What's Old is New: Double Rings

Isabella reporting,

Among the hottest trends in jewelry right now are double rings - rings whose designs span two fingers. It's considered a look that's new, hot, fresh, and very 2016.

So even though I know that there's nothing new under the sun, I was surprised when I saw this ring, upper left, last week at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The shadow reveals the two rings beneath the three stones, and the black-and-white photo, right, from the museum's web site shows the joined rings more clearly.

Featuring an emerald flanked by two rose-cut diamonds set in gold, the double ring was made in New York in 1895 by the well-regarded jewelry firm of Marcus & Company. The company's founder, Herman Marcus (1828-1899), was known for taking inspiration from the past for his designs, and this ring is in the Renaissance revival style popular at the time. So very 1895, by way of the 16th century.

But it turns out that the design is even older than that. A little more investigation, and I learned that the double ring design dates back at least to the 1st century BC, when the ring, lower right, was made in Hellenistic Greece. With an amethyst flanked by two garnets set in twisted bezels, this gold ring would be right in style today. Proving that, once again, what's old (even very old!) is new again.

Above: Double ring, Marcus and Company, 1895, Metropolitan Museum of Art. Top left photography �2016 Susan Holloway Scott.
Below: Hellenistic Greek gold double ring, 2nd-1st century. Private collection; image via TimeLine Auctions.

Lalique Necklace for the 1890s

Loretta reports:

Ren� Lalique might be familiar to most of us for his beautiful glass work. However, as we�ve shown before, this artist designed jewelry to the same high standard.

I�ve visited the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts several times, and wandered in a sort of ecstatic trance through the Art Nouveau and Art Deco collection. But the museum offers so much that I can always count on finding a  remarkable something I somehow overlooked or hadn't time to study previously.
This ca. 1897 Lalique necklace, one of numerous stunning gifts from Sydney and Frances Lewis,

is late 19th century (earlier than the collar linked to above). I think it�s a wonderful example of the work created during the Belle �poque.

Here again is the Art Nouveau emphasis on natural forms, with a rather sparing use of gemstones�emphasis on art and design, in other words, rather than sparkle. It may also  owe something to ancient styles of jewelry I�ve seen in museums�it reminded me of necklaces found in ancient Egyptian tombs.

Pomegranate

You can see a sharper image, and zoom in, here, on the museum website.

For more on Lalique, you might want to check out this past exhibition at the Corning Museum.

Necklace & description card photographed by me.
Botanical print of pomegranate from Prof. Dr. Otto Wilhelm Thom� Flora von Deutschland, �sterreich und der Schweiz, 1885, Gera, Germany via Wikipedia.

Clicking on the image will enlarge it.  Clicking on the caption will take you to the source, where you can learn more and enlarge images as needed.

Those Tiny 1890s Waists & What Adorned Them

Loretta reports:

Following up a little on the Belle �poque video�

My most recent trip to the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts had me taking a closer look at the Kreuzer collection of belt buckles from the late 19th & early 20th centuries and, in particular, information about the collection. The printed placard offers a good example of the difference between engraved images of fashion and real people wearing them. I think this contrast is pretty stark, and it would be more so if these weren�t models but average women, who would probably be a bit more full-figured. Then, as always, models tended to represent a fashionable ideal rather than reality, though not as extremely as the images on the catalog page.

Previously I�ve posted a garnet belt buckle as well as other objects from the VMFA�s outstanding collection, including sporting prints, Art Nouveau furniture, Art Nouveau & Art Deco jewelry (here and here), and decorative objects. These are only small samples of the offerings. The VMFA is a splendid museum, well worth a visit�or several.

Please click on images to enlarge.

The Significance of a Diamond-Studded Bicycle, c1890

Isabella reporting,

Diamonds may be a girl's best friend, and those best friends usually appear in a ring. But the unknown lady who wore this brooch was probably revealing a good deal more about herself than that she liked sparkly jewelry.

True, the small (it's less than 3" long) bicycle fashioned of gold with diamond "tires" and a ruby lantern does have plenty of flash. Most likely a custom-designed piece, it's beautifully made: the wheels spin and the pedals turn, and there's even a tiny bicycle chain that turns with the rear wheel. It would have been expensive, a brooch for a lady who probably already had other, more serious diamond pieces in her jewel box.

But a bicycle brooch wouldn't have been merely whimsical in the 1890s. According to the museum's website, this represents a very specific kind of British bicycle designed for a serious cyclist, the rare woman who wore "rational cycling dress" or bloomers for riding. Most 19thc women's bicycles omitted the support bar above the wheels to accommodate long skirts; today many women's bicycles still don't have that bar, even though young girls getting their first flashy pink bikes aren't going to be riding them in trailing petticoats. The woman who wore this brooch would have understood the difference, and would likely have been proud to show how dedicated she was to her sport.

Yet a bicycle brooch in the 1890s would have suggested much more than just sport. Bicycles offered women an exhilarating new freedom, an ability to travel on their own and at will in a way that they'd never experienced before (see this earlier blog post on the subject.) A woman riding a bicycle was a strong, capable woman who didn't need to rely on a man to determine where she going. By extension, this new freedom was closely tied to the suffragist movement. A diamond-studded bicycle brooch would have been seen as making a statement for female independence, and for women's suffrage.

Above: Bicycle brooch, probably English, mid-1890s. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Photograph courtesy of the MFA, Boston.