10 jewelry masterpieces of the Victoria & Albert Museum in London
About fifty thousand exhibits of jewelry art from ancient times to the present day are stored in one of the most famous museums in Great Britain. “Private Collection” has selected the most emblematic of them.
The first person who comes to mind for an art lover when mentioning the Art Nouveau style is the Frenchman René Lalique. The second, undoubtedly, is Philippe Wolfers, his Belgian colleague and associate. He devoted only about a decade to the jewelry business inherited from his father, preferring sculpture to everything. Wolfers’ workshop produced just over one hundred and fifty unique works of jewelry art, each of which is literally worth its weight in gold today. This hair ornament is made in the form of an orchid, one of the symbols of Art Nouveau, reflecting the charm of nature and the sensuality of flowers. The work is made of gold using the window enamel technique, decorated with diamonds and rubies.
Frenchman of Swiss descent Jean Dunant became famous as a modernist designer, whose works in the Art Nouveau and Art Deco styles are adored by museum workers and collectors. In his field, he had a hand in everything from wall panels and furniture to carpets and art glass. He did not ignore jewelry, leaving behind both lush floral pieces and brutal avant-garde jewelry. The latter includes this bracelet, inspired by the Suprematism of Kazimir Malevich.
The first jewelry in the archaeological style was shown by the Faberge firm at the All-Russian Art and Industrial Exhibition in 1882 in Moscow. They were inspired by the collection of ancient Roman jewelry art in the Hermitage and made by August Hollming, one of the Russified Finnish jewelers who worked for the famous workshop. The enthusiastically received collection took its place in Faberge’s display cases, and this gold bracelet with a ruby and sapphire ended up in a London museum.
This choker was made by two teachers-jewelers of the Royal College of Jewellery in Bangkok in 2002. It is probably a striking example of the kind of products by modern designers that find a home in museum storage. In their work, Santi Wongchan and Niphon Yodkranpan used an ancient national technique of gold weaving, which was practiced in the city of Ayutthaya, the medieval capital of modern Thailand. The shape of the necklace is inspired by elements of the Thai flower dok-peep (Brugmansia).
The works of the Italian jeweler and sculptor Barbara Paganin are stored in the collections of many museums around the world, from her native Venice, where she was born and studied at the Academy of Fine Arts, to the Museum of Decorative Arts in Paris and the Smithsonian Cooper Hewitt Design Museum in New York. She calls her jewelry concepts “mind maps” and “miniature landscapes,” and uses precious stones and metals, as well as everyday objects, glass, ceramics, and photographs in their creation. This bright brooch in the shape of a Romanesco cabbage is made of silver and dental acrylic, which allowed the designer to “play” with the color of the attractive shape.
Such jewelry made of gold and diamonds during the Renaissance was not only considered a symbol of aristocratic wealth, but was also endowed with magical powers. The monogram in the IHS pendant was traditionally depicted at the top of crucifixes. It is composed of the first two and last letters of the name of Jesus Christ in ancient Greek writing. The pendant is made up of 26 diamonds.
One of the significant sections of jewelry in any museum is the historical collections of great jewelry houses. A striking example is this innovative transformable jewelry that can turn into a necklace, brooch, or pendant, depending on the needs and moods of its owner. For these purposes, the luxurious velvet case included accessories and a special screwdriver. In addition, the house’s contribution to jewelry innovations of the early 20th century in this diamond piece was the use of a thin platinum frame, providing lightness and mobility.
This is one of the most famous exhibits in the museum. The tiara was made according to a sketch by Prince Albert by the court jeweler Joseph Kitching using sapphires and diamonds to match the brooch that Victoria’s husband had given her earlier. The queen loved it so much that she wore it in public even after her husband’s death. Together with Victoria, the tiara became the heroine of the famous portrait of the queen by Franz Xaver Winterhalter, known throughout the world. Later, the jewelry was passed down to the queen’s descendants, and in the 1990s it was almost sold abroad.
The celebrated genius of Art Nouveau and the “king of Parisian fashion” Lalique distanced himself from the usual precious stones and metals in his works, preferring at the beginning of the new 20th century to pay attention to the exquisite interaction of glass, bone, enamel and semi-precious stones. This is reflected in this tiara-comb with fire opals, made in the form of waves and flowers.
Such floral decorations appeared in Europe at the beginning of the 19th century together with the romanticism movement that came into fashion. First in the form of brooches from small bouquets or baskets of fruit, then in a larger format, with several ways of fastening and complex designs. For example, this corset diamond brooch (28 cm long) could be used as a decoration for the bodice of a dress, and also disassembled into several quite utilitarian parts for decorating both clothes and hair.
