Nineteenth Century And Jewelry-00-7123

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Nineteenth century and jewelry

In the nineteenth century jewelrybecame more approachable than in previous periods, with the advent of machine-made jewelry and the begin-nings of mass production. It was a time of great industrial evolution and social change and jewelry designs of this century were influenced by die expansion of archaeological discoveries and nationalism. International exhibitions, like the Great Exhibition in London in 1851, cultivated artistic and technological innovations. By the end of the century, ideas of design reform had led to the founding of two new movements in Britain and Continental Europe: Arts and Crafts and Art Nouveau. America took to the fine jewelry stage as large American luxury houses such as Tiffany gained prominence.

Romanticism and nationalism Romanticism was a reaction against the order and rationality that typified Classicism in genera! and the Neoclassicism of the eighteenth century in particular. It was characterized by an appreciation of the beauty of nature and a preoccupation with folk culture, and national and ethnic origins. An important idea of Romanticism was the ...
... asser-tion of nationalism; this was to become a central

theme of Romantic art and greatly affected the fashion jewelry of the time. Subsequently there was a revival of wholly historie sryles, such as Gothic and Renaissance, or elements of sryles such as the naturalistic forms of the Baroque and Rococo, as nations tried to establish their identities.

Archaeological style

Archaeological jewelry was often copied closely from surviving finds, and it is this that distin-guishes it from earlier Neoclassical jewelry, which by equivalence was uninformed in relation to real Classical jewelry artifacts. This style of jewelrywas specially favoured by intellectuals of the 1860s to 1880s because it provided a coun-terfoil to the opulent diamond naturalist fashion jewelry. Gold was the principal material, in keeping with the ancient provenance: ancient Etruscan and Greek jewelry was the most influential. Egyptian motifs were popular at the Paris Exhibition of 1897, following excavations undertaken during the digging of the Suez Canal. The Castellani family of goldsmiths/jewellers were well-known leaders of this style and their efforts had a politica! leaning: they featured Classical items found in Italy from antiquity onwards and used this array of Jewels to symbolize Italian unity. Eugène Fontenay of Paris had no such political message to convey. He mixed elements from different periods, producing supremely elegant fashion jewelry, and even incorporating brilliant-cut dia­monds, which would never have occurred on a Classical piece

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