Who invented jewelry information

Though influenced by Roman culture indigenous designs survived. The most common ornament of ancient Rome was the brooch, used to secure their flowing clothes together. They used gold, bronze, bone, glass beads and pearl.

About 2, years back, they imported sapphires from Sri Lankan and diamonds from India. Emeralds and amber were used too. The Italians earlier created clasps, necklaces, earrings and bracelets from crude gold. Even large pendants to store perfume were made. Known as the eastern successor of the Romans, the Byzantine Empire continued the Roman tradition though religious symbols became predominant. The people of Byzantine preferred light gold ornaments richly inlaid with gems.

India has the longest continuous tradition of jewelry making. Around 1, BC the Indus Valley people made their earrings and necklaces of gold, beads other metals. Womenfolk wore clay and shell bracelets, usually painted black and loved tiaras, chokers, brooches and ear rings. Gradually, clay was replaced by glass and metals. Jewelry had various functions to serve.

Its main purpose, in ancient times, was to ward off evil. People have paid dowries with jewelry. It was also created to be used as currency for trading goods, evident from the use of slave beads. It also was a distinguishing mark between the ruler and the ruled. Asset value is still a consideration today. Editorials » Woman » Jewelry ». Most Popular. There was also an interest in jewels inspired by the Medieval and Renaissance periods.

It is a testament to the period's eclectic nature that jewellers such as the Castellani and Giuliano worked in archaeological and historical styles at the same time. Naturalistic jewellery, decorated with clearly recognisable flowers and fruit, was also popular for much of this period.

These motifs first became fashionable in the early years of the century, with the widespread interest in botany and the influence of Romantic poets such as Wordsworth. This large spray of assorted flowers has a pin fastening at the back and would have been worn as a bodice ornament. Some of the diamond flowers are set on springs, which would increase their sparkle considerably as the wearer moved. Individual flower sprays could be removed and used as hair ornaments.

By the s the delicate early designs had given way to more extravagant and complex compositions of flowers and foliage. At the same time, flowers were used to express love and friendship.

The colours in nature were matched by coloured gemstones, and a 'language of flowers' spelt out special messages. In contrast with earlier periods, the more elaborate jewellery was worn almost exclusively by women. Developing in the last years of the 19th century, the Arts and Crafts movement was based on a profound unease with the industrialised world. Its jewellers rejected the machine-led factory system - by now the source of most affordable pieces - and instead focused on hand-crafting individual jewels.

This process, they believed, would improve the soul of the workman as well as the end design. Arts and Crafts jewellers avoided large, faceted stones, relying instead on the natural beauty of cabochon shaped and polished gems. They replaced the repetition and regularity of mainstream settings with curving or figurative designs, often with a symbolic meaning.

The designer of this brooch, C. Ashbee, was a man of immense talents and energy and a defining figure in the Arts and Crafts Movement. In he founded the Guild of Handicraft in the East End of London with the intention of reviving traditional craft skills and providing satisfying employment in a deprived area of the city. Trained originally as an architect, he is known also for his highly innovative furniture, metalwork, silver and jewellery designs. The peacock was one of Ashbee's favourite and most distinctive motifs and he is known to have designed about a dozen peacock jewels in the years around Family tradition is that this brooch was designed for his wife, Janet.

It was made by Ashbee's Guild of Handicraft Ltd. The Art Nouveau style caused a dramatic shift in jewellery design, reaching a peak around when it triumphed at the Paris International Exhibition. Its followers created sinuous, organic pieces whose undercurrents of eroticism and death were a world away from the floral motifs of earlier generations. However, the style's radical look was not for everyone or for every occasion.

Superb diamond jewellery was made in the 'garland style', a highly creative re-interpretation of 18th- and early 19th-century designs. The maker of this orchid hair ornament, Philippe Wolfers, was the most prestigious of the Art Nouveau jewellers working in Brussels. These exotic orchids feature in the work of both.

The technical achievement of enamelling in plique-a-jour backless enamel on these undulating surfaces is extraordinary.

Although buffeted by cycles of boom, depression and war, jewellery design between the s and s continued to be both innovative and glamorous. Sharp, geometric patterns celebrated the machine age, while exotic creations inspired by the Near and Far East hinted that jewellery fashions were truly international.

New York now rivalled Paris as a centre for fashion, and European jewellery houses could expect to sell to, as well as buy from, the Indian subcontinent. Dense concentrations of gemstones are characteristic of Art Deco jewellery. From about gold returned to fashion, partly because it was cheaper than platinum.

Artists and designers from other fields also became involved in jewellery design. Their work foreshadows the new directions jewellery would take. Venetian glass masters on the island of Murano developed many creative and revolutionary ways to make glass beads. As early as the s, these Venetian glass necklaces were sought after; they are still made today. It is believed that diamonds were first mined in India. Engagement rings date back to , first made popular by the marriage of Maximilian the First to Mary of Burgundy.

The gem amber is made of fossilized tree resin. It must be at least a million years old to qualify as amber, but it can be as old as million years. Emeralds were mined by the Egyptians as early as BC.

In ancient Rome, only some high ranking people were allowed to wear rings. Snail shell beads, found in the ancient Blombos Cave in Africa, dated back 75, years.