whole group is a special development within the British Isles | Douglas, countess of Lennox, the mother of Henry Darnley. It is of the art of the mid-European Early Iron age, which in its turn had been considerably influenced by early Mediterranean culture. In its early stages its special marks are combinations of curves, with peculiar central thickenings which give a quasinaturalistic effect; a skilful use of inlaid enamels, and the chased line. After the introduction of Christianity, a continuous tradition combined the old system with the interlaced winding scrolls and other new forms of decoration, and so led up to the extreme complexity of early Irish illumination and

metal work.

A remarkable group of gold ornaments of the pre-Christian time (probably of the 1st century) was discovered about 1896, in the north-west of Ireland, and acquired by the British Museum. It was subsequently claimed by the Crown as treasure trove, and after litigation was transferred to Dublin (see Archaeologia, lv., pl. 22). Figs. 29 and 30 are illustrations of two brooches of the latest

FIG. 29.

period in this class of work. The first is 13th century; the latter is probably 12th century, and is set with paste, amber and blue.

Rings are the chief specimens now seen of medieval jewelry from the 10th to the 13th century. They are generally massive and simple. Through the 16th century a variety of changes arose; in the traditions and designs of the cinquecento we have plenty of evidence that the workmen used their own designs, and the results culminated in the triumphs of Albert Dürer, Benvenuto Cellini and Hans Holbein. The goldsmiths of the

FIG. 30.

Italian republics must have produced works of surpassing excellence in workmanship, and reaching the highest point in design as applied to handicrafts of any kind. The use of enamels, precious stones, niello work and engraving, in combination with skilful execution of the human figure and animal life, produced effects which modern art in this direction is not likely to approach, still less to rival.

In fig. 31 illustrations are given of various characteristic specimens of the Renaissance and later forms of jewelry. A crystal cross set in enamelled gold (a) is German work of the 16th century. The pendant reliquary (6), enamelled and jewelled, is of 16th century Italian work, and so probably is the jewel (c) of gold set with diamonds and rubies. The Darnley or Lennox jewel (d), now in the possession of the king, was made about 1576-1577 for Lady Margaret

a pendant golden heart set with a heart-shaped sapphire, richly also has Scottish mottoes around and within it. The ear-ring (e) of jewelled and enamelled with emblematic figures and devices. It gold, enamelled, hung with small pearls, is an example of 17th century Russian work, and another ) is Italian of the same period, being of gold and filigree with enamel, also with pendant pearls. ribbon, cord and filigree in gold; and another (k) is Flemish, of A Spanish ear-ring, of 18th century work (g), is a combination of probably the same period; it is of gold open work set with diamonds in projecting collets. The old French-Normandy pendant cross and locket (1) presents a characteristic example of peasant jewelry; it is of branched open work set with bosses and ridged ornaments of crystal. The ear-ring (j) is French of 17th century, also of gold open work set with crystals. A small pendant locket (k) is of rock crystal, with the cross of Santiago in gold and translucent crimson enamel; it is 16th or 17th century Spanish work. A pretty ear-ring of gold open scroll work (m), set with minute diamonds and three pendant pearls, is Portuguese of 17th century, and another ear-ring (n) of gold circular open work, set also with minute diamonds, is Portuguese work of 18th century. These examples fairly illustrate the general features of the most characteristic jewelry of the dates quoted.

During the 17th and 18th centuries we see only a mechanical kind of excellence, the results of the mere tradition of the workshop-the lingering of the power which when wisely directed had done so much and so well, but now simply living on traditional forms, often combined in a most incongruous fashion. Gorgeous effects were aimed at by massing the gold, and introducing stones elaborately cut in themselves or clustered in groups. Thus diamonds were clustered in rosettes and bouquets; rubies, pearls, emeralds and other coloured special stones were brought together for little other purpose than to get them into a given space in conjunction with a certain quantity of gold. The question was not of design in its relation to use as personal decoration, but of the value which could be got into a given space to produce the most striking effect.

