Shakespeare Day. A History of The Queen of Gems, the Opal

I thought I'd do something different on the blog today and celebrate Shakespeare day. As you can see from the quote above I've decided to write a post about a precious gem stone which like Shakespeare is one I personally love, the opal.

Shakespeare called them 'the Queen of Gems' and it's not hard to see why. 

They come in every colour and sparkle beautifully when polished into a cabochon to set in jewellery, which is how they would normally be set. 

According to history it's believed opal was first mined in the virgin valley, North America, over 10000 years ago. Although in modern times it's mainly from Hungary, South America and Australia.

Australia is the main world market for opals and has even adopted it as its national stone of the country. 95% of opals come from Australia and come in all colours and sizes, including the worlds largest opal called the 'Olympic Australis' which was found in August 1956 in Coober Pedy. It weighs 17,000 carats (3450g) and is 11inches long and 4.75 inches in height. 

My own favourite type of opal is the fire opals mined in Mexico, South America.  Fire opals are a blend of warm colours like reds, oranges and yellows. I think they look stunning and I'd love to own one.

Other types of opal include milk opals which are blue to green colours, resin opal which is yellows, wood opal which is caused by the replacement of organic material in wood and is brown or grey in colour. 

Of course the most well known type of opal is the common opal.

Through out history the Opal has been revered and fears among people. The Greeks thought opals where the tears of the King of gods, Zeus. Who cried with happy when he defeated the Titans, his tears where thought to turn to opals upon hitting the ground.

The Romans thought they would bring them great fortunes when worn and the Arabs thought they where associated with lightening. Believing that the flashes of lightening where what gave the opal it's colours.

However the middles ages the gem had fallen out of favour. It became associated with the the Black Death and it was believed that it had had something to do with pestilence, famine and the fall of monarchies. It was said at the point of death a opal would lose its colour when the wearer died.

The word opal is debated over but it's believed to be from the Roman term opalus.

Opal is the birthstone for people born in October under the signs of Scorpio and libra.

Fashion  Magpie Jewellery Blog is a celebration of antique and handcrafted jewellery, with regular featured items from my shop, antique jewellery showcase, interviews, reviews and tutorials.

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Thursday Throwback. The Teeth of Queen Victoria.

For throwback Thursday I look for something from history to do with either a jeweller, their work or an individual time period. This week I'm focusing on Queen Victoria and what would be considered in our modern world to be quite a barbaric collection of jewellery.
Queen Victoria ruled the United Kingdom from 1837 until 1901 which equalled up to an impressive 63 years of rule.

By her side was her husband the prince consort, Albert. With him she had nine children, the first of which was Princess Victoria who was nicknamed Vicky. When at the age of 7, Vicky's baby teeth began to fall out, Queen Victoria and her family had the teeth made into jewellery. A brooch which resembles a thistle holds the tooth aloft in the flower position of the brooch. On the back is inscribed a description of when the tooth was extracted by Prince Albert him self at Ardverikie (Lock Laggan) on the 13th September 1847.

Far from being the only tooth related jewellery the Queen owned, she also owned a necklace made of stag teeth with each tooth inscribed with when the beast was killed. It's thought her husband was the hunter and all the jewellery were gifts to her from him.
Among the pieces is a choker necklace with rows of teeth from deer shot at Balmoral by Albert, set in gold.

Also in gold are a brooch of 4 teeth in a clover pattern and earrings.
Rather then be repelled by these gruesome pieces of jewellery Queen Victoria loved then and wrote them when in private. She seems to have liked quirky unique items like these and even made a few pieces of jewellery herself with her own hair twisted into the designs. She gifted a bracelet to her governess made with her hair.

I think if this post today tells us anything its how much the times have changed, the Victorians though nothing o fusing a hummingbird on a bird because they loved the colours but today we'd blanch at the thought of it!


Fashion Magpie Jewellery Blog is a celebration of antique and handcrafted jewellery, with regular featured items from my shop, antique jewellery showcase, interviews, reviews and tutorials.

