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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Adding a photo on my wrist to give a sense of scale. It is huge!
Hi Lynn, Have a look at Linda's cuff.
https://ethnicjewels.ning.com/photo/yomud-cuff-back?context=user
Hers features garnets and has a number of jewelled insets at the cuff ends. My guess is that yours, with its similar design, comes from the same area. I think they probably come from the area lying on either side of the north Iranian border ... so from either northern Iran or south Turkmenistan.
Thank you Thelma. I had not made the connection to Linda's cuff as it looks like it was worn by royalty :) but you are right, it does have garnets and some similar elements. She also has two short Yomud cuffs that have carnelians and then extra cut glass stones. Perhaps she will see this piece and comment on whether they have similar origins.
There are also the two cuffs in the Metropolitan Museum from the Wolf collection but I understand a lot of the attribution and dating of this collection is suspect. http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/images/h2/h2_2006.544.13a,b.jpg
The one i have has a date which i will have to look up again. i have also recently photographed another group of images for an appraisal which has a cuff with a signature of the jeweler and date of 1917. When i get the photos ready i will post the client's piece. I thought i had the photo of the date of the one cuff of mine. Will have to take it and post it. i think i remember it being 1890's
This is Yomud and also rare with the extra stones. Not many have this . i have one other pair that are a bit different but also have extra stones, hard to find.
Exceptionally good, Lynn, and rare, as Linda remarks. I particularly like the silver gilt areas, but the whole thing is wonderful. Linda's big cuff, too, which Thelma reminds us of, is a great piece whose praises I have sung before. Both are very desirable and excellent cuffs.
Thank you Linda and Joost! Linda, I was hoping you would see this and comment on the origin. Your cuffs are absolutely gorgeous and I did wonder if they had a similar origin.
I first saw this style of cuff when i was in college, a friend's mother owned a shop that i would walk by every day. She sold mostly African art (in the village NYC, then in the late 70's there were many shops selling this jewelry as it was the style to wear it then) She had a cuff with three rows as well supplemental stones. I had seen pairs of the regular Teke cuffs but never a Yomud one like this. Also knew the rare stones were unusual. I brought in my mom to try and buy it for me then, as she was asking about 1,000 dollars which in the late 70's was a small fortune. It sold to the Newark Museum actually but had not seen any with stones like this until recently , so that was over 35 years ago so that shows you how rare these pieces are in the general scheme.
What a great story, thank you for sharing it. Very interesting about the stores in New York.. I have several pieces in my collection that came from African or Indian import stores in NYC in the 60's through the 80s.