GOLD AND SILVER JEWELLERY

Since the birth of the Indian civilization which dates back to about 8000 years ago, the individual identified himself with jewels. About 5000 years ago, shells and ancient production techniques were replaced and the use of gold was increasingly favored over other elements previously used. The goldsmith's art then began to spread and since then India has become one of the largest jewellery producers in the world. The wealth of raw materials such as gold, silver, copper, ivory, coral, rubies, sapphires, agate and diamonds, is unmatched anywhere else in the world. The trade in raw materials was flourishing and therefore contacts with other cultures were not rare that integrated themselves into the techniques, giving light to their own style in continuous evolution.

In India, the contrast between the tribal tradition of essentially religious and dowry jewellery and the cultured and courtly one derived from Iranian and Greek-Alexandrian models, later revised by Central Asian and Muslim influences, identifiable in terms of castal and noble dignity, makes the Indian subcontinent land of choice for those wishing to approach the theme of the jewel in the round.

In India you cannot separate the ornament from its ethnic social function from the aesthetic aspect, the jewel in fact is much more than personal taste or fashion it expresses the whole range of social and religious conditions, it speaks to us of the complex relationship between jewellery and person who wears it and implies its shape, its function and the use made of it in different spheres and moments of life. We can say that the jewel describes the identity of the wearer, it is a visual language where nothing is left to chance, each region, each village, each community has its own ornaments and symbols.

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