The movement which took its rise in France spread in due course to other countries. In England the movement conveniently described as the “arts and crafts movement” affected the design of jewelry. A group of designers has aimed at purging the jeweller’s craft of its character of mere gem-mounting in conventional forms (of which the more unimaginative, representing stars, bows, flowers and the like, are varied by such absurdities as insects, birds, animals, figures of men and objects made up simply of stones clustered together). Their work is often excellently and fancifully designed, but it lacks that exquisite perfection of execution achieved by the incomparable craftsmen of France. At the same time English sculptor-decorators—such as Alfred Gilbert, R.A., and George J. Frampton, A.R.A.—have produced objects of a still higher class, but it is usually the work 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 century, a branch of industry which collapsed after the French Revolution.
Modern jewelry may be classified under three heads: (1) objects in which gems and stones form the principal portions, and in which the work in silver, platinum or gold is really only a means for carrying out the design by fixing the gems or stones in the position arranged by the designer, the metal employed being visible only as a setting; (2) when gold work plays an important part in the development of the design, being itself ornamented by engraving (now rarely used) or enamelling or both, the stones and gems being arranged in subordination to the gold work in such positions as to give a decorative effect to the whole; (3) when gold or other metal is alone used, the design being wrought out by hammering in repoussé, casting, engraving, chasing or by the addition of filigree work (see Filigree), or when the surfaces are left absolutely plain but polished and highly finished.
Of course the most ancient and primitive methods are those wholly dependent upon the craft of the workman; but gradually various ingenious processes were invented, by which greater accuracy in the portions to be repeated in a design could be produced with 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 as regards the detail, or the various stamped portions fitted into each other for the mechanical completion of the work. It is therefore rather difficult to draw an absolute line between hand-made and machine-made jewelry, except in extreme cases of hand-made, when everything is worked, so to speak, from the solid, or of machine-made, when the hand has only to give the ornament a few touches of 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 with pencil, sepia or water colour, and when needful with separate enlargement of details, everything in short to make the drawing 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 finished. As the hammering goes on the metal becomes brittle and hard, and then it is passed though the fire to anneal or soften it. 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.
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
