they command from collectors, or to various facilities afforded for their production and disposal, three classes of objects—Greek and Etruscan jewellery, mediæval rings, and enamelled pendants of the Renaissance—offer the strongest temptation to the forger; and he on his part displays such an amount of skill and ingenuity, that the fabrication of spurious antiquities of this kind may be said to have amounted almost to a fine art.

The much sought after gold jewellery of Greece and Etruria has received more attention than any other, partly on account of the fact that gold is subject to but slight oxidisation; for the patina of age is lacking even on ancient examples. Setting aside the beautiful imitations by such artists as Castellani, father and sons, and later by Melillo and Giuliano—which clever reproductions are known to have been sometimes foisted upon collectors by unscrupulous dealers—a great deal of really false work made with the intent of passing for old has been produced in Italy—chiefly at Rome, Naples, and Florence. On the subject of such pseudo-antiques Count Tyszkiewicz has several good stories to tell in his Memories of an Old Collector. Of all objects of this kind, that which has claimed the largest share of public attention is the notorious "Tiara of Saitapharnes," which deceived several well-known authorities, and reposed for several years as a genuine antique in the Louvre, until the revelation in 1903 of the person of its ingenious author—a Russian Jew of Odessa.

The disclosure of this remarkable fraud was the climax of a long series of forgeries of ancient Greek jewellery from Southern Russia, which, purporting to be recovered from the Greek tombs of Olbia and Kertch, long renowned for their wealth in such objects, were purchased by more than one well-known collector. So keenly has the forger pursued his evil course in this particular domain, that, apart from that preserved in museums and in the cabinets of collectors whose personal judgment is sound on such matters, M. Eudel goes so far as to say that the greater portion of the antique jewellery extant is of recent fabrication.

Mediæval ornaments of all sorts are forged at the present day upon the Continent to a considerable extent, though less than are those of later times. One important centre of their production is Paris. Another, in earlier years in particular, was Frankfort, where visitors to watering-places on the Rhine have long been the victims of fraudulent vendors. Such mediæval objects, however well supported by a dealer's warranty of place and time of discovery, require, says Mr. King, to be examined by the amateur with a very suspicious and critical eye. Among other personal ornaments of this period that have received attention at the hands of the forger are the leaden badges known as pilgrims' signs. Many ingenious forgeries of the kind were produced about forty-five years ago, and purported to be brought to light by workmen engaged in excavations near the Thames in the City of London. These were in large part the work of two illiterate mud-rakers on the banks of the river; while articles of like kind were shortly afterwards made by two men known as "Billy and Charley," who manufactured a number of curious pendent medals of lead and "cock-metal."[192] The discovery in the Seine, about the same time, of many genuine pilgrims' signs led to the circulation also in France of a quantity of spurious objects of a similar nature.

Renaissance pendants, the prizes of the connoisseur, are favourite subjects for reproduction at the present day, for, unlike the earlier objects, they are not ill-adapted for personal use. Jewellery in the Cinquecento style has for several years past been made in large quantities at Vienna. These jewels are generally not in gold, like the works they profess to imitate, but in silver-gilt, and as a result their enamel is never of fine quality, their general appearance is not up to the standard of the old, and their workmanship is mostly very mechanical. Apart from these and similar works, made also in France and generally sold in jewellers' shops as modern productions, there are others which pretend to age. Though one seldom meets with examples that approach the best productions of the Renaissance, objects of the kind are occasionally imitated with such proficiency, that in collecting specimens of early jewellery in no instances is it necessary to exercise greater caution than in those of the Cinquecento.

Fine jewellery of the eighteenth century, now almost equally sought after—watches, chatelaines, rings, and brooches—has been multiplied in quantities during recent years. As the brooches of this date are very often mounted with rose-cut diamonds, care has been taken to employ stones cut in this manner. Their settings generally distinguish the copies. Again, as M. Eudel points out, when fine old diamond-work has been sent to be reset, the jeweller preserves the old mounts, sets them with modern stones or pastes, and sells them as genuine old work. For the purpose of furthering the deception complete parures purporting to be seventeenth or eighteenth century work are offered for sale in genuine old leather or shagreen cases. A set of jewels may even be made for the special purpose of fitting such a case, or an entirely new case constructed, and treated in such a manner as to give it an appearance of age.

CHAPTER XXXVII

During the latter period of the Middle Ages the grim and ascetic contemplation of death caused the artists of that period to represent it as the devil, the father of sin, horned and cloven-hoofed, carrying off the sinful souls and forcing them into the mouth of hell. But when during the fifteenth century "printing excited men's imaginations, when the first discovery of the ancient classics roused their emulation and stimulated their unrest, when the Renaissance in art increased their eagerness to express their thoughts and multiplied their method of expression,"[193] and their conscience was turned to the latter end and the unseen world, then at length did death appear, no longer as the father of sin, but altered into a familiar and human personification.

