The Adorned Woman

Images of women adorned with jewelry can be found in paintings throughout the centuries. An analysis of paintings between 1660 and 1935 indicates what statements jewelry makes about women and their role in society as seen in portrait painting.

Recently, Tracy Chevaliers novel The Girl with the Pearl Earring and its film adaptation by Peter Webber placed a focus on the subject of Dutch genre painting, reaching an unusually broad audience of readers and cinemagoers. The portrait The Girl with the Pearl, painted by Ian Vermeer van Delft (1632-1675) around 1660/1665 provided the inspiration. The painter's clever use of light directs our first glance to a large pearl suspended from the girl's left ear. In another painting by Vermeer, Young Lady with Pearl Necklace (around 1670), jewelry is also the main focus of the motif.

Jewelry = Power

Once the more unadorned Middle Ages had passed, there was, for many centuries, a focus on the reproduction of precious jewelry in many portraits of women. Reproduction of the human form had absolute priority, as it was a means of demonstrating power and luxury. At the same time, these images give us a clear impression of the rich and varied jewelry culture during the Renaissance. Tizian (1485/90-1576) in particular was a significant name in the portrayal of individual personalities in Italy; the main protagonists in Germany were above all Albrecht Direr (1471-1528), Lucas Cranach the Elder (1472-1553) and Hans Holbein (1460/65-1534). Late Antique images of mummies from the first centuries AC are the oldest, preserved examples of portrait painting. They were produced on wood using the wax technique or on linen in tempera painting. They place particular importance on the rendition of precious robes, fashionable haircuts and beautifully forged items: hair pieces, dangling earrings and necklaces can often be found in archaeological findings.

Bathed in the new philosophy of life during the 17th century, unbelievable luxury emerged in the courts in Italy, France and the Netherlands: magnificent clothing was enhanced with precious gems made of gold and silver, adorned with gemstones and pearls. Rembrandt (1606-1669), Rubens (1571-1640) and Van Dyck (1599-1641) played to the vanity of nobility with their portraits of aristocrats. However, realistic images of bourgeois women, presented reading, making music or in a social group, are also found in Germany and the Netherlands. Images of adorned women were also popular in miniature paintings, a painted portrait in small format, worn as medallions or rendered on tobacco tins; this style reached its golden age in the 18^th century. As the bourgeois society became increasingly emancipated, increasing numbers of women had their portraits painted. Their images are impressive testimonies to the art of jewelry during Classicism, Biedermeier or Historicism.

Jewelry as an expression of personality

In the artists' society that was founded in London in 1846, the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, photo-realistic rendition of fashion and accessories, accurate even in details, was a very important aspect. In many portraits of women, the jewelry is in the foreground, indicating a very personal relationship with the women wearing it. Edith Holman Hunt (1846-1931) was portrayed by her husband, William Holman Hunt (1827-1910), on her 25th birthday. The portrayed lady wears around her neck double string of coral, while a brooch, manufactured in antique style and with a shellfish cameo, sits just below her lace ruff. In her hands, the young woman is holding a long chain of mountain crystal, a golden pocket watch and a bracelet with mosaic stones. Work of excellent quality was also produced by Pio Furtunato Castellani (1794-1865) in Rome. In his portrait of the Roman model Nana Risi (1870) or in the double portrait Paolo and Francesca (1864), Anselm Feuerbach (1829-1880) paints accurate renditions of sparingly inserted jewelry. When photography was invented in 1839, portraits gradually lost their significance in painting during the 19th century.

Experiments with form and color

It was not until the onset of the 20^th century that painters once more turned increasingly to portrait painting; expressionist painters in particular sought new ways of creating portraits. However, in view of the fact that artists were no longer fixed on the models and their accurate representation, Jewelry as such is often just intimated. It is rare that jewelry is portrayed in its design and materials; instead, the clear focus was on experiments in form and color. Pablo Picasso's (1881-1973) "Blue Period" also produced the Portrait of Corina Romeu in 1902. the jet black hair, tied up high, the high-collared dress with stole in broken white against a deep blue and green background: gold jewelry pendant, brooch and earrings. At the start of the 20^th century, the subject of female portraits with jewelry was also an inherent part of the titles of some paintings: for example, the woman sat engrossed in her book by Félix Vallotton (1865-1925) in Woman reading with a yellow chain (1912), the Nu au collier rouge by Edgar Scauflaire (1893-1960) or the Nu gris au bracelet (1913) by Henri Matisse (1869-1954). However, although the bracelet is mentioned in the title of this painting, the tone in tone painting only hints at the jewelry without presenting it as such.