The traditions of Oriental design as they had come down through the various periods quoted, were comparatively lost in the wretched results of the rococo of Louis XIV. and the inanities of what modern revivalists of the Anglo-Dutch call Queen Anne." In the London exhibition of 1851, the extravagances of modern jewelry had to stand comparison with the Oriental examples contributed from India. Since then we have learnt more about these works, and have been compelled to acknowledge, in spite of what is sometimes called inferiority of workmanship, how completely the Oriental jeweller understood his work, and with what singular simplicity of method he carried it out. The combinations are always harmonious, the result aimed at is always achieved; and if in attempting to work to European ideas the jeweller failed, this was rather the fault of the forms he had to follow, than due to any want of skill in making the most of a subject in which half the thought and the intended use were foreign to his experience.

A collection of peasant jewelry got together by Castellani for the Paris exhibition of 1867, and now in the Victoria and Albert Museum, illustrates in an admirable manner the traditional jewelry and personal ornaments of a wide range of peoples in Europe. This collection, and the additions made to it since its acquisition by the nation, show the forms in which these objects existed over several generations among the peasantry of France (chiefly Normandy), Spain, Portugal, Holland, DenMark, Germany and Switzerland, and also show how the forms popular in one country are followed and adopted in another, almost invariably because of their perfect adaptation to the purpose for which they were designed.

Apart from these humbler branches of the subject, in the middle of the 19th century the production of jewelry, regarded as a personal art, and not as a commercial and anonymous industry, was almost extinct. Its revival must be associated with the artistic movement which marked the close of that century, and which found emphatic expression in the Paris international exhibition of 1900. For many years before 1895 this industry, though prosperous from the commercial point of view, and always remarkable from that of technical finish, remained stationary as an art. French jewelry rested on its

reputation. The traditions were maintained of either the 17th | further confirmed in his remarkable position by the exhibition of and 18th centuries or the style affected at the close of the second 1900. What specially stamps the works of Lalique is their empire-light pierced work and design borrowed from natural striking originality. His work may be considered from the point flowers. The last type, introduced by Massin, had exercised, of view of design and from that of execution. As an artist he indeed, a revolutionary influence on the treatment of jewelry. has completely reconstructed from the foundation the scheme This clever artist, not less skilful as a craftsman, produced a new of design which had fed the poverty-stricken imagination of the genre by copying the grace and lightness of living blossoms, thus last generation of goldsmiths. He had recourse to the art of introducing a perfectly fresh element into the limited variety of the past, but to the spirit rather than the letter, and to nature traditional style, and by the use of filigree gold work altering for many new elements of design-free double curves, suave or its character and giving it greater elegance. Massin still held soft; opalescent harmonies of colouring; reminiscences, with quite the first rank in the exhibition of 1878; he had a marked a new feeling, of Egypt, Chaldea, Greece and the East, or of the influence on his contemporaries, and his name will be remem- art of the Renaissance; and infinite variety of floral forms even bered in the history of the goldsmith's art to designate a style of the humblest. He introduces also the female nude in the

and a period. Throughout these years the craft was exclusively devoted to perfection of workmanship. The utmost finish was aimed at in the mounting and setting of gems; jewelry was, in fact, not so much an art as a high-class industry; individual effort and purpose were absent.

Up to that time precious stones had been of such intrinsic value that the jeweller's chief skill lay in displaying these costly stones to the best advantage; the mounting was a secondary consideration. The settings were seldom long preserved in their original condition, but in the case of family jewels were renewed with each generation and each change of fashion, a state of things which could not be favourable to any truly artistic development of taste, since the work was doomed, sooner or later, to destruction. However, the evil led to its own remedy. As soon as diamonds fell in value they lost at the same time their overwhelming prestige, and refined taste could give a preference to trinkets which derived their value and character from artistic design. This revolutionized the jeweller's craft, and revived the simple ornament of gold or silver, which came forward but timidly at first, till, in the Salon of 1895, it burst upon the world in the exhibits of René Lalique, an artist who was

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form of sirens and sphinxes. As a craftsman he has effected a radical change, breaking through old routine, combining all the processes of the goldsmith, the chaser, the enameller and the gem-setter, and freeing himself from the narrow lines in which the art had been confined. He ignores the hierarchy of gems, caring no more on occasion for a diamond than for a flint, since, in his view, no stone, whatever its original estimation, has any value beyond the characteristic expression he lends it as a means to his end. Thus, while he sometimes uses diamonds, rubies, sapphires or emeralds as a background, he will, on the other hand, give a conspicuous position to common stones-carnelian, agate, malachite, jasper, coral, and even materials of no intrinsic value, such as horn. One of his favourite stones is the opal, which lends itself to his arrangements of colour, and which has in consequence become a fashionable stone in French jewelry.

