Current Lecture Programme
Tuesdays at 6:00pm. Members and Guests.
Society of Antiquaries of London, Burlington House, Piccadilly W1J 0BE
All lectures from March - June 2020 were postponed due to the corona virus lockdown. We will start the new season in September with online lectures only, but please check the news page for latest details.
Lectures are restricted to members and their guests. It is not normally necessary to inform the Society that you will be atttending, but if attendance is expected to be exceptionally high the Society will inform members well in advance if booking a seat is a requirement of attendance at a particular lecture.
If you are not a member, and would like to attend a lecture as a guest of the Society, click here to send your name, contact details, and the subject of the lecture you would like to attend. We will confirm your attendance by email. The Society welcomes new members. If you are interested in joining the Society further details can be given to you when you attend the lecture.
2020
27 October
Lynne Bartlett
online lecture - details of how to register have been emailed to all members. For more information, see News page.
Titanium the magical metal
In this talk, the jeweller Dr Lynne Bartlett describes her research into titanium, a metal that has been widely used in jewellery since the middle of the twentieth century, and which she uses in her own work. Titanium has been mainly appreciated for its colour potential, and recent decades have seen its increasing use as a lightweight metal for setting diamonds. The talk will outline the early history of its use, highlighting the different techniques employed, and present research into the behaviour of the surfaces of titanium before and after colouring, explaining why the effects achieved can be variable.
24 November
Charlotte Gere
Colour in Victorian Jewellery
Although diamonds and pearls remained the choice at court and among the social elite, colour defines fashion and modernity in mid-Victorian jewellery design, through historicism and archaeological revivalism, to Orientalism, the exotic cultures of India, Japan and the Islamic world. In the 1850s, jewellery was in decline. The Middle Ages and English Renaissance offered models that would shape a contemporary idiom and realise the aims of Design Reform. New sources of coloured stones, particularly cabochon garnets, enabled jewels to complement brilliant dye-colours in dress. Revived enamelling techniques further enhanced the colour palette. ‘Pebble’ collecting fed a taste for regional novelties. The Language of Flowers, plant hunting, horticulture and hybridisation encouraged accurate representation of nature in precious materials and coloured gems. Fashion is less important than etiquette or sentiment. Intrinsic value and display denoted taste and culture, success and wealth in a significant new audience for jewellery, the increasingly prosperous middle class. Colour was, however, controversial, and jewellery offers an opportunity to examine Victorian attitudes to one aspect of the discussion.
2021 dates
26 January
Jonathan Boyd, talking about his work as a jeweller
23 February AGM followed by
Jack Ogden, presidential address
TBA
27 April
Carol Michaelson
Chinese jade jewellery and ornaments from the Neolithic to the Present
lecture postponed from 24 March 2020.
Chinese jade jewellery: A chronological survey. Jade has been prized in China since Neolithic times. In the West diamonds, gold and silver have usually been the most valued materials but, for the Chinese, jade has long been at the top of the hierarchy of the materials they most treasured. Jade working began in China probably over 5,000 years ago in the north-eastern part of what is China today. Over the succeeding millennia both nephrite and jadeite jade have been fashioned into jewellery and amulets, both worn in lifetime and buried with the owner for use and protection in the afterlife. This lecture will look at how this tactile but very tough material has been used over time.
25 May
Gonçalo de Vasconclo e Sousa
TBA - An aspect of Portuguese jewellery
22 June
Karl Schmetzer
The late 14th-Century Royal Crown of Blanche of Lancaster
28 September
26 October
Three speakers
New Research on Jewellery
23 November
Ute Decker
Sculptural Minimalism & Fairtrade Gold — philosophy, provenance and process
lecture postponed from 26 May 2020.
The Goldsmiths' Craft & Design Council Design Award winner in 2020, Ute Decker’s work is a meditation on the richness of simplicity. Self-taught, she first exhibited her wearable sculptures in 2009 at the age of 40, and quickly earned international recognition as “the architectural jeweller” for the sweeping scale and ambition of her minimalist sculptures. She is also one of the very first jewellers in the world to work with Fairtrade Gold. In this talk she will discuss her creative philosophy and how a background in political economics and journalism led her to become a leading voice in the international ethical jewellery movement.
Links to previous Lecture Programmes
2020 |
2019 |
2018 |
2017 |
2016 |
2015 |
2014 |
2013 |
2012 |
2011 |
2010 |
2009 |
2005-2008 |
2000-2004 |
1995-1999 |
1990-1994 |
1985-1989 |
1980-1984 |
1977-1980