SEVENTEENTH CENTURY JEWELLERY (continued)
ENGLAND, SEVENTEENTH CENTURY

THE jewels of the seventeenth century, as has been observed, are comparatively rare in public collections. Unlike those of the Cinquecento, which find a more appropriate place in the museum or collector's cabinet, they are admirably adapted for personal use at the present day; but until the change of taste of the last few years in favour of old work, these attractive objects, owing to their being set with precious stones of intrinsic value, suffered cruelly at the hands of modern jewellers in the destructive process of resetting. Partly for this reason it is less easy than it was with the jewellery of the century previous to notify extant examples of all species of ornaments. Their main features, already described, lie in a preference for precious stones, and for a style of ornament which, at first formal, evolves into naturalistic flower designs in painted enamel.

Widespread luxury accompanied the large importation of precious stones. Ladies made each new fÊte a pretext for greater extravagance and greater efforts to outshine their neighbours; and the ornament in which they seem above all to have delighted for the best display of their wealth of jewellery was the aigrette. This ornament, of which some mention has been made (p. 281), generally took the form of a bouquet of flowers on movable stalks, composed of clusters of precious stones in enamelled gold, accompanied sometimes by a jewelled knot, and was fixed in the hair on all occasions of ceremony. A large number of these bouquets are mentioned in the inventory of the French crown jewels of 1618. In default of actual examples we must rely on the designs which the jewellers of the day published for them, and also on contemporary portraits, which further illustrate a passing mode for plaiting strings of pearls through the hair.

Of earrings, on the other hand, a considerable number of examples have survived. French and English portraits show at first only a large pear-shaped pearl in each ear. In the second half of the century more elaborate earrings came into use. Spain, where these ornaments have always been popular, produced at the time a number of portraits exhibiting earrings of open-work set with coloured stones. They are in the form of a rosette or bow-shaped ornament hung with movable pendants. The engravings of Rivard (1646), Lefebure (1647), and Gilles LÉgarÉ (1663) include designs for earrings; those of the last-named being such voluminous jewels, hung with triple briolettes, pendeloques, or pearls, that they might easily be mistaken for neck pendants. The majority of earrings of this period, now existing, are of Spanish, Portuguese, or Italian origin. The general type of earring then in use is well shown in Rembrandt's portrait of Hendrickje Stoffels (about 1652), in the Louvre, where it takes the form of an elaborate pendant terminating with a big pearl drop.

Necklaces of light open-work design are set with diamonds or coloured stones. These seldom have a special pendant; they were, in fact, fast disappearing to make room for rows of pearls. Jewelled pendants, often consisting of two or more mobile parts, were frequently attached to a velvet band that closely encircled the throat. More important pendants of this period are those which take the forms of mounted engraved gems or enamelled portraits, or else of miniature cases or lockets beautifully enamelled.

The finest series of mounted gems is that in the BibliothÈque Nationale at Paris. Some of the mounts are executed in the "pea pod" style in open-work; others are ornamented with champlevÉ enamel, after the niello designs in the silhouette manner; others again are of natural flower designs in painted enamel. There is a noteworthy example at Paris of the pea-pod style—a cameo (No. 791) of Louis XIII as an infant. It is in an open-work frame of opaque enamel—black, dark green, and white—of about 1605, which bears a very close resemblance to one of the published designs of Pierre Marchant. In the Gem Room of the British Museum is a still finer example, and one of the most splendid jewels from the famous Marlborough Collection. It is of open-work, enamelled white and green: the husks or pods, set each with a small diamond, are in green, and the little pea ornaments issuing therefrom are in white enamel (Pl. XLIV, 17). The work dates from the first years of the seventeenth century. The gem it serves to enrich, a fine onyx cameo of Lucius Verus, is slightly earlier. The choicest example of painted enamel of flower design in open relief is certainly the mounting or frame of a magnificent pendant (No. 961) in the BibliothÈque Nationale, set with a cameo of Lucrezia de' Medici, wife of Alfonso II, Duke of Ferrara. This frame, quite unmatched for its taste and skill, is formed of a garland of flowers, open-worked, and enamelled in the utmost delicacy with white, pale yellow, and light green enamel, heightened with reddish touches (Pl. XLIII, 6). Among other jewels of the same style, of which there are quite a number, one may mention the setting of an antique Roman cameo (Pl. XLIV, 15), and the reverse of the onyx "George" of Charles II (Pl. XXVIII, 1) both English work, at Windsor Castle[177]. Besides the two beautiful examples of his work already noticed (p. 288), it is usual to associate with Gilles LÉgarÉ the frame of birds and flowers, enamelled black and white, that surrounds Petitot's portrait of Louis XIV in the Jones Collection at South Kensington. The designs of Vauquer, also, seem to have been followed in many similar kinds of enamelled jewels.

