For centuries, jewelry has been designed to deliver messages of love, joy or even grief that may be perceived only by the giver and, perhaps, the receiver.
How such sentiments were embodied in some jewels of the 16th-century Scottish Renaissance was the subject of “Decoding the Jewels: Renaissance Jewellery in Scotland,” a collection of essays edited by Anna Groundwater, the principal curator of Scottish Renaissance items at National Museums Scotland.
Dr. Groundwater recently described what made these pieces noteworthy, how their “visual vocabularies” conveyed messages, and the emotional impact that jewelry worn by Mary, Queen of Scots, has on some people. (Most of the jewels mentioned in the book are displayed at the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh.)
Her comments by telephone and email have been edited and condensed.
How did this book come about?
I’m responsible for a small, but stellar, collection of Renaissance-era jewelry that was made or found in Scotland. In 2017, we added a locket known as the Fettercairn Jewel: Its purchase for £236,750 [about $309,000 at current exchange rates] during an auction at Sotheby’s stimulated the project to unite all the images and latest research on these jewels into one volume.
What was happening in Scotland when these jewels were being worn?
The Scottish Renaissance started a little later than the one in northern Europe. James IV of Scotland [who reigned from 1488 to 1513] is often described as the first of our Renaissance kings, with James VI [who reigned from 1567 to 1625] the last of the era.
Although Scotland was on the geographical periphery of Europe, it was intimately connected into the European Renaissance through the circulation of knowledge, skills and fashions, with Scottish scholars at European universities, and artisans coming to Scotland from France and the Netherlands and Belgium.
There were two other significant influences on Scotland in the 16th century: First, that of the Protestant Reformation of 1560, which arguably made the overthrow of Mary, Queen of Scots, in 1567 inevitable; and second, the diplomatic realignment of Scotland, away from Catholic France, and toward our Protestant neighbor, England. At that time, Elizabeth I, the Tudor queen, was on the English throne.
Despite all this, people still fell in love and continued to commission beautiful things to give and remember their loved ones, or to give to cement alliances.
What types of “messages” were typical in that era? Can we think of them as an early form of DMs or emojis?
I love the idea of these as old forms of DMs! In a less literate age, visual messages of a heart shape, the color of a stone, the image of a faithful, loyal dog or a flower such as a forget-me-not could communicate affection like a DM might today.
The most typical messages can probably be summed up as expressions of love, friendship, commemoration or religious devotion. Rings called fede rings might carry interlocked hands expressing love; a brooch might be in a heart shape for love; rings also might have a love message inscribed in enamel or engraved in the gold, such as one saying +HART+FOR++. These rings might also be inscribed with religious messages.
So what makes the jewels of the period particularly interesting or valuable?
I am always impressed by the numbers of visitors crowded around the displays of this Renaissance jewelry. I think there are several reasons for this — first, they are beautiful, intricate pieces to see up close. Then there is the very fine nature of the goldsmithing, engraving and enameling when you consider the very basic technology and machinery available to the makers at the time and the limited daylight in which they were working.
When you see the intricate gold beading and wiring, the subtle coloring of the enamels, the tiny miniature portraits and then combine that with its survival over so many years, that feels extraordinary. Jewels like this rarely survive because fashions change and they are melted down for their precious stones and metals.
Which famous figures might have worn them?
Several of these pieces are so compelling because they have associations with Mary, Queen of Scots, an iconic historical figure.
Some people feel an intense sense of personal connection with her, so the thought that she may have touched, given or worn these lockets or necklaces gives them an additional layer of meaning. For them, these pieces are tangible vehicles for an emotional connection to the long-dead queen. I’ve experienced visitors visibly moved by their encounter with Mary’s world through these objects.
Some people don’t like her, but others really empathize with the suffering in her life.
A lot of the book focuses on the mysteries of the Fettercairn Jewel (circa 1570-1600). What is it and how was it discovered?
The Fettercairn Jewel was found by chance in the back of a drawer when the contents of Fettercairn House in Aberdeenshire, in northeast Scotland, were being put up for auction in London.
It’s a small gold pendant, about two inches in height, that would have been worn either suspended from a gold chain or a velvet ribbon around the neck, or pinned onto a dress. Other such lockets were also known to have been worn attached to a jeweled belt at the waist. It is decorated on the front with a large deep-red garnet, framed by finely enameled scrollwork, and on the back with an enameled scene of the god Mercury walking across the landscape, surrounded by fauna and flora.
The locket opens to reveal that it has a gold mount for a tiny miniature portrait, which is now missing.