Women in society

Pictures of women and children and self-portraits were significant elements in the work by the Worpswede painter Paula Modersohn-Becker (1876-1907). The simplicity of portrayal is found in the expansive compositions and the strictly abstracted contours: in Self Portrait with Camellia Twig (1907) and in Act Portrait of a Girl with Flowers we find a vibrantly colored ball collier and a long necklace as dominant features. Some portraits by the Brucke artists Karl Schmidt-Rottluff (1884-1976) and Ernst Ludwig Kirchner (1880-1938) have a special place in portrait painting during Expressionism: they portray their subjects with the jewelry they designed. The main focus on Karl Schmidt-Rottluff's Portrait of Rosa Schapire (1919) is a large, brass brooch which the painter himself created. The Seated Woman with Wood Carving (1912) by Ernst Ludwig Kirchner shows a woman wearing a long, oval brooch on her collar to match a simple dress with high neckline. Even if it is sometimes difficult to recognize, Max Beckmann's (1884-1950) portraits of women during the nineteen twenties repeatedly include jewelry: examples of this include. Portrait of Fridel Baftenberg (1920), Portrait of Käthe von Poroda (1924), Portrait of Minna Beckmann- Tube (1924), Portrait of an Elderly Actress (1926) or Portrait of Lilly von Schnitzler-Mallinckrodt (1931). Whereas necklaces and bracelets are mainly just hinted at, the double-rowed necklace and the conspicuous, dangling earrings in the portrait of Ms. Schnitzler-Mallinckrodt are important statements in the painting.

They lend emphasis to the character of the portrayed woman. Beckmann was frequently inspired in his paintings by extravagant robes worn by the women. It is also possible that their jewelry tickled his interest in painting. In the Portrait of Dr. Heidel (1922), a delicate, golden-yellow collier snakes around the neck of his muse, while the Double Portrait of Ms. Swarzenski and Carola Netter (1923) underscores the sensitive interaction between clothing and jewelry: to match her black evening dress with pink chenille embroidery, Carola Netter is wearing a delicate rose coral necklace, while Ms. Swarzenski's neck boasts a fine gold collier, highlighted by matching earrings.

The portrayal of emancipated women of the world in a self-confident pose was the topic embraced by the Polish artist Tamara de Lempicka (1898-1980), a passionate painter and femme fata e in the nineteen twenties. In her portraits Madane Boucard (1931) and Mrs. Alan Bott (1930), the women, perfectly made up and portrayed in evening dress in front of a skyscraper backdrop, are wearing broad, Art Déco bracelets with brilliants. In the numerous portraits of women by Christian Schad (1884-1982), jewelry is rarely in the main focus, the Semi Act (1929), the prostrate figure of half of a woman's body is adorned with a typical chain for this period. Wilhelm Schnarrenberger's (1892-1966) Women with Jewelry Outside in Nature (1935) is also a real testimony to its times. We should also assign to this category the numerous portraits painted as contributions to the artists competition "Portraits of Women with Jewelry", organized in 1935 by the Goldsmith Art Society in Berlin. At the time, the jurors included Alexander Kanoldt, an important protagonist in New Objectivity. A contemporary photo a bum and press reports reveal that the numerous exhibitions of these portraits were extremely well received at the time. Women from High Society were portrayed with their favorite jewelry the portrait of Savi Goth by the painter M. Goth from Amsterdam shows jewelry from the nineteen thirties: the sharp neckline of the linden-green dress is adorned with a large, portrait brooch, while the almandine cabochons of the collier and the two-row bracelet provide bursts of color.

Painted renditions of women became increasingly meaningless in the second half of the twentieth century, and photography quite clearly superceded its position. It is now up to photographers to portray models, women and events of our time in their own way and with contemporary jewelry.