The pendent miniature-cases or lockets of the seventeenth century are of great interest. The best example of those enriched with champlevÉ enamel is the Lyte Jewel (p. 303). The "pea-pod" style is well shown on the back of a miniature-case containing a female portrait by Peter Oliver (1601-1647) in the Dyce Collection at South Kensington (Pl. XLIII, 2). It is enamelled en plein with translucent green on a ground of matted gold, with the pea-pod pattern in white, after an engraved design by the French ornamentist Pierre Firens (1605-1625). This same style of ornament is seen on a miniature-case ÉmaillÉ en rÉsille sur verre[178] belonging to Mr. Pierpont Morgan. Enamel-work after the silhouette engravings of the same period is represented by one of its principal exponents, Jean Toutin of ChÂteaudun (1618), on the front and back of a miniature-case (Plate XLIII, 1) in the possession of Mr. Pierpont Morgan, ornamented with designs en genre cosse de pois reserved in gold on a ground of black enamel. Small plaques of "Louis Treize" enamel painted in natural colours on a monochrome ground were frequently employed for miniature-cases. A considerable number of these, of both French and German (Augsburg) work, exist. English work is rarer: an example, upon the cover of a miniature of Oliver Cromwell, painted with roses and leaves in natural colours on a white ground, is preserved in the University Galleries, Oxford. Enamelled flower designs modelled in relief, sometimes on open-work ground, in the manner of Vauquer and LÉgarÉ, are also found on lockets. An exquisite little example, inscribed "O.C. 1653," belongs to Mr. Max Rosenheim. It contains an enamelled miniature of Oliver Cromwell.

Like the aigrette, an important jewel worn at this time was a breast ornament, termed a SÉvignÉ, after the celebrated lady of that name. This ornament took the form of a bow or rosette of open-work, of foliated design, generally of silver, set with small diamond splinters. As the century advanced the work set with small stones and diamond sparks in substantial mounts was replaced by open-work jewels, known as "lazos" jewels, set with large flat stones, and ornaments formed of several pieces—an upper part of tied bow or knot shape and hung with pendants—all set with rose-cut stones. Much of this work, intended for the display of diamonds and various coloured stones in imitation of flowers, hails from Spain. It is admirably shown in Spanish portraits—those, for example, by Velasquez, Coello, etc; in the large series of Habsburg portraits preserved in the castle of SchÖnbrunn, in Austria; and in portraits of the Medici family by the painter Sustermans (1597-1681) in the Uffizi and Pitti galleries. It is here worthy of note that still in the seventeenth century we find elaborate ornamentation applied to the back of jewels—a notable feature in almost all jewellery of the finest craftsmanship. A plain surface on this part of the jewel was generally avoided by a charming use of the graver, or by means of small panels of painted enamel.

Bracelets set with precious stones are generally of open-work of the same style as the necklaces. Of those executed in enamel there is a good French example at South Kensington (Plate XXXVII, 2). It is formed of six medallions, each containing a crowned cypher alternating with true-lover's knots. It may usefully be compared with Gilles LÉgarÉ's designs for bracelets and chains on Plate 8 of his Livre des Ouvrages d'OrfÉvrerie.

