On View Now at The Museum of Fine Arts Boston: Jewels, Gems, and Treasures: Ancient to Modern"

Marjorie Merriweather Post Brooch by Cartier. Photo reprinted with permission. © Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.* Gone are the days when museum jewels served as punctuation in exhibitions of ancient cultural artifacts. In 2011, Boston's Museum of Fine Arts (MFA) dedicated an entire wing to jewelry and hired one of America's first museum jewelry curators, Yvonne Markowitz, to organize the museum's first all-jewelry exhibition. Jewels, Gems, and Treasures: Ancient to Modern was originally slated to close in November 2012. However, by popular demand, the magnificent display of over 70 important pieces is scheduled to remain on display until June 1, 2014. The exhibition sets out to answer the broad question, What is a gem? At the same time, it explores in depth the way jewelry and gemstones express the symbolic language of culture and history and how these symbols have changed and manifested over time. With a broad selection of jewels representing different cultures, different eras, and the cultural value of different materials, the exhibition offers the chance "to get lost in the elaborate history, interesting anecdotes, and breathtaking beauty" of the jewels on display {cited}.

Unconventional Materials

There is a decided emphasis on unconventional materials, such as coral, feathers, and bone. Without question, the most unusual objects on display are the 19th century brooches made out of taxidermied hummingbirds. This was an extremely popular practice during the 1860s in England. To our modern eyes they appear creepy at best, reprehensible at worst, but their existence speaks to the broader context of the power of jewelry to link the past with the present. Modern jewelers strive to attain the same iridescent beauty in their pieces today, and some of them use the wings of beetles and butterflies to do so. While they are not using the whole animal, and perhaps they collect newly dead insects to do so, that inner drive to capture and manipulate the beauty of nature is still as strong as ever, even cross culturally. The exhibit also explores the different uses of jewelry. Across eons, cultures, and societies, jewelry has been used as a display of wealth, as talismanic, and as an artistic expression.

A Display of Wealth

On display is a 4,000-year-old Egyptian Pectoral. This shimmering golden wonder was a serious sign of wealth for the ancient Egyptians. Most often worn by the Pharoah, these necklace/brooch-type pieces were also worn by the very wealthy. Also representing ancient symbols of wealth are the Nubian cuff bracelets on display nearby. These ivory cuffs were worn by only the most influential and elite Nubian royals. A more recent show of wealth is demonstrated by the Colt jewels, an exquisite suite consisting of a diamond necklace and earrings. These beauties were made by Tiffany & Co. for arms merchant Samuel Colt in 1856, as a wedding gift for his wife. Set with 41.73 carats of old mine diamonds mounted in gold, the jewels cost him $8,000. Today, they are estimated at $190,000. Beside the Colt necklace, viewers can see another display of American wealth, first lady Mary Todd Lincoln's gold, enamel, and diamond brooch with matching earrings. This set happens to also exemplify the transience of material wealth. Mrs. Lincoln purchased the jewels in 1864. Three years later, she was forced to sell the jewels for a reported sum of $350 {cited} in order to pay her deceased husband's debts.

Inspiring Designers from Age to Age

The exhibit also features the luxurious brooch pictured pictured above. Fashioned in the 1920s, this striking Art Deco jewel features a central 60-carat carved Mughal emerald surrounded by diamonds and punctuated with 2 square-shaped and 13 pear-shaped emeralds. It was once owned by the very wealthy cereal heiress, Marjorie Merriweather Post. Beyond its position as a status symbol, this piece also demonstrates the power of jewelry to inspire designers from age to age. This emerald was carved by Persian artisans sometime between the late 1500s and mid-1800s and would would have once been set in the ornate Maharaji style associated the the great Persian Empire. In the 1920s, upon making several trips abroad, the brothers Cartier began collecting these exquisitely carved stones en masse. Entranced by the fantastic jewels within which they were set and the historical aura they radiated, Cartier used many of these stones in replicas of the royal jewels worn by the Persian rulers. They also designed many modern pieces around the ancient stones, as they did with Ms. Post's brooch. In the 1930s, Cartier drew inspiration once again from the Mughal carved emeralds. Ms. Daisy Fellowes, in 1936, received the first of Cartier's wildly popular Tutti Frutti collection. Tiny emeralds, sapphires, and rubies were carved into leaves and other organic shapes and then arranged in mosaic style to create bracelets, necklaces, and more. The trend of the 1930s was picked upon again in the 1970s and has become so synonymous with Cartier now that it never goes out of style.

