9 Incredible Jewelry Techniques to Discover

9 Incredible Jewelry Techniques to Discover

Trends may come and go, but one thing is certain: People will always love – and adorn themselves with – jewelry. Discover 9 incredible jewelry techniques that have made a lasting impression on civilization for thousands of years!

1. Mokume Gane

Mokume Gane Techniques

While Mokume Gane was initially reserved for Samurai in feudal Japan, this ancient tradition has recently been revived for fine jewelry making.

This jewelry design technique starts by layering and hammering contrasting metal alloys like silver, gold, platinum, and palladium into billets or solid blocks. Using rounded hammers and heat, these billets are further flattened, carved, and manipulated until the desired pattern takes shape. When the artist is satisfied, they’ll take a slice to file and bend into a piece of fine jewelry.

A remarkable element of this jewelry-making technique? No two identical items can exist in the world.

2. Dichroic Glass

Dichroic glass - Mokume Gane Techniques

Romans first created dichroic glass by combining colloidal gold and silver particles during the glass-making process. When lit from behind, the Lycurgus Cup (pictured above) emits a reddish-violet hue but reflected light creates a green hue.

Modern dichroic glass makers use an electron beam gun to coat regular glass with vaporized quartz and metal oxides (like titanium, aluminum, and magnesium). This film displays a permanent metallic shimmer. These pieces can also be fired multiple times to build intricate jewelry designs. While this is one of the simplest jewelry-making methods on our list, the optical effects can have amazing results.

3. The Mystery Set (Serti Mysterieux)

The Van Cleef & Arpels’ Mystery Set is one of the most iconic fine jewelry-making techniques of the 20th century. Patented in 1933, this invisible gemstone setting uses zero visible metal mounts or prongs. While the concept wasn’t invented or discovered by Van Cleef & Arpels, the company certainly perfected it.

The Mystery Setting requires meticulously color-matched stones that are cut to fit perfectly against one another. The first stone’s girdle (i.e., the widest part of a gemstone’s circumference) is lined up with another stone that’s been scored with incredibly tiny marks. Grooves of metal are created, then the stones are moved or placed within them, creating a mystifying piece that defies logic.

Within a few years, Van Cleef & Arpels received another patent for using the Mystery Setting on three-dimensional pieces like rings, brooches, and earrings.

4. Victorian Hair Jewelry

victorian-hair-jewelry
Source: National Geographic

Victorian sentimentalism and the macabre are perfectly illustrated with hair jewelry.

Queen Victoria wore her late husband’s hair in a locket around her neck for forty years. American women could purchase elaborate hair jewelry patterns from shops and mail-order magazines. It was also common for female friends to give locks of hair as mementos to their closest friends.

Hair wreaths and jewelry assisted in the mourning process and were used to create a type of family tree that could be added to over the years. Though the technique and practice have obviously waned in popularity, Victorian hair jewelry is a highly sought-after item among collectors.

5. Portrait Miniatures

portrait-miniatures
Source: The Walters Art Museum

From the 16th to 19th centuries, portrait miniatures were added to traveling cases, watch cases, boxes, and lockets. At a time when meeting on your wedding day was common, these items were often sent with a marriage proposal. Tiny versions of famous artworks, landscapes, and tourist sites were also created to commemorate special occasions.

This art form started with crude watercolor on vellum (calfskin) that was then attached to a playing card for stability. Italians and Germans preferred oil paints on copper, though eventually, enamel on copper became the method of choice. Initially, paintbrushes were fashioned with squirrel hair attached to feathers and a weasel’s tooth attached to a handle. Artists hand-mixed paintings and sourced from minerals, insects, and gold leaf.

By the end of the 18th century, miniatures were highly influenced by the Romanticism movement. Watercolor was painted on ivory using specially-made brushes and factory-produced paints. When photography was popularized in the 19th century, this art form began to fade out.

6. Enameling

Enameling
Source: Birmingham Museums

Dating back to Cyprus in the 13th century BC, enameling is one of the oldest types of jewelry design that still exists today. Countless civilizations have used it to strengthen metalwork and entice owners with an enormous range of gorgeous colors.

