A digital archive showcasing the extensive collection of jewellery and adornment images shared on the former Ethnic Jewels Ning site over the years. These images have significantly enriched discussions on cultural adornment and its global dispersion.
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Very nice, howah! You are being very active, and pleasingly so!
I think these are really beautiful.
Very nice indeed!
Very nice ,The different colours of the turquoise makes it very attractive
Yes, I like the different shades of blue and green turquoise can have and are used on this piece. The combination of turquoise and coral is also a match made in heaven.
@Joost: the addiction has gotten hold of me again, have mercy on my bankaccount!
Well, you are young and able, and thus in a good position to buy - speaking as a "greybeard of 72", I would only ENCOURAGE you to buy while you are (a) young and (b) can still find good pieces which will be increasingly tightly held, always supposing that they even manage to survive. Many collections in one way or another are likely to disappear into museums during the next ten years, I would predict; and, also, you will face increasing competition from Asian buyers and others from "emerging countries". So in your case I can't see ANY point in your delaying. So, as long as you remember that people like Rembrandt drove themselves into poverty buy buying too much art and don't follow them as a role model, I have no fears about what you are doing, and good luck with it. I hope to follow your buying career for a fair few years yet!
On the green and blue colour variations: I agree these are marvellous here, and it is what you are likely to get if the material is not glass. The turquoises "mature" differently according to their source and age, as well as treatment, while often the odd one gets replaced (sometimes with malachite) and has a different colour again. All of that keeps the wolf of monotony from the door!! What you are showing is really lovely.
When I can afford anything Karakalpak I buy it. I buy both the fabric, embroidery and jewelry -- all of them are rare and hard to find. These are a disappearing people, really victims of a terrible environmental disaster and very unique within the bounds of Uzbekistan. And there is absolutely nothing of their culture for sale in their own area -- I travelled there a few years ago -- found absolutely zero jewelry and old native embroidery, the craftsmen were embroidering off of older samples which are few and far between. Nukus boasts a treasure of a museum, the Savitsky museum -- contains Karakalpak heritage pieces and the work of artists killed in Stalin's purges. Truth to tell, I don't know if that is glass or turquoises, the inset pieces are common to all Uzbek jewelry. It is nice to see someone else interested in these wonderful people.
Usually when there is this much variation in the green-blue colours that does result from the pieces being turquoise (sometimes malachite as well), not glass, which is generally completely uniform all over the piece. That does not mean, of course that it would not be possible to use different colours of glass! I liked your post very much, Patti, and agree with you on the quality and rarity of things Karakalpak. The market seems to be well aware of the quality and the rarity, and pieces of adornment from that area always seem to be keenly sought after. Linda is a strong Karakalpak fan, too.
A bit more on turquoise and glass, in the hope that that may be useful: theoretically, it would be possible for all these blue/green pieces to be glass, if someone intended deliberately to create the effect of variation in colours which one would usually see if one put together a heap of different pieces of old turquoise. In practice, when glass is used, it seems to be of one colour, usually fairly bluish. The dearest turquoise is bluish, so if one makes an expensive piece one tries to find pieces of that colour and to match them. That is, however, also what leads to the use of bluish glass when glass pieces are used on pieces like this. If turquoise is used it is (a) hard to match exactly, so that FROM THE BEGINNING there is likely to be variation in colour, and (b) generally turquoise CHANGES colour, but even if pieces come from the same mine they will not necessarily over time all change into the same colour and at the same rate. As one website has it, if "turquoise is of moderate or lesser quality, it can be more likely to change color when it comes in contact with water and oils. However, 10 stones from the same mine might all change colors at a different rate. That’s why, for example, on old pawn pieces, such as a cluster pin or squash blossom necklace, as the stones age, some stones might turn a slightly different color than others". When objects of this kind were made in Uzbekistan and turquoises were used, they would often already be of somewhat different colours to begin with. When once in use, colours would change, in many cases, but two pieces of turquoise whose colours originally looked virtually identical may well turn into quite different colours over time. Hence old pieces of jewellery which are in part decorated with pieces of turquoise will after a number of decades often show very considerable variation in their hues. This would be natural, and is often found. Undoubtedly, if someone were to fake an old piece of jewellery, that person would, if using glass, probably use different shades of glass, so as to imitate the variety found in an old piece set with turquoises. I don't think that is likely to have happened in this instance, but theoretically it could. More likely what we see is just how widely the colours of turquoise can range, partly due to differing colours usually existing already when the piece was made, but partly also as a result of changes in colours over time.
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