H. Clifford Smith

SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY JEWELLERY (GENERAL)

THROUGH the whole jewellery of the late Renaissance there runs a gradual and profound change of taste. Slowly and by imperceptible stages the earlier style, with its minute enamelled figures in high relief, gives place to a desire for sparkling diamonds, and a pleasure in the glitter of faceted stones. In the sixteenth century, diamonds, rubies, and other stones played a comparatively insignificant part in jewellery, and were prized mainly for their decorative value, but during the course of the seventeenth century a more prominent rÔle was gradually conceded to precious stones. Used singly at first, in table-cut form, to give a centre of interest or a note of colour, they came finally to be arranged in juxtaposition and long rows. A complete change was brought about in the whole character of jewellery by the prominence thus given to the precious stone—a position it has retained ever since.

From the commencement of the seventeenth century Germany began to lose the position which, during the greater part of the century previous, she had occupied as a jewel-producing centre; while the Thirty Years' War, by handicapping her industries, caused the jewellers to seek employment elsewhere. It was mainly from France that the new ideas in the form of ornaments emanated.

The French are fortunate in possessing separate words to distinguish different kinds of jewellery: bijouterie, a general term applied to all jewellery formed of gold, enamels, and precious stones; and joaillerie, used for jewellery composed of stones along with a minimum of metal-work. By the revolution of taste in the later days of the Renaissance the joaillier gradually superseded the bijoutier; while the two crafts of the silversmith and the jeweller replaced the ancient craft of the goldsmith.

Changes in the mode of wearing clothes, and in the materials employed for them, had an enormous influence on jewellery. In place of the velvet and brocade that prevailed during the Renaissance, damask came to be worn, together with an extravagant taste for lace and ribbons. The wearing of the silken stuffs that began to be issued from the factories of Lyons, and of the lace that formed their accompaniment, necessitated the use of ornaments more in keeping with these materials; with the result that the jewellery of the period assumed an open and lace-like character, suitable also for the display of precious stones.

At first coloured stones were used—the ruby, sapphire, and the emerald; but soon the diamond held sole possession of the field. In Renaissance ornaments this latter gem played only a secondary part, and was employed solely for the sake of contrast, but it now appeared as the chief object in view, and formed the ornament by itself, all other parts of the jewel, the setting, and possible addition of other stones, being wholly subordinate to it.

For the first general employment of the diamond in jewellery one must look back to the fifteenth century, to the invention of the art of cutting that stone, which is generally credited, in spite of Laborde's opinion to the contrary, to Louis de Berghem of Bruges in the year 1475. From that date until the beginning of the seventeenth century every diamond, as is seen both by jewels and their designs, was one of two forms: either the "point," a four-sided pyramid produced by polishing the faces of the native octahedral crystal of diamond and making them exactly true and regular; or the "table," in which the point of the crystal is reduced to a square or oblong plane, the opposite extremity being also in plane form, but of smaller extent, with sloping faceted edges. This simple cutting did so little to augment the brilliance of the diamond that the jewellers of the sixteenth century had to depend on the tinctura or foiling of the stone, in which art Cellini in his treatise, with his characteristic appreciation of his own merits, tells us that he particularly excelled.

The change of taste in the seventeenth century may be attributed to the opening up of the diamond fields of Golconda on the southern borders of the State of Hyderabad, at the beginning of that century, and to the enterprise of the French travellers, Tavernier, Chardin, and others, who, during their frequent voyages to Persia and India, dealt largely in precious stones. These travellers succeeded in establishing new commercial relations, which led to the introduction into Europe of abundance of precious stones and particularly diamonds; while the narratives of their journeys, furnishing more exact knowledge of the quality and value of the products of the East, attracted towards precious stones a new interest.

Owing to the abundance of material imported from the East, the market for precious stones assumed an entirely different aspect; while the quantity and beauty of the material thus at their disposal spurred on the stone-cutters towards the improvement of their technique, until at the end of the century they arrived at the true cutting of the diamond. Besides the "point," which was but rarely used, the table-cut diamond alone was employed until the commencement of the seventeenth century. About that time there came into use the "rose," a half-crystal, flat at the base and with a convex top covered with a number of small facets. Stones faceted in this manner were at first mostly small and unimportant and cut very irregularly into four or six facets.