Traditionally, gold, silver, bronze, or iron is coated with a porcelain enamel (made from liquefied glass or silica). Substances like borax or soda help create colorful, translucent, or opaque surfaces. When applied, cooled. and fired, this glass hardens smoothly and durably.

Champlevé Enamel

Champleve-Enamel
Source: The Cleveland Museum of Art

First used by Celts, the champlevé technique requires engraving the base metal with graceful curled designs and then pouring translucent/colorful enamel inside. Occasionally, archaeologists find these in hoards throughout the United Kingdom.

Cloisonné Enamel

Cloisonne-Enamel
Source: Aga Khan Museum

Byzantine artisans developed the cloisonné technique by soldering metal wires or strips to a metal base, then pouring differently colored enamel pastes. After setting the enamel, the jewelry was fired in a kiln to permanently fix the piece.

Plique-à-Jour Enamel

Plique-a-Jour-Enamel
Source: Met Museum

Owing to its delicate structure, plique-à-jour (‘letting in daylight’) is the most difficult of all enamel jewelry designs with the lowest success rate. In Japan, this process is known as shotai-jippo. This technique suspends translucent enamel in fine metal wires, similar to stained glass but without backing.

The Art Nouveau movement saw a resurgence in this glass jewelry-making technique. Today, Tiffany & Co. pieces are some of the most highly coveted items in existence.

7. Venetian Glass Jewelry

Venetian-Glass-Jewelry
Source: Museo Vetro

Venice has been the center of glass production for centuries. After the Crusades and Ottoman conquest, many Byzantine artisans escaped Constantinople and brought their incredible mastery with them to Venice.

Also known as Murano Glass, this jewelry-making technique starts with quartz pebbles and stones (sand typically contains impurities). Heated and submerged in cold water to draw out any remaining impurities, these stones are pulverized to provide a perfect silica base. A ‘fluxing agent’ like soda ash is added to lower the melting point, allowing artisans to melt glass in a wood-fired oven.

Once ready for firing, a ‘frit’ (i.e., block) is heated and fused. The ‘frit’ may be remelted and skimmed for adulteration multiple times. When the artisan is satisfied with its quality, the glass product is heated until liquid and cooled slightly. This is when glass can be manipulated and shaped. Manganese is often added to combat discoloration and keep molten glass malleable for longer.

Though the market is inundated with imposters, true Venetian glass jewelry creates the highest-quality beads and pendants. These are highly desired for their meticulous jewelry-making and design techniques – even centuries later.

8. Filigree

Filigree

An incredibly delicate form of gold or silver metalworking, filigree has been used for at least 3,000 years. Typically decorated with small beads or twisted metal threads, this handcrafted jewelry technique utilizes varying and complicated lacework shapes. One of the most geographically diverse jewelry styles, pieces have been found in Etruscan, Scythian, Egyptian, Celtic, and Mesopotamian sites.

With its infinite twists, braids, and designs, there is no limit to this jewelry-making technique for metal. Today, many filigree designs come out of India, where the art form has remained almost identical over centuries.

Cannetille Filigree

Cannetille-Filigree
Source: The Walters Art Museum

When filigree jewelry is made into three-dimensional shapes (e.g., coils, beehives, tendrils), it might be considered cannetille filigree.

9. Intaglio and Cameo

Intaglio-and-Cameo
Source: The British Museum

A cameo has a raised image, unlike an intaglio’s reversed one. Both are carved from a single material. Typically worn as jewelry pieces (especially signet rings and earrings), they are considered keepsakes to memorialize a person or myth.

Cameo and intaglio can be made from any carvable material like stone, coral, ivory, and glass (though plastic became popular in the mid-20th century). The most treasured intaglio and cameo were created entirely with a hammer and chisel. Occasionally, natural dyes were used to enhance the material.

As few gemstone cutters can carry out this task by hand, most modern intaglio and cameo are agate cut with machinery.

Jaume Labro: Unparalleled Jewelry Making & Design

Unparalleled Jewelry Making Design

Jaume Labro’s fine jewelry designs have been created to amaze wearers for generations. All of our Mokume Gane engagement rings, pendants, and earrings are handcrafted by expert Japanese metalsmiths using ethical materials.

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