H. Clifford Smith

RENAISSANCE HEAD-ORNAMENTS
(ENSEIGNES, AIGRETTES, HAIR-PINS, EARRINGS)

THE origin of the ornaments for the hat or cap, known generally as enseignes, has been mentioned in dealing with the jewellery of the Middle Ages. At the period of the Renaissance, the enseigne—the "bijou par excellence" it has been termed—was above all the recipient of the very highest workmanship, and formed the subject of varied designs of the most ingenious character. By the beginning of the fifteenth century fashion had already turned hat-badges almost entirely into articles of adornment, and judging by that worn by King Dagobert in Petrus Christus's picture of 1449, and, amongst many other portraits, by that of Richard III in the National Portrait Gallery, these jewels were composed of goldsmith's work, enamelled, and set with precious stones. In the sixteenth century the majority of enseignes seem always to have borne some figured design; and Cellini, referring to the year 1525, says: "It was the custom at that epoch to wear little golden medals, upon which every nobleman or man of quality had some device or fancy of his own engraved; and these were worn in the cap."

For a considerable time the earlier religious badges sold at places of pilgrimage continued to be worn. Though enseignes very frequently bore some religious representation, or the figure or emblem of some patron saint, they ended, like other articles primarily religious, by becoming purely secular, and took the forms of devices of a fanciful or even humorous character.

Every one from the highest rank downwards had his personal devise or impresa, or more often a series of them. It was worn as an emblem—an ingenious expression of some conceit of the wearer, the outcome of his peculiar frame of mind. It usually contained some obscure meaning, the sense of which, half hidden and half revealed, was intended to afford some play for the ingenuity of the observer. The love of the time for expressing things by riddles led to the publication of sets of emblems, like those of Alciatus, which had imitators in all directions. Every one, in fact, tried his hand at these "toys of the imagination."

Numbers of enseignes are mentioned in the inventories, and male portraits very commonly exhibit this form of decoration. Women also wore them upon the hat or in the hair, but not until about the middle of the sixteenth century. The hat was turned up so as to show the lining, and the badge was usually placed under the rim, at the side, and somewhat to the front of the hat. Some of these medallions are furnished with a pin, like a brooch; but as the majority have loops at the edge, or are pierced with holes for the purpose of sewing them to the head-dress, they can as a rule be distinguished from ordinary brooches. Pendants of the same form as those hung from neck-chains also appear occasionally as enseignes upon the hat.

In England, during the sixteenth century, brooches, owches, or nowches, as they were often called, were extensively worn in caps and hats[141] as men's jewels in particular; and besides these there were jewelled hat-bands richly decorated with precious stones. The chronicler Hall mentions that on one occasion, in 1513, Henry VIII wore a hat called a "chapeau montabyn" which was adorned with a rich band or coronal, and had in addition an enseigne, for "y^e folde of the chapeau was lined with crimsyn saten; and on y^t a riche brooch withe y^e image of sainct George." An enamelled brooch of this design modelled in full relief with the figure of St. George and the dragon, with the Princess Sabra in the background, is preserved amongst the exceedingly interesting series of jewels in His Majesty's collection at Windsor Castle. It is of gold, finely chased, brilliantly modelled, and surrounded with an open wire balustrade enamelled green. This brooch, traditionally believed to have been worn by Henry VIII, is known as the Holbein George; but internal evidences tend to prove the unlikelihood of Holbein having had any hand in its construction. It appears to be of Venetian origin—though not without some traces of German influence—and to date from the first few years of the sixteenth century (Pl. XXVIII, 2).

There exist several other jewels, the majority of them hat-ornaments, executed in this so-called "gold wire" enamel,[142] of the same exquisite and rare style of workmanship, and all possessing a singular likeness to that at Windsor, both in the patterns of the dresses worn by the figures represented on them, and in general treatment, particularly of the hair of the figures, which is formed of ringlets of spiral twisted gold wire. Among other examples are two in the Salting Collection, another which was lately in the collection of Sir T. Gibson Carmichael,[143] and a fourth in the Cabinet des Antiques in the BibliothÈque Nationale, Paris.

