The jewelry of love

Magazine Antiques, Feb, 1994 by Geoffrey C. Munn

Just as some animals will offer in courtship a morsel of food, the bowerbird and others make gifts of feathers and flowers and all manner of colorful trifles. There can be tittle doubt that the first tokens of human affection were of a simitar nature and were worn as treasured souvenirs. With the recognition of the intrinsic qualities of shelfs and stones, the evolution of jewely had begun.

Thereafter the incorruptibility of gold came to symbolize the enduring qualities of true love, and the color of precious stones became associated with the intensity of passion. The tradition of celebrating love, betrothal, and marriage with a gift of jewelry is as old as jewelry itself.

In the Middle Ages patronage was largely in the hands of the church, and a good proportion of medieval jewelry is of a devotional nature. Not until the second half of the fifteenth century was there an emphasis on the aphrodisian themes of antiquity. The refinement of Italian Renaissance jewelry was a result of the broadly based apprenticeship of artists, which required a mastery of drawing, engraving, chasing, casting, enameling, and niello work. Thus Donatello and Ghiberti became sculptors, Ghirlandaio and Andrea del Sarto became painters, and Pollaiuolo and Verrocchio worked in several mediums, returning to goldsmith work and jewelry at will.

The fashion for decorative emblems and badges was taken up with enthusiasm in the courts of Europe during the Renaissance. Both devotional and amorous allusions are common in these decorative devices, which closely echo contemporary jewel work. One of the most charming designs for an emblem shows Cupid rashly pursuing the sweetness of the honeycomb only to be stung by the bees who have made it (Pl. XIII), a poignant allegory of the pleasure and pain of love. The Netherlandish hat badge in Plate IX is an emblem depicting a woman choosing between two suitors surrounded by a motto that can be translated "love is something but money is everything."

Flemish Renaissance jewelry often strikes a subtler, more touching note. Typical examples are the pendants shown in Plates VI and VII, which are allegories of the pain that is so often associated with affairs of the heart. The lion pierced by a golden arrow represents the triumph of love over strength, while the wounded stag symbolizes the inescapability of unrequited love.

In the seventeenth century jewelers turned their attention to mineralogical discoveries from the New World. Emblems of love were now partly eclipsed by the color and scintillation of precious stones. Bows set with precious and semiprecious stones were seen as an extension of the true lovers' knot, but the message was secondary to the boldness of the design and the richness of the lapidary work.

A light-hearted mood is characteristic of a cache of jewelry that has come to be called the Cheapside Hoard and is our most important source of knowledge of Jacobean jewelry.(1) Concealed in the 1640's in Cheapside, London, it was rediscovered in 1912 and probably represents the elaborate stock of a seventeenth-century jeweler. It comprises engraved gems, watches, fan holders, long chains, earrings, rings, and brooches. The hoard includes emblems of the Passion alongside enameled and gem-set salamanders symbolizing passionate love. Long gold daisy chains signifying purity are decorated with white enamel and set with garnets, and brooches shaped like lovers' knots are tied in opals, diamonds, and red spinels.(2)

By contrast, the jewels of Queen Anne (1574--1619) of Denmark, the wife of James I of England, survive only as listings in an inventory compiled in 1606.(3) There are dozens of objects inspired by love of which the most evocative is described as "A Jewell of gold being a half circle with a candlestick and candle burning, two flies about the light." This has been associated with a motto of 1635 that warns of the dangers of desire:

When you doe next behold the wanton Flyes

About the shining candle, come to play,

Until the light thereof hath dimm'd their Eyes,

Or, till the flame hath sing'd their Wings away:

Remember, then, this Emblem; and beware

Your be not playing at such harmefull Games.(4)

Queen Anne's jewel was broken up at her request in 1610, but the brooch shown in Plate XV is probably based on a similar unrecorded prototype.

The eighteenth century has been described as the age of light and lightness. Candlelight encouraged the creation of lavish interiors often decorated with painted ceilings, Chinese wallpapers, damask hangings, and Oriental porcelain. Satin and silk clothes with lace cuffs and gold shoe buckles set with diamonds were worn by society ladies and gentlemen. Lovers' knots at their noblest were set with diamonds and worn in threes to follow the line of the bodice. As a general rule, the casting, chasing, and enamel work characteristic of the previous two centuries were mainly used to decorate the more modest jewelry of the eighteenth century. The masters of these delicate arts were reduced to fashioning accessories such as buttons, chatelaines, necessaires, watches, patch cases, bonbonnieres, and above all snuffboxes. Since these small, valuable, and highly decorated boxes in a sense parallel the secret nature of love itself, they were the perfect gift with which to express it. A charming French snuffbox in the form of a letter is shown in Plate VIII. In the 1760's in England there was a fashion for all sorts of agate objects, snuffboxes, and etuis mounted in gold in the rococo manner and bearing legends of love (invariably in French) lettered in gold on a white enamel ground. By far the most remarkable of the agate objects is a large number of miniature sculptures emblematic of the virtues of love. The double scent bottle shown in Plate X, for example, is an allegory of the folly and faithfulness of love.