The finger rings of the early seventeenth century, as far as one can judge from pictures, did not differ essentially from the late sixteenth-century types; in fact many of the ornamental rings usually ascribed to the sixteenth century really date from the first half of the seventeenth. The majority of small niello designs engraved at this period were patterns for the shoulders of rings, intended to be executed in enamel by the champlevÉ process (Pl. XLI). Henri, son of Jean Toutin, furnishes a couple of engravings for rings, of the year 1628, of which the whole outer surface of the hoop is covered with designs reserved in white on a black ground. De la Quewellerie of Amsterdam, 1635, has also left the designs for a finger ring in the same style. The love for "bouquets d'orfÉvrerie"—flower designs in coloured stones—finds expression, towards the end of the century, in the giardinetti ring, the bezel of which is formed like a nosegay, a basket of flowers, or a bunch of flowers springing from a vase. These floral designs are of charming execution, and their coloured stones produce an extremely pleasing effect. Many of these rings are Italian, but there are several English examples at South Kensington (Pl. XXXVI, 9, 10).

Painted enamels in flower patterns are found not only on the shoulders of rings, but covering the entire outer surface. Occasionally flowers enamelled À jour occur, the hoop of the ring being hollow. Lord Falkland possesses a good example of one of these rings encircled with coloured flowers (Pl. XLIV, 8). The hollow space is filled with hair. Within the hoop is the posy Difficulty sweetens enjoyment. Mottoes or posies of this kind were occasionally engraved on mediÆval rings and on those of the sixteenth century, but the majority of the large number of rings on which such mottoes occur belong to the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Unlike the example just mentioned, these rings, with the motto engraved inside them, usually have plain hoops, and were used as engagement, and sometimes as wedding rings. The mottoes generally rhyme, but are not remarkable for poetic skill, and they are found constantly repeated. Numbers of the verses employed for the purpose are given in Jones's Finger-Ring Lore, and in an article published by Sir John Evans in Longman's Magazine (1892). A few examples will suffice: As God decreed so we agreed; God above increase our love; This take for my sake; The love is true I owe you; In thee my choice I do rejoice. Posy rings, like mourning rings, to be referred to later, are almost exclusively English. As regards the ordinary ornamental ring of the period, it is to be observed that the diamond, which came so much to the front at this time, found a prominent place on it. Towards the close of the century, though enamel-work is still visible, the purpose of the ring, as at the present day, seems to have been nothing more than for displaying the diamond on the finger, so far as one may judge from some of LÉgarÉ's designs (Pl. XL, 2).

The girdle in the seventeenth century was still an important ornament for ladies. The great portrait painters of the Low Countries present ladies wearing massive linked chains terminating in elaborate pomanders. Not infrequently the lady is shown, as in a picture by Gerard Douffet at Munich, holding the pomander in her hand. A fine pomander is seen in a portrait of a Flemish lady by Cornelis de Vos in the Wallace Collection, and one of extraordinary beauty is worn by a Dutch lady in a splendid picture by Frans Hals in the Cassel Gallery. Amongst the various seventeenth-century girdles to be found in public collections, without doubt the most remarkable are two examples, one in the Victoria and Albert Museum and the other in the Wallace Collection. They represent the species of enamel-work known as Émail en rÉsille sur verre, which was employed during the latter part of the sixteenth and the early seventeenth century for miniature and mirror cases—of which specimens in the Morgan Collection and the Louvre have already been noticed—and for the dials of watches. The girdle at South Kensington, of French work of the early seventeenth century, is formed of twenty-one oblong and slightly convex plates linked together by rosettes. These plates, of silver, are filled with glass paste, which is backed with coloured foils and inlaid with minute designs in translucent enamel on gold, representing hunting and other country scenes. The chain in the Wallace Collection, which might possibly have been worn as a neck-chain, is almost identical in subject and design, save that the oblong links number eighteen, while the rosettes uniting them are enamelled and set with garnets.

