DAYTRIPPER-DECEMBER
 DayTripper: Walters Art Museum, Baltimore
Bedazzled
By Judy Pomeranz
We all need a little sparkle now and then, and some times call for more sparkle than others. While it may be politically incorrect or economically infeasible to sport heavy gold and platinum jewelry dripping with gems during the current economic downturn, there’s certainly no punishment for dreaming…or pretending.
That’s why the exhibition of 5,000 years worth of sumptuous jewels, currently on display at the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore, is so especially welcome. We can gaze at these magical pieces in admiration and awe, and with maybe just a little avarice, all the while learning lessons about the ancient and more recent cultures from which they come.
The exhibition consists primarily of works brought together by the museum’s founder, Henry Walters (1848-1931), who significantly expanded, broadened and deepened his father William’s collection, which had previously consisted primarily of Asian and contemporary art. Among the 25,000 objects Henry acquired were copious quantities of lavish jewels, some created in earlier eras and exotic, far-flung cultures and others commissioned from some of the leading artisans of his own time, including Peter Carl Fabergé in St. Petersburg and Giacinto Melillo in Naples. Henry’s entire collection, including the jewelry, was bequeathed to the city of Baltimore upon his death and now resides in the Walters Art Museum.
The current exhibition features a stunning array of more than 200 pieces from the Walters’ holdings and the Benjamin Zucker collection of New York, which together provide a fascinating overview of jewelry through the ages. The show demonstrates that jewelry was not and is not only about glitz, glamour and aesthetics but is sometimes about status, superstition, religion and even practicality. It also convincingly demonstrates that the finest jewelers in the business can properly be considered artists and that their products hold up very nicely indeed when housed in a museum of so-called fine art.
One of the oldest and most charming works in the show is a tiny, vivid orange carnelian Egyptian amulet in the shape of a tilapia fish, made in the 14th century. Carved with skill and delicacy, and astonishingly well-preserved, this little piece was considered a symbol of rebirth because the tilapia carries its eggs in its mouth and was therefore believed to be self-created.
Minuscule, multicolored glass pendants in the form of ram’s heads, created in the fourth century B.C., demonstrate that surprisingly sophisticated and aesthetically effective art glass techniques were being used long before the Christian era.
A beautiful third-century B.C. hoop earring, wound tightly round with thin gold wire and topped with a carefully formed lion’s head, is somehow simultaneously bold and delicate in style. And an ethereally intricate Greek diadem from the same period is adorned with garnets, enamel and the tiniest of floral motifs, through which even smaller, barely visible, snakes wind their way. Both pieces demonstrate the exquisite metalworking capacities of their respective creators.
Speaking of snakes, among the most dramatic objects on display is a pair of Roman snake bracelets and a snake ring, each item topped with a frighteningly realistic head and theatrically winding and slithering body which circles around the wrist or finger to terminate in a nasty little tail.
A gold Byzantine diadem from the early Middle Ages is chunkier than the frilly Greek one and representative of the relatively straightforward style of the era. The heavy band is adorned with openwork gold and set with bold cabochon amethysts and emeralds. The royal purple color of the amethysts suggests that this piece would have been worn by a member of the imperial family.
 Consistent with the general tenor of the time, much of the jewelry from the Middle Ages and Renaissance periods had a religious connection. One particularly magnificent piece from the 16th century is a reliquary pendant made of densely filigreed gold, encrusted front and back with amethysts, rubies, emeralds, peridots and pearls, and topped with an oval amethyst cameo carved with a depiction of the Madonna and Child. Tucked inside this elaborate pendant is a niello and pearl-adorned reliquary case that has six small compartments for relics and containing its own cross.
But returning to the profane, viewers of this exhibition will find themselves wondering why it was that we stopped using those frothy gold chatelaines to carry our everyday necessities like seals and watches on our waistbands, and why we ever gave up toting our tiny pencils, mirrors, toothpicks and tweezers in beautifully enameled toilet cases. The tiny 18th-century European cases and chatelaines in the show make our plastic ditty bags and pencil cases seem very sad indeed.
As lovely and interesting as the early works are, some of the latest are among the most fabulous. The designers at Tiffany & Co. really showed what they could do when they made their iris corsage ornament around 1900. Created from 139 sapphires, along with diamonds and citrines, this nine-and-a-half-inch-long brooch is not only shimmery and impressive but the very height of elegance, a fact confirmed at the 1900 Paris Exposition Universelle, where designer George Paulding Farnham won a gold medal for it. The Parisians showed that they too could compete on this playing field with a knockout pansy brooch created of translucent, opalescent plique-à-jour enamel by René Lalique.
A stroll through this pleasing show will leave you sated with luxury and possessed of the perhaps unsurprising truth that fashion does indeed run in cycles. Some of the earliest ancient jewelry looks as if it might have been created in modern-day America. The materials, techniques and stylistic conceits of these amazing works of art have most certainly stood the test of time and would be just as highly coveted today as they were millennia ago.
Bedazzled: 5,000 Years of Jewelry is on display at the Walters Art Museum, 600 North Charles Street, in Baltimore through January 4, 2009. For further information, phone 410-547-9000 or visit www.thewalters.org. |
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