Modem Jewellery and Art. 13 



of a series of monstrosities. Among them came the horse- 

 shoes, the straps and buckles, the jockey caps and whips, the 

 screw-heads, the folded copies of Bell's Life, the padlocks, 

 door-plates, bolts and bars, and cups and balls, which have 

 long been the fashion. The jeweller's art in short fell among 

 the pots, pans, and kettles of every day life, and, to a great 

 extent, it is among them still. There has been, it is true, in 

 the mean time, a Roman revival, here and there decidedly 

 successful; and an Anglo-Saxon revival, which has somehow 

 made rock crystal its principal medium of interpretation, and 

 which has some very good features joined to its natural plump- 

 ness and heaviness ; and a partial medieeval revival of a 

 monkish character, which speaks in monograms and alpha- 

 betical puzzles. A great deal of good may be said for all 

 these revivifications, unfaithful copies as they are of their 

 quaint originals, but for the sporting, and what may be called 

 the poker and shovel jewellery, there is only one word — it is 

 simply despicable. 



But cannot something really original be designed in our 

 personal ornaments ? Or, if we must be copyists, can we not 

 choose good models, and copy faithfully and conscientiously ? 

 Is there no leaf or flower that may serve to give us new 

 ideas of form or combinations of colours ? It would 

 appear as if the baser the material, the more was the artist 

 drawn to rescue it from oblivion by his genius ; and the 

 more precious the matter to be dealt with, the less care was 

 needed to embellish it. Our schools of design produce 

 draughtsmen who furnish admirable patterns to be woven in 

 wool and cotton ; models to be executed in wood and stone, in 

 iron and brass ; elaborate compositions to be worked out in 

 glass, and common potter's clay ; and is there no cunning hand 

 to devise forms of symmetry and beauty for the employment 

 of gems, of gold, and of silver ? What the sculptor has done, 

 what the wood-carver has done, what the weaver and spinner 

 have done, for their art, cannot the jeweller do for his ? There 

 are exceptions to every rule, of course, but we do not want 

 the exceptions to monopolize the place of the rule ; and that is 

 practically the case with regard to the taste in composition of 

 the most part of modern jewellery. A new pattern is simply 

 a matter arising hap-hazard from something already in exist- 

 ence -, it is scarcely ever an original conception ; and the most 

 commonplace objects are generally chosen as the base of the 

 design, or as fit models, pure et simple, for illustration. 



The fact is, the modern jeweller has allowed himself to be 

 dazzled by the very materials among which he labours. With 

 him all is gold that glitters. When the precious metals 

 were scarce, and gems were rare, a Cellini could be found 