Between the years 1641 and 1643, Cardinal Mazarin, a great lover of the diamond, is said to have encouraged the promotion of experiments by the Dutch lapidaries which led to the true "rose" cutting. Anyhow, a more systematic method of faceting in sixteen facets—the taille en seize—began to be employed about that time. This process, though it left much to be desired, was an immense improvement, and set forth the qualities of the stone in a way that had not been possible by the forms previously in use. "Roses," together with "tables," as the designs of Gilles LÉgarÉ and his contemporaries show, lasted until the invention of the "brilliant" at the commencement of the eighteenth century by the Venetian, Vincenzo Peruzzi, though rose cutting was popular for some time after, and is still used for certain stones.

The "rose" leaped into fashion at its first appearance, and the taste for diamonds and other precious stones seems to have dominated under Louis XIII and Louis XIV, when they became the principal objects in jewellery. Gold was worked into the form of garlands, flowers, and all sorts of designs for the purpose of mounting precious stones and setting off their beauty. The enormous increase of luxury in this direction was entirely in keeping with the whole conception of an absolute monarchy as developed by Louis XIV, who made it the duty of the grandees of France and Spain to wear their whole property, in the form of glittering gems, and to carry the value of lands and forests upon their own and their wives' apparel when they appeared before the eyes of their sovereign.

Though actual examples of the seventeenth-century jewellery are rare, at any rate in public collections, we can become acquainted with its characteristics by the numerous prints bequeathed by the goldsmiths and draughtsmen of the time. These prints, like those of the sixteenth century, were not invariably the work of their designers, since it was no uncommon practice for the master-goldsmith to have his designs multiplied for use in his own workshop, and for general circulation, by placing them in the hands of an engraver. As a rule the nationalities of existing jewels may be in some measure determined by means of the designs from which they were executed. But it is often difficult to make clear distinctions in this manner, owing to the continual artistic interchange which brought the fashions of one place to another, and caused the methods and ideas of the craftsmen to become common property. The bi-lingual inscriptions which one finds on the frontispieces of many of the pattern-books or sets of designs then published, prove that they were intended for international use.

The first attempts to base the composition of the ornament exclusively upon the effect of stones arranged in definite forms, without granting the setting of the plastic metal any independent part, are found in some of the prints of Daniel Mignot, of the year 1590. Mignot, probably of French extraction, was a goldsmith of Augsburg, where between the years 1590 and 1616 he produced a number of highly important designs for jewellery, which form a link between the old and the newer styles. While following the artists of the late sixteenth century in the representation of figure designs in cartouche-shaped ornaments formed of flat strapwork curves characteristic of the older school, he presents engravings of pendants, earrings, and aigrettes, in which the stones are set in juxtaposition.

PLATE XXXIX

image engraved designs for jewellery by daniel mignot

That the transition to the newer forms was slow, is shown in the works of the goldsmith-engraver of Amsterdam, whose models for pendants, signed with the initials P. R. K., and dated 1609 and 1617, are formed of elaborate open scrollwork of tendril design, almost destitute of stones. Exhibiting features more in keeping with those of Mignot are the designs of Paul Birckenhultz of Frankfort-on-the-Main (1617). They are of fine quality, and take the form of aigrettes and earrings set with precious stones and elaborate oval pendants terminating with pearls and ornamented with scroll ornaments intended for execution in enamel (Pl. XL, 4). Birckenhultz is the last of the German school of designers to model his work on the productions of the sixteenth-century masters.

