If you will be in Texas between March 27 and July 25, 2010, then the El Paso Art Museum is the place to be.  The Museum will be one of the few museums worldwide and the only one west of the Mississippi which will feature this fabulous exhibition.  The exhibit will have examples of jewelry dating back to 5000 BC and continuing through the early 20th century, so it will be of particular interest to vintage jewelry lovers.

 

The original exhibit was assembled by Henry Walters, on of the Baltimore, Maryland Walter's Art Museum founders.  There will be many spectacular pieces by Halifax, Wedgewood and Tiffary, and the exhibit will also include the renowned collection of Benjamin Zucker of New York. 

 

Bedazzled will showcase jewelry from the ancient world, including two pendants in the form of ram's heads which date from the fifth century BC and are made from multicolored glass.  Ornate jewelry from the Renaissance will showcase the period when sumptuous jewelry demonstrated the wealth of princes of the time period.

 

The exhibit moves through the 18th century when men and women wore chatelaines, into the 19th century, when historical revival dominated.  Rings are a prominent feature of all stages of the exhibit and show the prominence of rings as symbols of  love, marriage and death.   Renaissance and Baroque marriage rings, both Christian and Jewish, and skeletal memento mori rings will also be on display. Special emphasis will be placed on precious diamond-set rings and the technological development of early diamond cutting.

 

The last part of the exhibit will explore forgeries and replicas so prominent in the latter part of the 19th century when forgers produced piece of high quality which are sometimes difficult to distinquish from the originals.

 

According to the El Paso Art Museum, The Walters jewelry collection is the most wide-raging collection of jewelry assembled by a private collector in the United States. Henry Walters (1848-1931) purchased a vast array of jewelry objects from numerous cultures and over five millennia, thereby significantly expanding the efforts of his father, William T. Walters (1819-94), a railroad magnate in Baltimore who started the collection.

 


 

Here are a few examples of the delights in store for you if you are fortunate enough to be able to attend the exhibition.  All photos courtesy of the Walters Art Museum.