Periods
Period boundaries are not facts about the world. They are curatorial conventions, and two major museums put them in different places — the V&A dates Art Nouveau jewellery 1895–1910, the Met dates Art Nouveau from the 1880s to the First World War. Both are recorded here rather than averaged into a false precision, because a period label is what a seller uses to price a secondhand piece.
These are the periods used by the museums that hold the objects. Georgian, Victorian and Edwardian are deliberately absent— the V&A’s own history of jewellery has no section under any of those names, and organises the subject by century and movement instead. What the trade sells as “Edwardian” appears here under the name the V&A gives it: the garland style.
These are the periods used by the museums that hold the objects. Georgian, Victorian and Edwardian are deliberately absent— the V&A’s own history of jewellery has no section under any of those names, and organises the subject by century and movement instead. What the trade sells as “Edwardian” appears here under the name the V&A gives it: the garland style.
10 entries
All cited
SortedA–Z
| Name | Dates | Named for | Defining traits | Characteristic stones and metals |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 17th century | — | The century; a chronological label. | By the mid-century, changes in fashion had introduced new styles. Dark fabrics… | Expanding global trade made gemstones ever more available, and advances in cut… |
| 18th century | — | The century; a chronological label. | The end of the previous century had seen the development of the brilliant cut … | Diamonds, frequently mounted in silver to enhance the stone’s white colour. Sm… |
| 19th century | — | The century; a chronological label, and the one the trade tends to replace wit… | A period of huge industrial and social change in which jewellery design focuse… | Coloured gemstones matched to the colours of nature, and a "language of flower… |
| Art Deco | V&A, for jewellery: the 1920s to the 1950s. The pivotal moment was the Exposit… | An abbreviation of the title of the 1925 Paris Exposition Internationale des A… | Sharp, geometric patterns celebrating the machine age, alongside exotic creati… | Dense concentrations of gemstones are characteristic. Platinum early on; from … |
| Art Nouveau | V&A, for jewellery: 1895 – 1910, peaking around 1900 at the Paris Internationa… | Siegfried Bing’s Paris gallery L’Art Nouveau, opened December 1895, which is c… | Caused a dramatic shift in jewellery design. Its followers created sinuous, or… | Jewellers such as René Lalique distanced themselves from conventional precious… |
| Arts & Crafts | Developing in the last years of the 19th century | The Arts and Crafts movement, and its argument that hand-making improves the m… | Based on a profound unease with the industrialised world. Its jewellers reject… | Large faceted stones were avoided. Arts & Crafts jewellers relied instead on t… |
| Contemporary | Since the 1960s | Its own present tense; a moving label rather than a fixed span. | The boundaries of jewellery have been continually redefined. Conventions have … | New technologies and non-precious materials — including plastics, paper and te… |
| Garland style | 1895 – 1910, contemporaneous with Art Nouveau | Its garland, swag and bow motifs, drawn from 18th-century French ornament. | The V&A introduces it as the alternative to Art Nouveau in the same years: Art… | — |
| Medieval | 1200 – 1500 | The medieval period itself; a chronological label rather than a style movement. | Reflects an intensely hierarchical and status-conscious society. Colour and pr… | Royalty and the nobility wore gold, silver and precious gems; lower ranks wore… |
| Renaissance | — | The Renaissance; a chronological and cultural label. | Shared the age’s passion for splendour. Enamels, often covering both sides of … | Advances in cutting techniques increased the glitter of stones. Particular sto… |
Showing all 10Every figure traces to a named source with a pinpoint locator. Values we could not source are left blank rather than estimated.