Henceforth one must look for designs chiefly to France, where an entirely new type of ornament for jewellery, such as is found in no other art production of the time, was brought into existence by endeavours to associate leaf patterns with a number of stones. Its characteristic is the use of a sort of pea-pod or husk ornament, termed Schotenornamentik in German, and known generally by the French name of genre cosse de pois (pea-pod style). In the designs of the time this formal ornament is largely employed for elaborate aigrettes; but owing to the jewels executed from such designs having been set with stones, the result has been that change of fashion has suffered scarcely a jewelled example to survive. As a consequence, the objects existing at the present day chiefly represent enamelled miniature-cases and pendants. The number and variety of engraved designs for this kind of ornament in the form of jewelled bouquets or palmettes, chiefly for aigrettes, dating from the first half of the seventeenth century is surprising, considering that it remained a comparatively short time in use. One of the chief advocates of this style is Pierre Marchant, who worked in Paris about 1623. His rare designs for aigrettes, and wreaths for the borders of pendants, are most graceful, and show a form of leaf ornament which is extremely happily adapted for materials in which the precious stone had to play a prominent part (p. 306). Another Frenchman who employed it is Pierre Labarre (1630), goldsmith to Louis XIV, who, together with a well-known jeweller, Julien Defontaine, had apartments in the Louvre. Amongst other French designers were Jacques Caillard (1627), Baltasar Lemersier (1626-1630), Claude Rivard (1592-1650), FranÇois Lefebure (1635-1661), and GÉdÉon LÉgarÉ (1615-1676), to whom as "orfÉvre-esmailleur," together with Pierre Bain, Louis XIV in 1671, on the suggestion of Colbert, granted quarters in the Louvre. Designs of the same nature were executed in Strasburg by P. Symony (1621) and Hans Mosbach (1626), and in Holland by Jacques Honervogt (1625). The foregrounds or bases of nearly all these engravings are remarkable for the landscapes and for the quaint and vigorous genre figures in the style of the painter-engraver, Jacques Callot, that enliven them.

Of all the goldsmiths of the time the best known is Gilles LÉgarÉ of Chaumont-en-Bassigny, who was jeweller to Louis XIV, and worked in Paris about 1663. His series of designs, entitled Livre des Ouvrages d'OrfÉvrerie, is perhaps the most interesting of the kind produced during the seventeenth century. These fine compositions, when formed of precious stones, show knots and interlacings for clasps, pendants, and earrings, in which diamonds are fully displayed in rose-cut forms. As models for objects not composed entirely of stones, we find seals, rings, bracelets and chains decorated with ribbons and bows mingled with monograms, and emblems, such as death's-heads. Together with these appear tasteful arrangements for enamel-work in the form of natural flowers of great charm and delicacy. To these last reference will be made later. Contemporary with LÉgarÉ was the painter and engraver Balthazar Moncornet, who worked at Rouen and Paris. His book of designs, of which he was probably the inventor as well as engraver, entitled Livre nouveau de toutes sortes d'ouvrages d'orfÉvries, was published about 1670[173]. The jewels, in the form of pendants, earrings, and brooches, are composed of stones set in various ways; the last plate is a miniature portrait of Louis XIV set as a brooch. All his designs are accompanied by garlands of natural flowers.

Complete as was the change which was brought about owing to the prominence given to the precious stone, it must not be supposed that the enameller's art was by any means neglected. Though it cannot be compared with that in the best productions of the Renaissance, the enamel-work applied to seventeenth-century jewellery is, nevertheless, worthy of close attention.

Enamel executed by the champlevÉ method was much employed. The technical process known as champlevÉ was performed in two ways. By one method the surface of the gold was simply incised with designs, and the grooves thus made filled with enamel. By another method only thin lines of the metal were reserved to form the design, and the remainder of the field cut out to receive the enamel. This latter system resembles in appearance the well-known cloisonnÉ; but the metal strips that form the partitions between the enamel, instead of being inserted, are a solid part of the metal base. Commonly employed on jewellery from the middle of the sixteenth century, it remained in general favour, together with the simpler form of champlevÉ, till about the third decade of the seventeenth century, when it gave place to enamel-work of an entirely different kind.

