Lecture Programme 2009
27 January
David Thomas
The Role of the Crown Jeweller.
David Thomas, who has been a director of the world-renowned London jewellers Garrard & Co, will be giving an insight into his work when he was Crown Jeweller, a post he held from 1991 until 2007, where his responsibilities included the care and maintenance of the Crown Jewels in the Tower of London. This was a unique position at Garrard, the firm which is famous for its Royal connections.
24 February
AGM followed by
Maria Stürzebecher
The Erfurt Treasure: A Jewish hoard from Thuringia at the time of the Black Death
The treasure was discovered in 1998 during an archaeological excavation in the medieval part of Erfurt. Besides more than 3000 silver coins and 14 silver ingots, it includes over 600 pieces of gothic goldsmith’s work – beautiful silver plates, rings and brooches with precious stones; girdles and dress decoration. Like a number of other treasures, we owe the hiding and the preservation of the Erfurt hoard to the terrible Jew pogroms of 1349. The find-place is situated in the former Jewish quarter of Erfurt in proximity to the medieval synagogue. A Jewish wedding ring found within the treasure indicates a Jew as the former owner.
28 April
John Cherry
Medieval Jewellery: New Insights from Treasure
This talk will show the more exciting recent discoveries of medieval gold and silver jewellery, reported since the passing of the Treasure Act in 1997, and see how they have altered and changed our approach to medieval jewellery, including rings, pendants, and brooches. One theme will be to explore how finds of religious jewellery illustrate the devotional nature of late medieval Christianity in England and Wales. Professor Eamon Duffy in his The Stripping of the Altars: Traditional Religion in England 1400-1580 has explored the nature of English people’s lay experience of religion in the period. His sources are mainly documents, churches, fittings, paintings and printed prayers. How far is a similar picture revealed by personal jewellery?
26 May
Jane Adam
My life and work as a jeweller
Jane Adam has an international reputation for her jewellery in dyed anodised aluminium and more recently in fine silver and gold. Her work exploits subtleties of colour and the dynamics of mark making and surface texture, combined with elegant and simple form. Her working methods are based on experimentation, both in her pioneering approach to aluminium as a basis for colour and mark making, and in her use of the particular properties of metals in creating form. Her talk will cover twenty eight years of practice, reflecting on her experience of making and showing a constantly developing variety of work which responds to personal experience and her environment, as well as the historical and contemporary contexts of her craft.
23 June
Rui Galopim de Carvalho
Magnificent Jewels from Portugal : from the 16th to the 19th century
Little is known about Portuguese jewellery in the international community. Two major events in the history of Portugal made a significant impact in jewellery: the discovery of the sea route to India in the 16th century and the discovery of gold, diamonds and other coloured gems in the 18th century. Much inspired by the new gem materials, Portuguese artisans created magnificent jewels, particularly in the 18th and beginning of the 19th century. This presentation will discuss the use of gem materials throughout almost 400 years of history, featuring some of the most remarkable examples of Portuguese gem set jewellery art.
22 September
Sir John Boardman
The Marlborough Gems: the Collectors
The 4th Duke of Marlborough assembled at Blenheim Palace the largest of all private collections of engraved gems and cameos (some 820) of his day, the late 18th century. It comprised the Arundel collection, from the Gonzaga Dukes of Mantua, and many other collections and individual purchases. The Beazley Archive at Oxford has record of the appearance of them all, and for a book appearing this year publishes them, with the 250-odd identifications of their present whereabouts so far determined. The lecture presents the gems mainly in terms of those who have collected them, from 15h century Renaissance princes, through English nobility, to the 21st century.
27 October
Waltraud Ganguly
Indian jewellery then and now: updating Thomas Holbein Hendley's classic Indian Jewellery of 1909
In this lecture, Dr. Waltraud Ganguly, an expert on Indian jewellery, introduces her latest book. This is a new edition of the classic, Indian Jewellery by Thomas Holbein Hendley, published a hundred years ago in 1909. She compares the ornaments of the old plates with contemporary jewellery of the same type, documented by new photographs of over four hundred pieces. Her work is based on intensive study in the field and with two leading Indian jewellers, as well as on analysis of jewellery in private collections, including her own.
24 November
Sonja Marzinzik
Accessorising the self - Early medieval jewellery, and what it can tell us
Jewels of the 5th to 10th centuries are splendid and evocative - gold and garnets, shell inlays, silver and niello, to name but a few of the materials used. Anglo-Saxon and Continental-Germanic jewellery will be used to explore what we know about early medieval society. The lecture aims to shed some light on fashions and beliefs, technology, trade and the politics of the time. Excavated evidence as well as written and pictorial sources will be used to present an archaeologist's view of early medieval jewellery.
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