The jewel which best represents the various kinds of decoration in the way of engraving and enamel-work applied to seventeenth-century ornaments is the watch. From the early part of the century the round form, more or less flat, which has been preserved from that time to the present day, began to be generally adopted for watches. All the different species of work employed on miniature-cases are found on watch dial-plates and cases. The interesting cosse de pois ornament is represented in the British Museum on the dial-plate of a watch by D. Bouquet of London, of about 1630-1640. It is executed by the rare process just described—the pattern being inlaid on gold upon a ground of green glass or enamel. Another watch, by Vautier of Blois, has the centre of the dial enriched with translucent enamel in gold cloisons on opaque white. Among watches with richly decorated cases there is in the same collection another by Bouquet, beautifully enamelled with flowers in relief, of various colours and kinds, on a black ground encrusted with small diamonds. Besides the names already mentioned, the best-known enamellers of watch-cases from about 1680 to 1700 were the brothers Huault, or Huaud, of Geneva, who worked also at Berlin.

No more examples need be given of the different species of enamel applied to seventeenth-century jewellery. Enough has been said to demonstrate the importance and attractiveness of the comparatively little-known enamel-work of this time.

During the greater part of the seventeenth century the watch was simply hung by a chain to the girdle, as we see it on the two portraits (about 1645) of the wife of John Tradescant the younger in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford. The elaborate chatelaines which attached the watch to women's girdles, and the chains which hung from the fob-pocket of men, belong rather to the eighteenth century; but they were already in use, and from them were suspended that most attractive article of jewellery, the seal, which was then beginning to take the place of the signet ring. Evelyn, in his Mundus Muliebris, or Voyage to Marryland (1690), gives a rhyming catalogue of a lady's toilet, and alludes to the chatelaine:—

The designs of LÉgarÉ contain several charming pendent seals having their shanks or handles finely worked with monograms and other patterns (Pl. XL). Seals, however, together with the chatelaine and the rest of its accompaniments, will be spoken of later.

There remain various pieces of jewellery, such as buckles, clasps, or brooches, which were sprinkled on different parts of the dress. Like the sÉvignÉ or breast ornament, they often take the form of a tied bow, and find a place on the arms and shoulders, and in rows down the front of the bodice and the skirt. In the latter part of the century jewelled buckles replaced the rosette of ribbons on the shoe. Thus again Evelyn speaks of:—

ENGLAND, SEVENTEENTH CENTURY

In England in the time of James I, the love of personal ornament, among men as well as women, was even more widespread than before. King James, and also his Queen, who herself possessed a highly extravagant taste for jewellery, set a public example by their patronage of the jewellers; while the nobility outbid one another in lavish expenditure. John Chamberlain, an entertaining correspondent of the day, writes thus in 1608 to a friend unable to attend a masque: "Whatsoever the devise may be, and what success they may have in their dancing, yet you should be sure to have seen great riches in jewels, when one lady, and that under a baroness, is said to be furnished for better than a hundred thousand pounds; and the lady Arabella goes beyond her, and the Queen must not come behind."

Contemporary chroniclers have left no descriptions that show precisely how the King's own person reflected the fashions in jewellery of his day, yet we know that he possessed an almost childish admiration for "bravery," as it then was termed, particularly such as was intended for the decoration of those about his person. A very curious instance of the King's interest in these matters is to be found in the elaborate instructions he issued concerning the despatch of a large consignment of jewels for the use of the Prince of Wales, and his favourite, Buckingham, on their memorable journey to Spain in 1623. In the spring of that year orders were given to several officers of State, and with them the jeweller Heriot, to repair to the Tower and make a selection of the finest jewels there—some fit for a woman, and others for the Prince to wear. Among them a "jewel called the Three Brothers, five or six faire jewels to be worn in men's hats, same to be of £6,000 or £7,000 value, and none under; the five pendent diamonds that were the Queen's, whether they remain upon a string or be made up upon a feather. If none of the Targett fashion for hats, the jewels to be broke up to make them."[179]