 

 To be the first to hear the latest news from Fashion Magpie Jewellery blog you can find me on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and Google+

 

Thursday Throwback. The four generations of Victor Mayer.

This week for Thursday throwback I'm writing about the company Victor Mayer which was established in 1890 and worked in the style of Jugendstil which is a type of Art Nouveau in Pforzheim Germany.

Victor trained as a apprentice steel engraver, after completely military service he moved to Vienna where he homed his engraving enamelling and guilloche engraving skills.
In 1890 he started up Vogel and Mayer in Pforzheim with a merchant friend named Herrmann Vogel. The company lasted five years before a disagreement saw the partners part ways and the company changed named to Victor Mayer. It boasted some of the greatest designers of the time such as George Kleeman and Anton Krautheimer.

Between the years of 1898 and 1945 The Victor Mayer label was also associated with Gustav Meyle and was known as Meyle and Mayer.
In 1932 Victor Mayer retired from the company handing in equal parts his shares to the company to his son, Oskar Mayer and his Son in law Edmund Mohr.
By 1965 the generation was taking over at the firm and Victor Mayers grandsons took over, Dr Herbert Mohr-Mayer and his cousin Hubert Mayer. Hubert Mayer unfortunately died expectantly in 1989 and his cousin took over his shares and became the sole proprietor of the company.

From the 1970s onward the company focused more on jewellery and from 1989 until 2009 they where allowed to produce Faberge jewellery, originally made famous by Peter Carl Faberge. The work was so good it was proudly included along side the originals at Faberge Exhibitions.
In 2003 Dr Herbert Mohr Mayer stepped down from the company and his son Dr Marcus Oliver Mohr became creative director and managing partner of The company Victor Mayer. This fourth generation is now leading the firm into the future.

Fashion Magpie Jewellery Blog is a celebration of antique and handcrafted jewellery, with regular featured items from my shop, antique jewellery showcase, interviews, reviews and tutorials.

 

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Throwback Thursday. Piaget watchmakers and jewellers

Throwback Thursday is a post I do weekly in which I write about either a jewellery company, an individual or a famous jewel from history. This week I will tell you about the watch maker and jewellers called Piaget.

Piaget is named after the family who run the business which was founded in 1874 by Georges Edouard Piaget. Georges set the business up from the family farm in La Cote-aux-Fees in the Swiss Jura Mountains. The business thrived as a watchmakers and they began to make up new movements to make watches lighter, and more mobile. By the 1960s two generations later, Yves Piaget had taken over and they where making brooch watches, ring watches, cuff link watches and coin watches. They had also moved into making jewellery, applying their same attention to detail and fashions as there watches.

 

Now the company was ready for bigger premises and moved to Geneva where they opened a bigger factory and their first boutique. The factory is the largest jewellery workshop in Geneva.

There innovative mix of watches and jewellery caught the eye of high sociality  and people such as Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis where seen wearing the pieces.
In the 1970's the company started to make a new trend of luxury bracelet watch they named Polo after Yves favourite sport. The time piece did very well and the design can be seen still on the high street today.
In the late eighties Piaget was acquired by the Richemont luxury conglomerate.
Today the brand is still going strong and still loved by A listers such as Angelina Jolie Pitt and Rihanna.

 

 

 

Fashion Magpie Jewellery Blog is a celebration of antique and handcrafted jewellery, with regular featured items from my shop, antique jewellery showcase, interviews, reviews and tutorials.

 

To be the first to hear the latest news from Fashion Magpie Jewellery blog you can find me on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and Google+

Throwback Thursday. Jessie M. King

Every week for throwback Thursday I write a post about a designer or piece of jewellery from the past. This week Is about an amazing lady from Scotland called Jessie Marion King, if your a young lady and looking for a role model then here she is.