The wide range of subjects chosen for hat-ornaments can best be judged from the lists of "bonnets" in Henry VIII's possession in the years 1526 and 1530, enriched with a variety of brooches.[144]

Representations of enseignes in pictures are too frequent to permit of any attempt to enumerate them. It is impossible, however, to refrain from drawing attention to the fine male portraits of Bartolommeo Veneto, an artist of marked individuality of character, who worked at Venice from about 1505 to 1530. He appears to have delighted in painting with peculiar care the beautiful enseignes worn by his sitters—attractive jewels enamelled in ronde bosse, and contemporary with the Windsor "George" and its fellows. The examples of his work that display such ornaments in the most striking manner are in the following collections: Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge; Dorchester House, London; the Crespi Gallery, Milan; the collection of Baron Tucher at Vienna; and the National Gallery, Rome.[145]

One of the most exquisite jewels of the Renaissance is a medallion of enamelled gold numbered 5583 in the BibliothÈque Nationale at Paris. It is oval, and in a space of 2 by 2³/₁₆ inches contains a composition of no less than twelve men and eight horses in high relief, representing a battle. Horsemen and foot-soldiers in antique armour are engaged in furious combat, and many have fallen. One horseman carries a banneret which flies in the wind. The background is enamelled green, and the figures, delicately modelled, are white, save for their armour and weapons, which are reserved in the gold. The frame of the jewel is furnished with four loops, which clearly explain its use (Pl. XXIX, 2). Its design offers an interesting comparison with two cameos (Nos. 643 and 644), themselves fanciful renderings of the subject of another cameo (No. 645), and an intaglio, the work of Matteo del Nassaro, in the same collection, both undoubtedly inspired by the famous painting after Raphael, known as the Battle of Constantine at the Milvian Bridge (a.d. 312), in the so-called Gallery of Constantine in the Vatican.

Among the jewels in the public collections in London, which on account of their design or form were presumably intended to be worn in the hat or cap, there are several noteworthy examples. The Wallace Collection contains a circular gold enseigne, repoussÉ, chased, and partly enamelled, with a representation of Judith carrying the head of Holofernes. It is probably Italian. In the Waddesdon Bequest at the British Museum is an oval badge enamelled in relief with the Judgment of Paris. It is of the same minute style of work as that of the "Battle-Piece," and is of striking similarity to a drawing by Hans Mielich, in the Royal Library, Munich.[146]

An enseigne in the Victoria and Albert Museum—perhaps the most beautiful of all, and probably the work of a Florentine goldsmith—represents the head of John the Baptist on a charger. The caput Johannis in disco, a favourite subject in mediÆval art both in painting and sculpture, was also popular for personal ornaments. This symbol of the Precursor was no doubt phylacteric, for the efficacy of his intercession was most highly esteemed against epilepsy and other disorders. The enseigne in question, contemporary with one described as a "St. John's head in a dish" in Henry VIII's possession in 1530, is of gold, one and five-eighths of an inch in diameter, and shaped like a circular dish. It has a corded edge, and round the rim, in pierced and raised letters, now only partially enamelled, are the following words: non · surexsit · inter · natos · mulierum. The sunk centre is covered with translucent ruby enamel, and in the middle is the head of the saint in gold and white enamel. The head is delicately modelled, and such care has the artist displayed in its execution that he has shown above the eyebrow the gash which Herodias, according to the legend,[147] on receiving the head from Salome, inflicted on it with a pin from her hair, or with a knife seized from the table where the feast had taken place (Pl. XXIX, 1).

PLATE XXIX

image renaissance enseignes

All the four enseignes last mentioned are examples of the method of executing these ornaments described in Cellini's famous treatise[148] on the goldsmith's art, where he extols the goldsmith Caradosso as a craftsman skilled above all others in their production. The work is repoussÉ; the St. John's head being also worked into full relief by this process, and then applied to the dish. Such repoussÉ figures were frequently attached to an independent background formed of lapis-lazuli, agate, or some other precious substance.

