Expanding the Concept of Art; Jewelry as History

Expanding the Concept of Art; Jewelry as History

Fine jewelry is often considered a great luxury but rarely thought of as an artform, despite jewelers throughout history having had audience with and joined the retinues of some of the most powerful people ever to run a city, rule a country, or commanded an empire. As politics and fashion fads have risen and fallen, some of the best-loved sparklies have made their ways into the realm of icons, as appreciated for their histories and associations as they are for their aesthetic appeal. Names like Cartier and Tiffany evoke images of wealth, luxury, and power. Crown jewels such as the Hope Diamond and the Orlov have come to represent the rise and fall of entire dynasties.

Besides making us feel a lot poorer than we actually are, famous gems and jewelry also serve a historical purpose. They tie us to some of the most fascinating names in history, like Marie Antoinette, Queen Victoria, Emperor Babur, Napoleon and Josephine, Catherine the Great, and Eleanor of Aquitaine. They carry curses, inspire literature, witness murders, solve crimes (maybe not so much), and tell time, if perhaps with a bit more pomp and circumstance than strictly necessary.

One the most well-known names among jewelry history buffs (a small but wildly eccentric clan of overly-wealthy intermarried socialites and minor royalty - or so I like to imagine when secretly reading dimestore romances...er, historical novels) is Peter Carl Faberge. Most commonly know for the Faberge eggs, Faberge was the jeweler to the last of the Russian Czars, who commissioned the precious statuettes as Easter presents before being overthrown in a bloody revolution. But we're sure it was nice for a while. At any rate, some of the treasured eggs have gone missing, others have been sold privately, and a very few are occasionally displayed in museums and exhibitions around the world. Having had the good fortune to be in St. Petersburg, FL during the same time in which one egg was shown in the traveling exhibit "Treasures of the Czars," while across the street another egg was being loaned to the local museum, I can strongly recommend that any artist who has the opportunity to examine the work of the Faberge jewelers in person should take it without hesitation.

So if you, like us, are bored tearless by history lessons but easily distracted by something shiny, this just might be a way for you to delve into the intriguing realm of the human past. Or at least pass a few minutes without actively losing brain cells.

Full article with links and photos at: http://lazlosbasement.com/blog/?p=224

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