Jewellery consists of decorative items worn for personal adornment, such as brooches, rings, necklaces, earrings, pendants, bracelets, and cufflinks. Jewellery may be attached to the body or the clothes. From a western perspective, the term is restricted to durable ornaments, excluding flowers for example. For many centuries metal such as gold often combined with gemstones, has been the normal material for jewellery, but other materials such as glass, shells and other plant materials may be used.
Margaret of Denmark was Queen of Scotland from 1469 to 1486 by marriage to King James III. She was the daughter of Christian I, King of Denmark, Norway and Sweden, and Dorothea of Brandenburg.
A tiara is a jeweled head ornament. Its origins date back to ancient Iran, which was then adapted by Greco-Romans. In the late 18th century, the tiara came into fashion in Europe as a prestigious piece of jewelry to be worn by women at formal occasions. The basic shape of the modern tiara is a semi-circle, usually made of silver, gold or platinum and richly decorated with precious stones, pearls or cameos.
A pendant is a loose-hanging piece of jewellery, generally attached by a small loop to a necklace, which may be known as a "pendant necklace". A pendant earring is an earring with a piece hanging down. Its name stems from the Latin word pendere and Old French word pendr, both of which translate to "to hang down". In modern French, pendant is the gerund form of pendre and also means "during". The extent to which the design of a pendant can be incorporated into an overall necklace makes it not always accurate to treat them as separate items.
A necklace is an article of jewellery that is worn around the neck. Necklaces may have been one of the earliest types of adornment worn by humans. They often serve ceremonial, religious, magical, or funerary purposes and are also used as symbols of wealth and status, given that they are commonly made of precious metals and stones.
A cockatrice is a mythical beast, essentially a two-legged dragon, wyvern, or serpent-like creature with a rooster's head. Described by Laurence Breiner as "an ornament in the drama and poetry of the Elizabethans", it was featured prominently in English thought and myth for centuries. They are created by a toad or snake's egg hatched by a chicken.
The Imperial Crown of Brazil, also known as the Crown of Dom Pedro II or as the Diamantine Crown, is the Crown manufactured for the second Brazilian Emperor, Pedro II.
Living entombed animals are animals supposedly found alive after being encased in solid rock, coal, or wood for a long period of time. The accounts usually involve frogs or toads. No physical evidence exists, and the phenomenon has been dismissed by science.
Rundell & Bridge were a London firm of jewellers and goldsmiths formed by Philip Rundell (1746–1827) and John Bridge.
In European bestiaries and legends, a basilisk is a legendary reptile reputed to be a serpent king, who causes death to those who look into its eyes. According to the Naturalis Historia of Pliny the Elder, the basilisk of Cyrene is a small snake, "being not more than twelve inches in length", that is so venomous, it leaves a wide trail of deadly venom in its wake, and its gaze is likewise lethal.
Scheenstia is an extinct genus of neopterygian ray-finned fish from the Late Jurassic–Early Cretaceous of Europe. Fossils have been found in both marine and freshwater environments.
The Middle Ages was a period that spanned approximately 1000 years and is normally restricted to Europe and the Byzantine Empire. The material remains we have from that time, including jewelry, can vary greatly depending on the place and time of their creation, especially as Christianity discouraged the burial of jewellery as grave goods, except for royalty and important clerics, who were often buried in their best clothes and wearing jewels. The main material used for jewellery design in antiquity and leading into the Middle Ages was gold. Many different techniques were used to create working surfaces and add decoration to those surfaces to produce the jewellery, including soldering, plating and gilding, repoussé, chasing, inlay, enamelling, filigree and granulation, stamping, striking and casting. Major stylistic phases include barbarian, Byzantine, Carolingian and Ottonian, Viking, and the Late Middle Ages, when Western European styles became relatively similar.
A lapidary is a text in verse or prose, often a whole book, that describes the physical properties and virtues of precious and semi-precious stones, that is to say, a work on gemology. It was frequently used as a medical textbook since it also comprises practical information about each stone's medical application. Several lapidaries also provide information about countries or regions where some rocks were thought to originate, and others speculate about the natural forces in control of their formation.
Tamil people have historically been connoisseurs of fine golden jewellery, which has a history predating the Sangam period in the Indian subcontinent. Ancient Tamil literature lists out the different types of jewellery worn by women historically from head to toe. Apart from gold, jewellery was also fashioned out of silver, copper and brass.
Turkmen jewelry is a type of jewelry originating among the various Turkmen cultures of Western and Central Asia. The jewelry was crafted both for cosmetic and spiritual reasons, and the amount of jewelry an individual adorned themselves with was equated to the person's rank in society.
Folktales about luminous gemstones are an almost worldwide motif in mythology and history among Asian, European, African, and American cultures. Some stories about light-emitting gems may have been based on luminescent and phosphorescent minerals such as diamonds.
The Three Brothers was a piece of jewellery created in the late 14th century, which consisted of three rectangular red spinels arranged around a central diamond. The jewel is known for having been owned by a number of important historical figures. After its commission by Duke John the Fearless of Burgundy, the jewel was part of the Burgundian crown jewels for almost 100 years, before passing into the possession of German banker Jakob Fugger.
Jeanne Poiret Boivin (1871-1959) was a French businesswoman and designer who headed the House of Boivin jewelry firm from 1917 until her death in 1959.