The revival of the art of gem-engraving led to a large demand for cameos—themselves more suitable for decorative purposes than intaglios—as personal ornaments. "It was much the custom of that time," says Vasari, writing of the gem-engraver Matteo del Nassaro, "to wear cameos and other jewels of similar kind round the neck and in the cap." Matteo produced many admirable cameos for use as enseignes for Francis I and the nobles of his Court, almost every one of whom carried on their persons some example of his work. On jewels of this kind parts of the figures were occasionally executed in cameo, and the remainder in gold, chased and enamelled; but more frequently figures were worked entirely in hard material, and then, in accordance with the artistic taste of the time, enclosed in borders, enriched with enamel and jewel-work of the most exquisite variety of design. Unhappy vicissitudes, like those which the gems at Florence have undergone,[149] have in course of time despoiled many a cameo of its rich setting. Yet in the great public gem collections of London, Paris, Vienna, St. Petersburg, Berlin, Munich, and Dresden, as well as in the cabinets of private collectors, are to be found a number of beautiful examples of the jeweller's art at its best period, which have been preserved on account of the cameos they served to adorn.

The finest enseigne that displays cameo and enamelled gold worked together in combination is Cellini's exquisite "Leda and the Swan," in the MÜnz-und-Antiken-Kabinet at Vienna. The head and the torso of the figure of Leda is in cameo—the latter being an antique fragment; the remainder of the jewel is of gold, enriched with enamels, diamonds, and rubies. This is considered to be the actual jewel executed by Cellini at Rome about 1524 for the Gonfalonier Gabriele Cesarini[150] (Pl. XXIX, 5).

By far the most extensive collection of mounted cameos is preserved in the BibliothÈque Nationale at Paris. The majority of these jewels which follow the cartouche form are presumably of French fabrique, though a decision as to their precise provenance is here, as ever, a matter of considerable difficulty. Among brooches or medallions for the hat, whose purpose is clearly indicated by the presence of a pin or holes for attachment, the most noticeable are four, numbered respectively 595, 465, 513, and 1002. The first, bearing the head of a negro in agate, encircled with a band of rubies, has an outer border of open scrollwork, of white, heightened with red enamel. On each side and below is a table diamond; and above, a crown set with triangular faceted diamonds (Pl. XXIX, 4). Lack of space precludes detailed reference to the other three enseignes de chaperon. They are equally attractive, both on account of their design and the high quality of their workmanship.

Those unable to afford such costly ornaments wore hat-brooches or medallions in cheaper materials, either bronze or copper. These were cast or stamped, and not, like the more magnificent enseignes of gold, executed by the repoussÉ process. The work of the earlier medallists was produced by means of casting, the medallions being afterwards delicately chased. From the beginning of the sixteenth century, medallists, who, it may be remembered, were mostly jewellers and gem-engravers as well, executed engraved dies, from which their medallions were struck instead of cast. The majority of smaller medallions so generally worn as hat-badges were multiplied by the newer process of stamping, and pierced with holes for attachment to the head-dress. They were afterwards gilded and occasionally enriched with enamel. Further information about the cheaper class of enseignes is met with in Bernard Palissy's Art de la terre, according to which the enamellers of Limoges, owing to competition, had to supply figured hat-badges at trois sols la douzaine. "Which badges were so well worked and their enamels so well melted over the copper that no picture could be prettier." Brooches of even cheaper materials are alluded to by Shakespeare in Love's Labour's Lost, when Biron and Dumain, ridiculing Holofernes, who acts as Judas in the pageant of the Nine Worthies, exclaim:—

The fashion for enseignes lasted until about the second quarter of the seventeenth century. During this later period they were generally worn in the hats of persons of wealth and distinction, in the form of a cluster of precious stones[151] (Pl. XXXIV, 3); while the enseignes with figured compositions appear to have fallen into disuse. The remarkable letter addressed by James I to Charles and Buckingham in Spain, in 1623, deals chiefly with jewelled hat-brooches of this kind (p. 300). Hat-bands richly jewelled were likewise worn; and among the jewels sent to Spain for the use of the Prince was a magnificent hat-band "garnished with 20 diamonds set in buttons of gold in manner of Spanish work." It was made up of the following stones, representing every mode of cutting employed at the time: 8 four-square table diamonds, 2 six-square table diamonds, 2 eight-square table diamonds, 2 four-square table diamonds cut with facets, 2 large pointed diamonds, 1 fair heart diamond, and 3 triangle diamonds.[152]