Born in New Kilpatrick, near Bearsden, Dunbartonshire, she was raised with a strict religious education and being an artist and artistic was discouraged. This discouragement only encouraged her more though and she would hide drawing she had made in school encase her mother tore them up! Finally in 1891, Jessie began to embrace her creativity and began training to be a art teacher at Queen Margaret's College, Glasgow.
It was while studying she became influenced by Glasgow Style, which was a type of Art Nouveau and arts and crafts movement in Glasgow. She became a member of the Glasgow girls, a collective of female artists.

She excelled in her studies, winning awards for her illustrations. Her talents where many and varied including book illustrations, ( which she is most known for) bookbinding, ceramics, book bindings, wallpaper, textiles and of course jewellery.
She graduated in 1899 and was appointed Tutor in Book Decoration and Design  at the school of art.
She began to work for Liberty and Co, London in the early 1900's designing wall paper and fabrics. It was these designs which lead her to designing jewellery for Liberty also as part of their range called Cymric.

Her jewellery designs come in two types. There are those which are silver with beautiful enamel on large panels, then there is those made of more precious metals and precious or semi precious stones or pearls and enamel is used for detail.

Jessie never actually made any of her designs instead opting to design then pass on to a Liberty and co jeweller.
Her designs can still be seen the Liberty pattern book.
In 1902, she set off on a study tour of Italy and Germany for a year, viewing the works of one of her favourite artists, Botticelli. In the same year her works her book bindings went on show at the International exhibition of Decorative Art in Turin. The Scottish section was said to have caused a stir at the exhibition organised by Fra Newbury and co organised by designer Charles Rennie Mackintosh. Jessie won a gold metal award and among the other contributors was a Scottish born artist called Ernest Archibald Taylor. This man would later become her husband.

When she came back from her tour she began a committee member of the Glasgow Society Of Artists. Two years later she joined the Glasgow Society Of Lady Artists and had her first solo exhibition in London's, Bruton Street Gallery and then again in 1907 at the studio of T and R Annan in Glasgow.
In 1909, ten years after accepting to marry E A Taylor she eventually walked down the aisle and never one to be told what to do, she defied convention by keeping her Maiden name instead of becoming Taylor.

Jessie and her new husband moved to Salford after the wedding where, E A Taylor had taken a job designing for the firm George Wragge Ltd. It was while living here the couple had their only child, a daughter named Merle Elspeth.
The family moved again in 1910 to Paris, where Ernest had job working as teacher at Ernest Percyval Tudor- Hart's studio.

The next year the couple started a joint venture and set up their own art teaching school called the Shealing Atelier. They also ran summer schools on the Isle of Arran in Scotland.
With the start of World War I, the family moved back to Scotland and settled in a home Jessie had from before her marriage. They lived there for the rest of their lives, the house is now a B&B.

Fashion Magpie Jewellery Blog is a celebration of antique and handcrafted jewellery, with regular featured items from my shop, antique jewellery showcase, interviews, reviews and tutorials.

 

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Thursday Throwback. George Le Turcq.

Every Thursday I write a blog post with a look back at some of the great designers or pieces of jewellery in time. This week is George Le Turcq, a French designer who like many of the greats from the time trained at Paris Ecoles des Arts Decoratifes.

 

It was while studying he met a man called Julien Duvel. They would go onto form a company together in 1885 and where renowned for there work as medallists. They where also known for their work of enamelled orchids and butterflies. at the time orchidmania was gripping the world with it becoming easier for people to find and keep exotic plants from another country. It was this mania which caused a rush for jewelled jewellery pieces of these new plants. Le Turcq and Duvel where happy to oblige.

 

 The partner lasted until 1894 but both men continued their trade in the jewellery industry, both where success in there own right.

It was after this split that le Turcq began to become well known in the Art Nouveau crowds and carved him self out a career there.

 

 

Fashion Magpie Jewellery Blog is a celebration of antique and handcrafted jewellery, with regular featured items from my shop, antique jewellery showcase, interviews, reviews and tutorials.

 

To be the first to hear the latest news from Fashion Magpie Jewellery blog you can find me on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and Google+