Side by side with the strange vigour and extraordinary joy in life that marked the period, there existed a great contempt for the value of life and a gross familiarity with death. It was Death himself, according to the imagination of the sixteenth century, who, always at hand, clutched men of every age and condition by the sleeve and hurried them all unwillingly away.

The emblems of death were always presented in close touch with the living. The forms they took—the skeleton, or simply the skull, or Death's head, with cross-bones—were rendered in the sixteenth century by both painter and sculptor; but it was reserved for the goldsmith—the sculptor and painter in one—to represent them on jewellery through the medium of the precious metals enriched with gems and coloured enamels. They figured on every kind of ornament. Brooches with enamelled skulls were fastened as enseignes upon the hat; golden jewels like funereal objects in shape of coffins holding enamelled skeletons hung from the neck; rosary beads, pomanders and watches in the form of human skulls were attached to the waist; and rings bearing Death's heads and other emblems were worn upon the fingers.

A great impetus was given to the use of such articles of adornment by Diana of Poitiers when she became mistress of Henry II of France. She was then a widow in mourning; and the complaisant Court not only adopted her black and white as the fashionable colour, but covered their personal ornaments with emblems of death.

Jewels of this description, it is clear, were not necessarily carried in remembrance of any special individual. With their legend "Memento Mori" they were simply reminders of Death in the abstract. As such they characterised exactly the temper of the time, and were quite commonly worn by the upper and middle classes, especially by those who affected a respectable gravity. At the time of which we now speak the personal badge or devise, an obscure expression of some particular conceit of its wearer, was at the height of fashion. In its elaboration the various emblems of death were largely put under contribution, their choice for the purpose being the outcome of the special disposition of those who adopted them. Perhaps the most notable instance of the representation of a badge of this kind is in Holbein's famous "Ambassadors," in the National Gallery. Here Jean de Dinteville, who stands on the left of the picture, wears a circular jewel formed of a white enamelled skull in a gold mount, pinned as an enseigne to the lower rim of his small black bonnet.

Amongst sundry ornaments bearing mortuary devices, there is a good example at South Kensington—a Memento Mori charm of enamelled gold in the form of a coffin containing a minutely articulated skeleton. It is English work of the Elizabethan period, and was found at Tor Abbey, Devonshire (Pl. XLIV, 16).

No article of decoration has been more extensively used as a "Memento Mori" or for memorial purposes than the finger ring. The association of the ring is largely with affairs of the heart, and lovers are united with it. And since the form itself is emblematic of eternity, so by this same token of affection has the memory of departed friends been kept green.

The sepulchral emblems referred to were not made use of for mediæval ornaments. But in the sixteenth century they were very frequent, especially on rings. One of the most remarkable specimens of the wonderful mastery over technical difficulties which stamps the goldsmith's work of this time is a "Memento Mori" ring of German work in the Waddesdon Bequest. Its bezel or top is in the form of a book, decorated at each corner with a diamond, emerald, sapphire, and ruby, with snakes and toads between them. In the centre is a death's head. The lid on opening discloses a recumbent figure with skull and hour-glass. On the shoulders of the ring, supporting the bezel, are figures of Adam and Eve representing The Fall and Expulsion from Eden. All the figures are enamelled in high relief, and though merely a fraction of an inch in size, are executed with extraordinary fidelity. A ring described as having belonged to Mary Stuart is in the possession of the Earl of Ilchester. Its bezel, composed of a large ruby cut in the form of a death's head and set with diamond eyes, is supported underneath by cross-bones in enamel. Woeiriot's beautiful collection of designs for rings, of the year 1561, contains a ring of this kind surmounted with a skull and cross-bones; and Gilles Légaré's Recueil of a century later has an engraving of similar pattern (Pl. XL).

English rings of the sixteenth century have a death's head carved in intaglio on carnelian, or sunk in the metal of the ring and sometimes filled with enamel. Around is the motto "Memento Mori," and similar expressions in Latin or in English (Pl. XXXVI, 12). A certain Agnes Hals whose will is dated 1554 bequeathed to her niece "my rynge of gold with the wepinge eie," and to her son "my rynge with the dead manes head."

From the commencement of the seventeenth century Memento Mori rings begin to be worn also as memorials of the departed, and bequests of money were frequently made for their purchase. The decoration of many of the rings of this period is very curious. On some the death's head in its natural shape is beautifully formed in enamel, has small diamond eyes, and is supported on each side by skeletons bent along the hoop of the ring. The bezel of others is of crystal in the shape of a coffin, the lid of which on being removed discloses a skeleton. Widows on the death of their husbands sometimes converted their wedding rings into memorial rings. This was done by engraving outside an elongated skeleton, the bones of which were brought into prominence by a background of black enamel.

Inside the memorial rings of the time was often a motto or posy, appropriate for the purpose, sometimes rhyming:—

or

Rings of this kind, commonly known as mourning rings, were frequently given, together with gloves and hat-bands, to those who attended at funerals. They were inscribed, in addition to a posy, with the initials of the deceased and the date. Evelyn at his son's funeral in 1658 distributed a number of rings with the motto "Dominus abstulit." At Pepys' funeral upwards of a hundred and thirty rings were given to friends and relatives.