For jewellery intended to be carried out by this champlevÉ method, or on rare occasions to be covered with translucent enamels, we have at our service again a number of dated designs. These engravings, known as Schwarzornamente or niello ornaments, are in the nature of silhouettes. The patterns, reserved in white upon a black ground, are composed of curves of flat and broken strapwork. The designs are occasionally for complete jewels, but most of them take the form of very small motives intended as patterns for the shoulders of finger rings, or for the borders, frames, or other details of jewels. Some engraved plates are made up entirely of such motives; on other plates they appear as details, either within a complete design or upon the field outside it. Germany and the Netherlands furnish the earliest examples of these. Several dating from the latter part of the sixteenth century are by "monogrammists," who signed their engravings with their initials, and whose names are mostly unknown—such as the German master A. C. of the year 1598. Among recognised engravers in this style are the following:—Of the German school: Arnold JÖrg (1586-1596), Corvinianus Saur (1590-1597), the rare Hans Hensel of Sagan (1599), Daniel Hailler (1604), Jonas Bentzen (1615), and Daniel Mignot (1590) and P. Symony (1621), both of whom placed these motives on the field of their plates. Of the Netherlandish school is the well-known Michel Le Blon, called Blondus, goldsmith at the Court of Queen Christina of Sweden, who was born at Frankfort-on-the-Main in 1587 and died at Amsterdam in 1656. His designs in silhouette, the earliest of which, in the British Museum, is dated 1605,[174] were in great demand, and appear not only on knife-handles, but on oval and octagonal box-shaped pendants—presumably watch-cases. Also of the same school are: the rare master, Hans van Ghemert (1585), Hans de Bull (1590), the monogrammist P. R. K. (1609), and Guillaume de la Quewellerie of Amsterdam (1611-1635). In addition there is Giovanni Battista Costantini of Rome, who published his Ornementi per lavorare Giorje in 1622 and 1625.

The French goldsmith-engravers, who produced designs in the "silhouette" manner intended for jewels that were to be enamelled by the champlevÉ method, include Jehan Vovert (1602), an anonymous engraver A. D. (1608), Jacques Hurtu (1614-1619), Stephanus Carteron of ChÂtillon (1615), Pierre Nolin (1620), and Jean Toutin (1619) and his son Henri (1628).

The most important of these is the goldsmith and enameller Jean Toutin of ChÂteaudun, whose plates—six in number, dated 1618 and 1619—are filled with charming motives for watch-cases or lockets, to be carried out in enamel. They are ornamented with patterns reserved in white on black ground in the form of trailing leaves and tendrils, partly in the "pea-pod" style, and accompanied by lively genre figures in various attitudes. Perhaps the most attractive of these plates is that which represents a jeweller—probably Toutin himself—firing a jewel which he holds in the furnace by a pair of long tongs, while above is figured a model of the actual jewel—an octagonal box-like pendant (p. 289).

Toutin, who appears to have been an experimenter in enamels, is entitled to distinction as the discoverer of a new process of using them. The process consisted in covering a plate of gold or copper with an opaque monochromatic enamel, on which designs were painted with colours, opaque and fusible, and of greater variety than had previously been employed. This method of enamel painting, extensively used for jewellery, proved to be peculiarly suitable to the representation of natural flowers which came into high favour about the same time.

The employment of naturalistic flower designs, as displayed on the margins of manuscripts, was one of the features of late Gothic art. The same tendency with regard to flowers was manifested on the enamelled jewellery of the fifteenth century, the most striking example of which is the wonderful necklace seen on the Flemish portrait of Maria Baroncelli in the Uffizi Gallery. Renaissance ornaments on the whole did not favour naturalistic floral patterns, though flowers enamelled in full relief are occasionally found, as on the border of the Phoenix Jewel in the British Museum.

The general return in the early part of the seventeenth century to flower designs for the decoration of jewellery is associated with a curious phase in the social history of the time that accompanied the deep interest then taken in flowers and horticulture. Among flowers, of which the Dutch have ever been enthusiastically fond, and never tired of growing and of painting, the most prominent position was occupied by the tulip. From about the year 1634 the cultivation of the tulip became a perfect craze in Holland, and "Tulipomania" like a violent epidemic seized upon all classes of the community. Gambling of an almost unparalleled nature was carried on in the bulbs, and the flower became fashionable everywhere. In the bouquets which the enamellers arranged with great taste, and painted with extraordinary skill, the tulip is always prominent.

This and many other flowers, and occasionally fruits, were painted in the same manner as a picture, on an enamel ground of uniform colour—generally white, and sometimes pale blue, yellow, or black. Small plaques enamelled and painted thus are popularly known by the name of "Louis Treize" enamels, though the majority of them were produced after Louis XIII's death in 1643.