To his son and favourite the King then addresses a letter, in which he tells them that he had been choosing "the jewells I am to send you, whereof my Babie is to present some to his Mistresse, and some of the best hee is to wear himselfe, and the next best hee will lend to my bastard brat [Buckingham] to wear." On their removal from the Tower the jewels are carefully inventoried, and Heriot is set to work to refashion them. After a fortnight's work he promises that they will be finished in a few days. So, on the 18th of March, "the jewels," we learn, "have been delivered." "Mr. Herriot is gone to assist in packing them, and has sat up day and night to get them completed."[180]

The King then writes that he is sending for his "Babie's owin wearing ... the Three Brethren,[181] that you knowe full well, but newlie sette, and the Mirroure of Frawnce, the fellowe of the Portugall Dyamont, quhiche I wolde wishe you to weare alone in your hatte with a litle blakke feather." To his "sweete Gosseppe" he sends "a fair table dyamonde." "I have hung," he says, "a faire peare pearle to it for wearing in thy hatte or quhair thow pleasis."[182]

As the result of extensive transactions both with the Crown and the nobility the jewellers of the day seem to have reaped a rich harvest; and they attained to positions of eminence by adding banking to their more ancient art of working in the precious metals. Of the royal jewellers, George Heriot of Edinburgh—rendered immortal by Sir Walter Scott as "Jingling Geordie"—the founder of Heriot's Hospital, comes first to mind. Heriot received in 1597 a life appointment as jeweller to Queen Anne of Denmark, and in 1601 James made him his own jeweller. He followed the King to London, and in 1603, together with William Herrick and John Spilman, was appointed jeweller to the King, Queen, and Prince, at a yearly salary of £50. Immense sums of money were paid him both as interest on loans and for the jewels supplied to their Majesties, of which long lists have been preserved. Sir John Spilman, a German by birth and one of the chief jewellers of Queen Elizabeth, executed great quantities of jewellery at the royal commands; but Sir William Herrick seems to have obtained an even larger share of the royal patronage. Queen Anne of Denmark, who spent an enormous amount on personal ornaments, received £36,000 worth from him alone. "Queen Anne," writes a contemporary shortly after her death, "hath left a world of brave jewels behind; and although one Piers, an outlandish man, hath run away with many, she hath left all to the Prince [Charles] and none to the Queen of Bohemia [her daughter Elizabeth]." In fact, so many of her jewels were embezzled that scarcely a vestige remained, though Herrick produced the models of them and swore to their delivery.[183] The poet Robert Herrick, Sir William Herrick's nephew, was a jeweller-apprentice to his uncle for several years, and his early training seems to have left a strong impression on him, for his poems throughout betray a love and appreciation for jewels. Among other jewellers whose names occur in the State Papers, the following may be mentioned: Philip Jacobson, Arnold Lulls, John Acton, and John Williams—a maker of gold neck-chains and pendent medals.

As far as the actual productions of the Jacobean jewellers are concerned we meet with comparatively few examples; this want, however, is supplied, to a certain extent, by means of a beautiful set of contemporary drawings for jewellery preserved in the Victoria and Albert Museum—the work of Arnold Lulls, a jeweller whose name occurs several times in the royal accounts. In conjunction with Sir William Herrick, Lulls supplied the King in 1605, as New Year's gifts for the Royal Family, with jewels to the amount of £3,000. For a certain jewel of diamonds, with pearls pendent, and two dozen buttons supplied by him and Jacobson, and bestowed by His Majesty on the Queen at the Princess Mary's christening the same year, Lulls was paid £1,550.[184]