Talismanic Jewelry

The exhibition also illustrates the use of jewels as talismans, offering protection or communication with deities. The use of jewelry as talismans is best demonstrated in the exhibition by the Nubian Hathor pendant, the Nubian Miniature Situla, and the 17th century German rosary. The Hathor pendant was found in the tomb of an unknown queen of King Piye in el-Kurru by the Harvard University-Boston Museum of Fine Arts (MFA) Expedition in the early 1920s. It was gifted to the MFA by the government of Sudan in 1921. {cited} The golden head of Hathor, crowned with cow horns embracing a sun disk, rests upon a large rock crystal orb. Museum experts surmise it was at one time filled with magical substances. The goddess Hathor is most revered for her role in the afterlife--she welcomes the dead into the next life. She also held particular relevance for woman as the goddess of fertility and motherhood. The Nubian Miniature Situla, a small pendant made of pink amethystine quartz, was found in a different tomb at el-Kurru, the tomb of Queen Tabiry, also wife of King Piye. This piece was also given to the MFA by the government of Sudan in 1921 {cited}. Situlas are vessels used for carrying water. These jeweled pendants, particularly the ones with rounded bottoms, were a sign that the wearer was a devotee of Isis. She was the goddess of nature and magic, worshiped as the ideal mother and wife. Isis was known to wear a similar situla in which she carried sacred water from the Nile. Finally, we have the jeweled rosary made in Germany in the mid-17th century. This ornate beaded necklace is made with silver, silver gilt, glass, amber, and painted ivory. Rosaries were used by early Catholic Christians as a tool for reciting the required 150 Psalms, later the 150 Our Fathers prayed by laymen who were not required to memorize the Psalms. These prayers served as penance from sin and a sign of devotion to the Catholic deity.

Jewelry as Artistic Expression

Finally, the exhibit demonstrates the celebration of jewelry as artistic expression. Nearly all of the major artistic movements are represented, with Charles Robert Asbhee's Marsh-bird brooch exemplifying the Arts and Crafts Movement, and a whimsical gold, silver, steel, and diamond hair ornament made by Rene Lalique to represent the Art Nouveau period. As mentioned before, Ms. Post's Mughal emerald brooch represents the Art Deco movement. The Retro period is best represented by Coco Chanel's Maltese cross cuffs from the 1940s, and mid-century jewels by an American Indian headress tiara made in 1956. The exhibition also features several pieces of contemporary art jewelry. One piece, a stunning bib necklace made by costume jewelry's reigning king, Kenneth Jay Lane, represents the bold, colorful jewels of the 1980s. Made from gold-tone metal and cast resin in bright red, spring green, aqua, and a dark blue-green. The 1990s are represented by Dutch artist Liesbith Fit's "Diamonds are a girl's best friend." The ring, made entirely of gold-plated copper, is fashioned to look like a large diamond, although the jewel is pointedly missing the mesmerizing mineral. This piece more than most on display draw the viewer into the contemporary dialog surrounding jewelry and art. As Danielle Baldassini, writer for ONE New England asserts, the artist appears to be begging the question, "Is the diamond as empty as the space that serves as its placeholder?" {cited} And with the 2003 bracelet by German designer Michael Zobel and carver Tom Munsteiner, the exhibit officially covers all the eras between now and then. As the MFA reports, this striking gold, silver, rutilated quartz, and diamond bracelet is "an outstanding example of the artists' pioneering efforts in fusing gold to silver which is then oxidized to give maximum contrast between the metals" {cited}. The stylized "X" is carved into the metal and then punctuated with a line of tiny diamonds. Visitors to the Boston area will not want to miss this spectacular display of Jewels, Gems, and Treasures: Ancient to Modern. The show will remain open to the public in the Rita J. and Stanley H. Kaplan Foundation Jewelry Gallery until June 1, 2014. For more information on the exhibition, we invite you to visit the MFA website.

*More about the photo: William Francis Warden Fund, Marshall H. Gould Fund, Frank B. Bemis Fund, Mary S. and Edward Jackson Holmes Fund, John H. and Ernestine A. Payne Fund, Otis Norcross Fund, Helen and Alice Colburn Fund, William E. Nickerson Fund, Arthur Tracy Cabot Fund, Edwin E. Jack Fund, Frederick Brown Fund, Elizabeth Marie Paramino Fund in memory of John F. Paramino, Boston Sculptor, Morris and Louise Rosenthal Fund, Harriet Otis Cruft Fund, H.E. Bolles Fund, Seth K. Sweetser Fund, Helen B. Sweeney Fund, Ernest Kahn Fund, Arthur Mason Knapp Fund, John Wheelock Elliot and John Morse Elliot Fund, Susan Cornelia Warren Fund, Mary L. Smith Fund, Samuel Putnam Avery Fund, Alice M. Bartlett Fund, Benjamin Pierce Cheney Donation, Frank M. and Mary T.B. Ferrin Fund, and Joyce Arnold Rusoff Fund.