Indian jewelry… the ultimate in artistic design when it comes to
bling bling. It was during the Mughal-Islamic rule which lasted
around 332 years that the outstanding achievements of Indian jewelry
reached its zenith and became the ultimate symbol of wealth, power,
and aristocracy. Mughal… for those of you interested in the
derivative of things… became Mogul… a word depicting a person of
exceptional riches and influence.
Jewelry of those times… because of its beauty and exceptional
workmanship… became associated with royalty. The best creations of
the Mughal era were made for the King and his Queens and Princesses.
Yes folks… you read me right. The King and his Queens. Ah… them
were the days. There is something to be said for the ancients and
their ways of thinking. Of course… some of you might say the more
queens the more headaches. But that’s another story.
An interesting aspect of the jewelry of those times is that a single
piece was rarely the work of one craftsman. There are three major
aspects of Mughal jewelry. There’s form and structure. There’s
decoration. And most important in Indian jewelry… there’s
enameling.
It is in this area that the jewelry of that era ranks supreme over
jewelry of other times. The enameling… though quite exquisite…
served a secondary and rather practical function in that it lent
strength to items made of quite soft and rather pure gold… endowing
the creations with stability and durability.
And so we segue to the 20th century… and the revival of Indian
jewelry. It was recognized by the great designers of recent times
for the very exquisiteness that made it the choice of royalty. Lest
you worry you may not have heard of thems wot introduced Mughal
jewelry through the portals of the modern epoch… let me introduce
some. Ladies and gennulmen… may I introduce Coco Chanel
representing the early 1930’s. And in that corner… Christian
LaCroix representing the 1990’s. And then… representing the early
2000’s… there’s Benjamin-the-presenter… who tends to represent
that which is presented… or something like that. Methinks hiatuses
tend to muddle the mind. It’s the New Year and I’m having a little
trouble getting back up on the horse.
In any case…
For those of you who are new to this thing called Tidbits…may I
direct you to my home page at www.tyler-adam.com where you will
scroll down the left side menu till you get to the area that says
Current Tidbits… and then click on it in order to view some Indian
Kadas of no minor importance.
And there ya have it.
That’s it for this week folks.
Catch you all next week.
Benjamin Mark