Mention must be made, amongst other memorial jewellery, of the various objects worn in memory of Charles I. Most of these are finger rings containing a portrait of the ill-fated monarch, which were made and worn by Royalists after his execution. Some are so contrived that the portrait can only be discovered by opening a lid formed of a table diamond. They were doubtless used by those for whom devotion of the kind was dangerous. Other jewels worn in memory of the Royal Martyr were heart-shaped lockets, inscribed and decorated in a suitably funereal manner with skulls, cross-bones, and like emblems.

An important group of ornaments, dating from the time of Charles II to that of Queen Anne, are those in the form of small memorial brooches, lockets, bracelet clasps, buttons, and slides with loops at the back for attachment to a velvet band. They are of considerable interest in that they represent almost the only surviving examples of English jewellery of the time. The Franks Bequest in the British Museum contains several specimens. They usually have letters in a fine filigree of gold entwined in a monogram, laid on a ground of crimson silk, and covered with a thick crystal set in gold. The gold filigree, which is of extraordinary delicacy, is often laid on braids of hair arranged in various designs, and accompanied by the skull and cross-bones. The crystal covering is sometimes cut in table form, but is more often rose-cut. The locket surrounded with pearls shown on Plate XLIV has on its surface no less than a hundred facets.

Memorial rings of the same period have bezels with similar designs beneath a rose diamond or faceted crystal. Their hoops are mostly enamelled black on the shoulders. In the second quarter of the eighteenth century the mortuary emblems of skull and cross-bones in general disappear. The hoop of the ring is shaped in the form of a scroll or ribbon, and set with a small diamond, a coloured stone, or usually a white crystal. Around the hoop is inscribed in enamel the name and age of the deceased, and date of death. Black enamel was used for those who had been married; while white was employed for the unmarried—just as it was the practice at the funeral of an unmarried man or woman for the mourners and attendants to be clothed in white.

Mourning jewellery was extremely popular in England towards the end of the eighteenth and in the early part of the nineteenth century. The variety of design in objects of the kind then in use, and the ingenuity displayed in their production, may well be judged from a collection numbering upwards of one hundred and fifty specimens in the Victoria and Albert Museum.

Some mementoes of the deceased are simply miniature portraits, as well as cameos and silhouettes, the miniature sometimes taking the form of a single eye set round with pearls or diamonds. But in most cases it appears to have been the custom to wear in lockets, brooches, and rings microscopic devices—works of infinite patience and skill—wrought in hair, with initials and other designs cunningly worked in seed pearls. There were also, sometimes, paintings in grisaille (Pl. XLVII, 2, 3). These often represented a lady in mourning garb weeping over a funeral urn, in the style of the ornament worn by Mr. Wemmick, the attorney's clerk in Great Expectations, of whom Dickens gives the following inimitable description: "I judged him to be a bachelor from the frayed condition of his linen, and he appeared to have sustained a good many bereavements; for he wore at least four mourning rings, besides a brooch representing a lady and a weeping willow at a tomb with an urn on it. I noticed, too, that several rings and seals hung at his watch chain, as if he were quite laden with remembrances of departed friends." Further on Mr. Wemmick himself describes his personal jewellery, and concludes by remarking: "I always take 'em. They're curiosities. And they're property. They may not be worth much, but, after all, they're property and portable.... My guiding-star always is, Get hold of portable property."

The painted brooches backed with hair and set round with pearls form, as a matter of fact, very pretty jewels, in spite of the sombreness of their subject and the trivial sentimentality of their mottoes, which run in this vein: "Whose hair I wear—-I loved most dear."

Mourning jewellery was usually set with pearls, garnets, or more often jet. The last, until a short while ago, was in universal favour, and was fashioned into all sorts of ornaments. It fortunately now meets with but little demand. The same applies to hair jewellery, of human hair woven in many intricate plaitings into brooches, rings, bracelets, and chains. The brooches of about the "forties" have a broad border inscribed with the word "Memory," etc., in Gothic letters on black enamel, and in the centre a panel of plaited hair. The custom of wearing ornaments composed of such sombre and unpleasing material has now to all intents and purposes ceased, though it is carried on to a certain extent in France, where ouvrages en cheveux in the form of bracelets and lockets are still worn as précieux souvenirs de famille.

After the middle of the nineteenth century the use of mourning rings and other memorial jewellery began to die out. The goddess Fashion, who throughout all ages has waged war on the productions of the goldsmith, has laid a heavier hand on these than on any other forms of personal ornament—a circumstance which accounts for the survival at the present day of a comparatively small proportion of the enormous quantity of objects of this description that must formerly have been produced. Most families from time to time have consigned to the melting-pot accumulations of these memorials of their predecessors; and those who have been long in the jeweller's business confess to the hundreds of such relics that they have broken up. It is to be hoped that the present-day revival may lead to the preservation of what remain of these quaint mementoes of our frail mortality.

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