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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Comments
what a treasure!
These Indian pieces are very good, and enjoyable - though for my own taste just a little too opulent-looking. Butr that is the puritan in me, I suppose.
I do admire that granulation work, if indeed that is what it is!
Minute granulation, these were very beautiful in person, also some what rare style after living in India for years also not seeing anything like them over there. I believe these might represent foreign over tones and not completely traditional. I have seen from the North many inlaid stones in this manner but more crudely done however the underside of the bracelets and way they are finished to me looks like items that might have been made for foreigners living in India at the time of the Edwardian period or right going into the early 20's.
They are certainly very well made. Thanks for the extra information! They remind me a bit of pieces I have sometimes seen advertised by Susan Ollemans, and would no doubt be in her taste. She either does well or has money to burn, because she sends us hard copy material, just like Simon Ray. Admittedly we have bought from Simon, but that was years ago, and their materials must be very expensive to print ... Anyway, that is just in passing. What you say about the pieces sounds logical and convincing.
I saw her in NY recently and she had nice quality things as she does for the type of items she shows. Nothing earth shattering yet it's hard to find those items now. yet all real and good unlike several dealers that show newly made as old. I won't mention names.
Her prices were in some cases astounding for me who has seen alot. Astounding for things that seemed quite nice but not so comanding of such prices. Hard to really grasp it. I think over seas prices are more as they are in pounds to dollars, euros to dollars so right there is a difference. Further more people know what they are dealing in , dealers get more over seas, as it has always ben like that. Unfortunately I'm dealing in a place where there is not as much history and rarity attached to what you are buying and more value attached to name brands and where you or who you are buying from. it is almost 40% higher to start in Europe for exchange alone when you add also cost of air fare and travel. Here all this is a fraction of the price. Also I find that maybe for the clients to think the things are really fabulous if things are too reasonable it's almost as if there is a problem. and then they question can not be that goood if it's only this much.. For example, the crowns that are from that group of jewelry that is Central Asian bump, there was a style that was shown for a while and were selling for 8-12,000 here in US normally. Same crowns were shown at Grosvenor house fair about 10 or so years ago when they were around at 25,000 each and sold (that dealer had three) I think that in some cases if things are priced with normal ok mark up, they don't resonate the importance well enough. I have seen myself this many times, if something is too cheap people don't take it seriously enough. In the realm of who pays the prices to buy such things, those high prices are normal if one shops Madison Avenue or any place in the world like that.
I'm just a bit put off by it as i think if something is really rare it should be expensive but when it is offered at a ok markup then people don't really appreciate the value of a good deal as much as when they pay through the teeth. It is a shame but is the way it is. Great items should be more valuable also and a better premium paid for them as well people should see why they are paying for it and not just because it is coming from a certain address or certain dealer.
The market for jewerly is not regulated as such in other art buying arena's. Not enough documentation either on pricing, or catalogues etc because most of us marketing are doing it all very privately. 80% of what is going on is not public also. I would love to see more of what is out there in collections but unless people start doing more of this then it's very difficult for people to set a gage of value or quality.