About 1640 it became the custom occasionally to model the design in relief with a paste of white enamel, which was afterwards painted with vitreous colours according to nature. Towards the middle of the century the background of the flowers was pierced and cut away, so that every single flower, exquisitely modelled and coloured, stood out by itself. In addition to tulips of every variety, and hyacinths, sunflowers, and roses, all kinds of lilies were in favour, especially the tiger-lily, the "crown imperial," and different species of fritillaries, whose beautifully spotted or chequered blossoms were rendered in their natural colours with striking fidelity. Flowers executed in this realistic style for jewellery were arranged chiefly in garlands and festoons, in the manner of the wreaths painted by Jan Brueghel round several of Rubens' pictures, the flower pieces of such Dutch and Flemish painters as Jan de Heem, Van den Hecke, Daniel Seghers, and Van Thielen, and the wood carvings of Grinling Gibbons (himself Dutch by birth), which display the same remarkable realism.

Among the goldsmiths and draughtsmen of the time who have left designs for jewels in painted enamel are the Germans Heinrich Raab and Johann Paulus Hauer, both goldsmiths of Nuremberg. Their engravings, with natural flower ornamentation very finely designed and executed, were published about 1650. They comprise crosses, Étuis, scissor, watch, and scent cases, and pendants—star-and bow-shaped, and set each with a pendent pearl. Work in the same direction by the artists of the French school is of great importance. GÉdÉon LÉgarÉ, though he practised the pea-pod style, is the first to show a decided preference for natural flowers in his engravings, which date from about 1640. He is followed by three famous masters of flower ornament—Balthazar Moncornet, Gilles LÉgarÉ, and Jean Vauquer. Vauquer worked at Blois between 1670 and 1700, and like many other engravers of jewellers' designs, was a jeweller and enamel painter by profession. He was a pupil of MorliÈre of Orleans, who also worked at Blois. His fine plates of flowers and ornamental foliage, engraved after his own designs and entitled Livre de fleurs propres pour orfÉvres et graveurs, were published in 1680.[175] Vauquer was an enamel painter of pre-eminent ability, and one of the greatest exponents of the day of the art of representing natural flowers.

Of the designs of Moncornet (c. 1670) and Gilles LÉgarÉ (c. 1663) for jewelled ornaments we have already spoken. Moncornet, a great lover of flowers, accompanied his jewels by charming garlands. With him and Vauquer and LÉgarÉ must be associated the renowned enamel painter Jean Petitot (1607-1691), who was first an enameller of jewellery. So highly skilled was he as a painter of flower designs and foliage on rings and other ornaments, that on going over to England in 1635 he entered at once into the service of Charles I, where he brought to perfection his famous enamelled portraits.

Several actual examples have survived of the enamel-work of Gilles LÉgarÉ, whose designs—the best-known of this time—reveal a charming feeling for natural flower ornaments. His chef d'oeuvre is generally considered to be the garland of flowers painted in enamel in open-work relief that surrounds a miniature by Petitot of the Countess d'Olonne in the collection of Major Holford at Dorchester House. This splendid piece, on which the tints of the flowers are rendered with striking fidelity, was formerly in the collection of a great French connoisseur of the eighteenth century, P. J. Mariette. At his death it passed into the possession of Horace Walpole, who counted it as one of his special treasures. It joined the Dorchester House collection after the Strawberry Hill sale in 1842. If this magnificent enamel-work be by the hand of LÉgarÉ, and we may take Mariette's word for it that it is,[176] this clever craftsman must have worked for Petitot; for another very fine example of the same kind of work, a wreath of enamelled flowers finely modelled and painted, surrounds a miniature by Petitot in the possession of the Earl of Dartrey.

To sum up the characteristic styles of seventeenth-century ornament which we have endeavoured to describe, the first feature is the general preference for precious stones, and especially diamonds, and the use of the "pea-pod" ornament for displaying them. From this style, practised by Marchant and many others, we pass, secondly, to the "Schwarzornamente" or "silhouette" designs of Le Blon and Toutin employed for champlevÉ enamel. Thirdly comes the development of naturalistic flower designs, and the application of these to the painted "Louis Treize" enamel evolved by Toutin, and perfected by Petitot, Vauquer, and LÉgarÉ.