Lulls' designs, drawn in water-colours in a parchment book, number altogether forty-one. The majority, set with large table-cut stones and hung with huge pear-shaped drops, are for pendent ornaments, for wearing either on the neck-chain, or as earrings, or else upon the hat. Among the drawings are two designs for a "rope of round pearls, great and orient"—forty-seven in number—given to the Queen, and several designs for the above-mentioned diamond and pearl ornament given her in 1605; two drawings for Georges of the Order of the Garter given to Prince Henry; and designs for a large balas ruby with pearl pendant mentioned in an inventory of the Prince's jewels.[185] The remaining drawings include four of jewelled aigrettes set with diamonds, rubies, emeralds, and sapphires (Plate XXX, 1). These remarkable contemporary illustrations of English jewellery reveal the change then beginning to take place in the character of personal ornaments. Yet, though precious stones are much in evidence, in almost every case their settings are coloured, while the design of each jewel is completed with charming scrollwork enriched with polychrome enamels.

The finest Jacobean jewel in existence is the famous miniature-case known as the Lyte Jewel, now in the Waddesdon Bequest in the British Museum. Miniature-cases of gold elaborately enamelled, with hinged fronts often set with jewels, were as much in vogue as in Elizabeth's time; and records show that many precious "picture cases" of the kind were made for James I as presents to personal friends or to ambassadors. The cover of the Lyte Jewel is of open-work, filled with the letter R, with diamonds on the outside and brilliant enamel within. The back is a white enamelled plate with a design in fine gold lines and ruby enamel, the edge being enamelled alternately ruby colour and sapphire-blue. Within is a portrait of James I ascribed to Isaac Oliver. The first owner of the jewel was Mr. Thomas Lyte. This gentleman drew up a long pedigree of King James I's ancestry and presented it to the King, who was so much pleased with it that he rewarded Mr. Lyte with "his picture in gold, set with diamonds, with gracious thanks." The jewel passed from the Lyte family some generations ago into the hands of the Duke of Hamilton. At the dispersal of the Hamilton Palace collection it was bought for the sum of £2,835 by Baron Ferdinand Rothschild, who bequeathed it with his other art treasures to the British Museum. A contemporary portrait of Thomas Lyte, dated 1611, in the possession of Sir Henry Maxwell Lyte shows him wearing it suspended from a brown ribbon round his neck. The jewel is the same, save that the drop at the bottom, now a single pearl, was originally trilobed. This exquisite jewel was probably the work of one of the court jewellers mentioned above. The design on the back, which corresponds in style with engravings of Daniel Mignot and the other earlier designers in the "silhouette" manner, exemplifies the influence exercised by the ornamentists on all the jewellery of the period (Pl. XLI).

Throughout the reign of Charles I ornaments in the same style as those portrayed in Lulls' drawings appear to have remained in use. All jewellery was largely influenced by the pattern-books issued from the goldsmith-engravers' shops of Germany, France and Flanders. Several jewellers themselves came over, as did the well-known Michel Le Blon, in the early part of the reign. In 1635 the famous goldsmith-enamellers Petitot and Bordier likewise visited England, and doubtless made their influence felt on the enamelled jewellery of the time. The period, on the whole, though it terminated disastrously for all the sumptuary arts, seems to have been a prolific one in the production of jewellery. The chief business was shared by the court jewellers—James Heriot (half-brother of George Heriot), Philip Jacobson, Thomas Simpson, John Acton, and William Terrey. Though he showered commissions on these jewellers, the King had commenced early in his reign the dispersal of the immense hoards of jewellery brought together by his predecessors; and by selling and pawning raised large sums of money, to make good the deficiencies caused by the rupture with Parliament. Subsequently, during the Civil War, to relieve his personal necessities, numbers of jewels were sold at home, and many more pawned and sent over to the dealers at Amsterdam, who broke them up for the intrinsic value of their gold and precious stones; while the remainder were put under the hammer by a commission appointed after the King's death to dispose of the works of art in the royal collection.

PLATE XLV