In criticism of the art of Lalique and his school it should be observed that the works of the school are apt to be unsuited to the wear and tear of actual use, and inconveniently eccentric in their details. Moreover, the preciousness of the material is an almost inevitable consideration in the jeweller's craft, and cannot be set at naught by the artist without violating the canons of his art.

The movement which took its rise in France spread in due | century, a branch of industry which collapsed after the French course to other countries. In England the movement con- Revolution. veniently described as the " arts and crafts movement " affected the design of jewelry. A group of designers has aimed at purg- Modern jewelry may be classified under three heads: (1) objects ing the jeweller's craft of its character of mere gem-mounting in in which gems and stones form the principal portions, and in which the work in silver, platinum or gold is really only a means conventional forms (of which the more unimaginative, represent- for carrying out the design by fixing the gems or stones in the ing stars, bows, flowers and the like, are varied by such absurdi- position arranged by the designer, the metal employed being ties as insects, birds, animals, figures of men and objects made visible only as a setting; (2) when gold work plays an important part up simply of stones clustered together). Their work is often in the development of the design, being itself ornamented by enexcellently and fancifully designed, but it lacks that exquisite graving (now rarely used) or enamelling or both, the stones and gems being arranged in subordination to the gold work in such perfection of execution achieved by the incomparable craftsmen positions as to give a decorative effect to the whole; (3) when gold of France. At the same time English sculptor-decorators or other metal is alone used, the design being wrought out by hamsuch as Alfred Gilbert, R.A., and George J. Frampton, A.R.A.-mering in repoussé, casting, engraving, chasing or by the addition have produced objects of a still higher class, but it is usually the lutely plain but polished and highly finished. of filigree work (see FILIGREE), or when the surfaces are left absowork of the goldsmith rather than of the jeweller. Examples may be seen in the badge executed by Gilbert for the president of the Institute of Painters in Water Colours and in the mayoral chain for Preston. Symbolism here enters into the design, which has not only an ornamental but a didactic purpose.

The movement was represented in other countries also. In the United States it was led by L. C. Tiffany, in Belgium by Philippe Wolfers, who occupies in Belgium the position which in France is held by René Lalique. If his design is a little heavier, it is not less beautiful in imagination or less masterly in execution. Graceful, ingenious, fanciful, elegant, fantastic by turns, his objects of jewelry and goldsmithery have a solid claim to be considered créations d'art. It has also been felt in Germany, Austria, Russia and Switzerland. It must be admitted that many of the best artists who have devoted themselves to jewelry have been more successful in design than in securing the lightness and strength which are required by the wearer, and which were a characteristic in the works of the Italian craftsmen of the Renaissance. For this reason many of their masterpieces are more beautiful in the case than upon the person.

Modern Jewelry.-So far we have gone over the progress and results of the jeweller's art. We have now to speak of the production of jewelry as a modern art industry, in which large

numbers of men and women are employed in the larger cities of Europe. Paris, Vienna, London and Birmingham are the most important centres. An illustration of the manufacture as carried on in London and Birmingham will be sufficient to give an insight into the technique and artistic manipulation of this branch of art industry; but, by way of contrast, it may be interesting to give in the first place a description of the native working jeweller of Hindustan.

He travels very much after the fashion of a tinker in England; his budget contains tools, materials, fire pots, and all the requisites of his handicraft. The gold to be used is generally supplied by the patron or employer, and is frequently in gold coin, which the travelling jeweller undertakes to convert into the ornaments required. He squats down in the corner of a courtyard, or under cover of a veranda, lights his fire, cuts up the gold pieces entrusted to him, hammers, cuts, shapes, drills, solders with the blow-pipe, files, scrapes and burnishes until he has produced the desired effect. If he has stones to set or coloured enamels to introduce, he never seems to make a mistake; his instinct for harmony of colour, like that of his brother craftsman the weaver, is as unerring as that of the bird in the construction of its nest. Whether the materials are common or rich and rare, he invariably does the very best possible with them, according to native ideas of beauty in design and combination. It is only when he is interfered with by European dictation that he ever vulgarizes his art or makes a mistake. The result may appear rude in its finish, but the design and the thought are invariably right. We thus see how a trade in the working of which the "plant" is so simple and wants are so readily met could spread itself, as in years past it did at Clerkenwell and at Birmingham before gigantic factories were invented for producing everything under the sun.