AIGRETTES

At the end of the sixteenth and the beginning of the seventeenth century an aigrette was often worn in the hat, a jewelled brooch being employed to hold it. The latter was sometimes in the form of a pipe or socket into which the stems of the feathers were inserted. A fine example of this class of ornament, discovered at Lauingen in the coffin of Otto Henry, Count Palatine of Neuburg (d. 1604), is now preserved with the rest of the jewels of the same family in the Bavarian National Museum at Munich. It is in the shape of a heart open-worked and enriched with enamel, and has in the centre the letters D.M.—initials of his wife Dorothea Maria—set with rubies. Behind is a tube for the reception of an aigrette of herons' feathers (Pl. XXX, 3).

Though never in general use, feathers with settings mounted with precious stones and attached by jewelled brooches were worn long before this date; and Charles the Bold's hat—chapeau montauban—(Lambecius, Bib. Caes. Vindobon., II, p. 516) was enriched with feathers of this description magnificently jewelled.

About the commencement of the seventeenth century the feather aigrette was often replaced by one of precious stones. A jewel of this form is in the Waddesdon Bequest. It is 3½ inches in height, and formed of five plumes—three jewelled with rubies and diamonds and the others enamelled white—rising from an open-worked ornament in the form of military trophies, enamelled and set with four diamonds. A design for an aigrette of almost exactly the same style may be seen among the engravings for jewellery by the Augsburg goldsmith Daniel Mignot. The engravings of Paul Birckenhultz (c. 1617) likewise contain designs for similar ornaments. These jewelled aigrettes were much in fashion in England at the time of James I, and a "feather jewel" or "jewel of gold in fashion of a feather, set with diamonds," is mentioned several times in the royal accounts. The finely executed drawings for jewellery in the Victoria and Albert Museum by Arnold Lulls, jeweller to James I, include four coloured designs for jewelled aigrettes (Pl. XXX, 1). They are provided with short, stout pins, and set with rubies, sapphires, emeralds, and diamonds, arranged in the most tasteful manner, and are evidently intended to be further enriched with enamel. Other jewelled aigrettes in favour in the seventeenth century were composed solely of precious stones. Reference will be made to these in a later chapter dealing with the ornaments of that period.

HAIR-PINS

Besides the enseigne worn occasionally by ladies, the jewelled aigrettes of more frequent use, and the gold circlets set with precious stones, more elaborate forms of head-decoration were employed. Though these were often entwined with ropes of pearls and sprinkled with precious stones, they belong rather to costume proper. There remain, however, hair-pins, of which we obtain a certain amount of information from the inventories, and from the few actual specimens that still remain.

Hair-pins, like other articles of Renaissance jewellery, are remarkable for their variety of design, particularly as far as the heads of the pins are concerned. In the Germanic Museum at Nuremberg are several hair-pins with heads variously ornamented, one of them being in the form of a small enamelled hand. The shaft of the pin is often flat, open-worked and enamelled; occasionally the head is attached to it by a ring and hangs loosely from it. A gold enamelled hair-pin is among the jewels of Princess Amalia Hedwig (d. 1607), the contents of whose coffin, opened in the eighteenth century with those of the Counts Palatine of Neuburg at Lauingen, are now in the Bavarian National Museum. This pin has a small open rosette hanging loosely from it set with five diamonds and five pendent pearls. Contemporary portraits show how these pins were worn, and in a portrait of a young woman by Peter Moreelse in the Rotterdam Gallery, just such a pin is seen thrust in under the close-fitting lace cap so that the pendent head rests upon the forehead.

In the inventories of the time hair-pins are termed bodkins; and among Queen Elizabeth's New Year's gifts are several of these richly decorated bodkins. Thus: "A bodkyn of golde, garnished at the ende with four smale diamondes and a smale rubye, with a crown of ophales, and a very smale perle pendant peare fashone." "A bodkin of golde, with a flower thearat, garnished with smale rubyes and ophals on one side." "A bodkinne of silver, with a little ostridg of gold, pendant, enamuled, and two waspes of golde lose enamuled." In the inventory of jewels of Anne, Duchess of Somerset, second wife of the Protector Somerset (1587), is "a bodkynne of golde, with clawes in the ende, inamyled blacke."