Unfortunately, despite much archival work, we still do not know for whom the jewel was made. If the portrait remained inside the locket, this would have given us a clue to the identity of the giver or recipient. However, we can see that the tiny painting has been forcibly removed, so perhaps that suggests whoever was in there had become politically dangerous or emotionally less attractive.
The experts in the book don’t seem to agree on its “message.”
What was exciting about having contributions from different experts was the variety of opinions, ranging from love to grief. This disparity shows how the enigmatic message being sent by the image of Mercury and the red garnet can be variously interpreted.
For the jewelry historian Geoffrey Munn [who wrote about the piece in the book], it is a love token that marks a transitional moment in the recipient’s life, perhaps on marriage or childbirth. The god Mercury is known as a messenger, and he is moving from left to right in a landscape that is filled with flowers suggesting fertility, and birds and animals suggesting love and loyalty. The ruby red garnet would in this case signify passion or love.
Equally though, Mercury is also known in classical mythology as the god who conveyed souls to Hades, the underworld. So for the museums’ specialist, Helen Wyld [who also wrote about the Fettercairn Jewel in the book], this may instead mean that the jewel was commissioned to commemorate the passing of a loved one, and would have held that person’s portrait. In this case, the red of the garnet might symbolize grief, as in the blood shed by Jesus in the Crucifixion, as well as love.
How do jewelry sleuths piece together clues?
The first step is to try to determine the identity of the giver/recipient/portrait. If the portrait remains in place, then that helps immediately to date the jewel through the fashion of the clothes, and the facial appearance of the subject, which might help tell us what kind of person or who they were. We can compare these to portraits from the period. For instance, with Mary, Queen of Scots, there are helpful identifiers in the shape of her face, the styling of her hair or headwear, her clothing and her jewelry (particularly pearls or a crucifix).
The other way to identify the giver or recipient is to trawl through the archives to try to trace the journey of the jewel, where it has been. We look for mentions of such jewels in the wills, inventories and accounts of people likely to have owned such a precious thing, or with connections to where it was found.
Another key way to find clues as to the message is in the imagery engraved or enameled on the jewel, and the type of stones that are inset into it. Through old literature and books of emblems, we know something of the language of flowers, fauna and lapidary, the language of stones. These were visual vocabularies used to communicate specific meanings through the images, rather than words, that would have been understood in the period.
We then think about where the jewels might have been made. In the case of the three enameled gold lockets in the museums’ collections, framing miniature portraits and edged with tiny river pearls, we think that these are distinctively Scottish and were almost certainly made in Edinburgh in the second half of the 16th century.
What about using high tech tools?
Advances in technology have helped hugely to suggest the likely origins of historic jewelry. By using digital microscopy and X-radiography we can magnify the surface of the jewels exponentially. This enables us to see and assess the method or virtuosity of the goldsmith’s work.
For instance, we compared the Fettercairn Jewel with the Darnley Jewel, a real piece of bling, at high magnification and were able to conclude that they were not made by the same person. [Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley, was the second husband of Mary, Queen of Scots; he was assassinated in 1567.]
How are royal inventories used to study jewels in the collections?
We are lucky in Scotland to have several inventories of the clothing and jewelry of the Stuart kings and queens in the 16th century. Lists were made particularly during any transition of power, when they were being handed onto new owners.
One item listed in an inventory of 1578 of Mary’s jewels is a necklace of enameled and linked ‘S’ shapes, with rubies and pearls, that is a very similar style, although with different colors, to the Seton Necklace on display in the National Museum, and thought to have been given by Mary to one of her ladies-in-waiting, Mary Seton, in the mid-1570s.
Such an entry helps us to date this style, and suggests the likelihood of Mary having owned the one given to Seton.
Are there other pieces thought to be linked to Mary, Queen of Scots?
Perhaps our most evocative set of jewelry is the Penicuik Jewels.
This fine gold pomander-bead necklace, and its accompanying gold, pearl and enameled locket, framing miniature portraits of Mary and her young son James VI, are thought to have been given by Mary on the eve of her execution at Fotheringhay Castle. The recipient was said to have been her lady-in-waiting, Gilles Mowbray, and in the English inventory of jewels left by Mary, Gilles is recorded as receiving gold bracelets. These may have been restrung into the present necklace.
It is thought that through Gilles, the jewels descended down several generations of the Clerks of Penicuik, a prominent family living just outside Edinburgh, who treasured them as priceless relics of the martyred queen.
Scientific analysis has shown the residue of a perfumed resin, perhaps ambergris, in one of the beads. Could this suggest to us now, Mary smelling these pomander beads to ward off the noxious smells of her prison?
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