It is impossible to find any date at which the systematic production of jewelry was introduced into England. Probably the Clerkenwell trade dates its origin from the revocation of the edict of Nantes, as the skilled artisans in the jewelry, clock and watch, and trinket trades appear to have been descendants of the emigrant Huguenots. The Birmingham trade would appear to have had its origin in the skill to which the workers in fine steel had attained towards the middle and end of the 18th

Of course the most ancient and primitive methods are those wholly dependent upon the craft of the workman, but gradually in the portions to be repeated in a design could be produced with various ingenious processes were invented, by which greater accuracy certainty and economy: hence the various methods of stamping used in the production of hand-made jewelry, which are in themselves as much mechanical in relation to the end in view as if the whole object were stamped out at a blow, twisted into its proper position each other for the mechanical completion of the work as regards the detail, or the various stamped portions fitted into It is therefore rather difficult to draw an absolute line between hand-made and machine-made jewelry, except in extreme cases of hand-made, made, when the hand has only to give the ornament a few touches when everything is worked, so to speak, from the solid, or of machineof a tool, or fit the parts together if of more than one piece. The best and most costly hand-made jewelry produced in England, whether as regards gold work, gems, enamelling or engraving, is made in London, and chiefly at Clerkenwell. A design is first made enlargement of details, everything in short to make the drawing with pencil, sepia or water colour, and when needful with separate thoroughly intelligible to the working jeweller. According to the nature and purpose of the design, he cuts out, hammers, files and brings into shape the constructive portions of the work as a basis. Upon this, as each detail is wrought out, he solders, or (more rarely) fixes by rivets, &c., the ornamentation necessary to the effect. The human figure, representations of animal life, leaves, fruit, &c., are modelled in wax, moulded and cast in gold, to be chased up and and hard, and then it is passed though the fire to anneal or soften finished. As the hammering goes on the metal becomes brittle In the case of elaborate examples of repoussé, after the general forms are beaten up, the interior is filled with a resinous compound, pitch mixed with fire-brick dust; and this, forming a solid but pliable body underneath the metal, allows of the finished details being wrought out on the front of the design, and being finally completed by chasing. When stones are to be set, or when they form the principal portions of the design, the gold or other metal has to be wrought by hand so as to receive them in little cup-like orifices, these walls of gold enclosing the stone and allowing the edges to be bent over to secure it. Setting is never effected by cement in well-made jewelry. Machine-made settings have in recent years been made, but these are simply cheap imitations of the true hand-made setting. Even strips of gold have been used, serrated at the edges to allow of being easily bent over, for the retention of the stones, true or false.

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Great skill and experience are necessary in the proper setting of stones and gems of high value, in order to bring out the greatest amount of brilliancy and colour, and the angle at which a diamond (say) shall be set, in order that the light shall penetrate at the proper point to bring out the " spark or "flash," is a subject of grave consideration to the setter. Stones set in a haphazard, slovenly manner, however brilliant in themselves, will look commonplace by the side of skilfully set gems of much less fine quality and water. Enamelling (see ENAMEL) has of late years largely taken the place of " paste or false stones.

Engraving is a simple process in itself, and diversity of effect can be produced by skilful manipulation. An interesting variety in the effect of a single ornament may be produced by the combination of coloured gold of various tints. This colouring is a process requiring skill and experience in the manipulation of the materials according to the quality of the gold and the amount of silver alloy in it. The objects to be coloured are dipped in a boiling mixture of salt, alum and saltpetre. Of general colouring it may be said that the object aimed at is to enhance the appearance of the gold by removing the particles of alloy on the surface, and thus allowing the pure gold only to remain visible to the eye. The process has, however, gone much out of fashion. It is apt to rot the solder, and repairs to gold work can be better finished by electro-gilding. The application of machinery to the economical production of certain classes of jewelry, not necessarily imitations, but as much "real gold" work, to use a trade phrase, as the best hand-made, has been on the increase for many years. Nearly every kind of gold chain now made is manufactured by machinery, and nothing like