EARRINGS

The fashion of wearing the hair over the ears, which, as we have seen, completely banished earrings from among the ornaments of the Middle Ages, greatly checked their use during the sixteenth century. In Italian pictures one finds here and there some traces of them, but compared with the profusion of other ornaments, their almost complete absence is somewhat surprising. The most remarkable instance of their use is the beautiful portrait of a lady by Sodoma, or by Parmigianino, in the StÄdel Institute at Frankfort, where are seen elaborate earrings of open-work scroll pattern with three pendent pearls. They measure upwards of two and a half inches in length. The so-called Fornarina in the Tribuna of the Uffizi wears a small gold pendant in the form of an amphora attached to a simple ring; while in the portrait by Angelo Bronzino in the Pitti Gallery, supposed to be that of Bianca Cappello (1548-87), wife of Francesco de' Medici, the lobe of the ear is pierced twice, and the two rings placed in it support a pendant formed of two pearls mounted in gold, with three hanging pearls below.

In the second half of the sixteenth century, with the altered mode of wearing the hair, earrings, though still rare in pictures, appear to have come more into fashion, and the prints of Woeiriot, Collaert, Birckenhultz, and other engravers of the day, as well as a number of examples in the various museums, show the types then in use.

English portraits of the first half of the sixteenth century do not exhibit these ornaments, but when they appear later on, as in the numerous portraits of Queen Elizabeth, they are usually in the form of pear-shaped pearl drops. Mary Queen of Scots appears to have generally worn earrings, judging by the inventory of her jewels in 1561,[153] which contains a very large number, including the following: "Deux pendans doreille faictz en facon de croix de Hierusalem esmaillez de blanc—Deux petis pendans doreille garniz de deux petittes perles de facon de doubles ames—Deux petis pendans doreille dor emplis de senteure."

The use of earrings, curiously enough, was not confined to women, and we find men, even the sedatest, wearing them. "Women," says Philip Stubbes in his Anatomie of Abuses (1583), "are so far bewitched as they are not ashamed to make holes in their ears, whereat they hang rings, and other jewels of gold and precious stones; but this," he adds, "is not so much frequented among women as among men." This custom appears to have originated in Spain, where the use of earrings was pretty general among both sexes, and as the result of Spanish influence was introduced into France at the luxurious Court of Henry III. The fashion subsequently came to England, where it was generally affected by the courtiers of Elizabeth and James I, as is clear from contemporary male portraits, where an earring is worn, as a rule, in one ear only. Robert Carr, Earl of Somerset, is seen in the National Portrait Gallery wearing a ruby earring; while the Duke of Buckingham was particularly noticeable for the splendour of his diamond earrings. Commenting on the degeneracy of his contemporaries, Holinshed in his Chronicle (1577) observes: "Some lusty courtiers also and gentlemen of courage do wear either rings of gold, stones, or pearl in their ears, whereby they imagine the workmanship of God to be not a little amended." In a splendour-loving time one might expect to find such ornaments among courtiers, but that earrings were worn also by men of action and men of parts is evident from the portraits of Shakespeare, Sir Walter Raleigh, and the Earl of Southampton.

The use of earrings among men continued to the time of Charles I, and in Lenton's Young Gallant's Whirligigg (1629) a fop is described with—

Haire's curl'd, eares pearl'd, with Bristows[154] brave and bright, Bought for true Diamonds in his false sight.

King Charles himself followed the general fashion and hung a large pearl in his left ear. This he wore even on the scaffold, where he took it from his ear and gave it to a faithful follower. It is still preserved, and is now owned by the Duke of Portland. It is pear-shaped, about five-eighths of an inch long, and mounted with a gold top, and a hook to pass through the ear.

Earrings, together with similar luxuries, vanished at the time of the Protectorate; men are not seen wearing them after the Restoration, though they are still in use among certain classes on account of their supposed value as preservatives against affections of the eyes.