Jewelers Of Phoenicia And Greece

(via 5000 Years of Gems and Jewelry) Frances Rogers and Alice Beard writes:

In the meantime Greece had been forging ahead toward that high pinnacle of excellence in the arts which has made her achievements a standard for all time.

Little portrayal of jewelry is found in Greek statuary; the Greek sculptor loved too well the beauty of the human body unadorned by trinkets to break the pure line of arm or hand with a clutter of jewelry. But the flesh-and-blood ladies of Greece were not so austere in their taste; they wore crowns, diadems, earrings, bracelets, rings, pins for the hair, brooches and necklaces, whose elaborate workmanship can scarcely be described as denoting a love of simplicity.

Gold was wrought with the delicacy of fine lace and minute embroidery; and occasionally a gemstone, perhaps an emerald or garnet, or a touch of bright enamel, was introduced by way of color. The rich lady of that day did not, like her modern prototype, wear quantities of brilliant gems whose settings were subordinate to the stones. Her jewelry depended for its superb beauty on the artistry of the craftsman.

Particularly characteristic was the use of pendants; the Grecian lady was all ajangle with them. Her necklace might be composed of seventy-five or more tiny dangling vases, each ornamented with filigree and held to a band of woven chain by finer chains masked at the top by rosettes. Little vases of gold were typical of Greek jewelry; sometimes they were interspersed with golden flowers, or heads of animals. As for earrings, the jeweler outdid himself in fertile invention. He did not stop at earrings recognizable to us as such, but enlarged and embellished them with tiny images of the gods and series of ornamental pendants suspended by delicate chains until the weight of metal involved was too great to be supported by the ear. It is thought that these super earrings were fastened to the diadem and hung down over the ears, giving to the face the appearance of being set in gold like an exquisite cameo. With gold tassels at the ends of her girdle, gold ball-shaped buttons to fasten her dress at shoulder or neck and a row of thin gold plates to border her draperies, the lady of fashion could indeed be resplendent; but possibly she did not carry all this wealth of metal at one and the same time. However, her varied demands on the goldsmith kept him busy.

Athens was humming with the activities of the craftsmen—leather workers, potters, jewelers, and their assistants. Small workshops were enlarged, and guilds of skilled workers (forerunners of our present labor unions) were formed. This did not mean that the craft of jewelry making was divided into separate branches as it is today. An apprentice was still expected to learn from start to finish how to shape gold and engrave stones. In fact, a new task had by now been added to those already practised by the engraver of gems. In the seventh century B.C., when the more convenient custom of purchasing with money instead of by barter was introduced, it was the jeweler, already an adept in the cutting of intaglios, who cut the dies for stamping coins.