The Material Landscapes of Scotland's Jewellery Craft, 1780-1914 / Sarah Laurenson.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Laurenson, Sarah, author.

Series:

Material Culture of Art and Design.

Material Culture of Art and Design

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Jewelry--Social aspects--Scotland--19th century.

Jewelry.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (305 pages)

Edition:

1st ed.

Distribution:

London : Bloomsbury Publishing (UK), 2023.

Place of Publication:

London : Bloomsbury Academic, 2023.

System Details:

text file HTML

Summary:

During the long 19th century, Scotland was home to an established body of skilled jewellers who were able to access a range of materials from the country's varied natural landscape: precious gold and silver; sparkling crystals and colourful stones; freshwater pearls, shells and parts of rare animals. Following these materials on their journey from hill and shore, across the jeweller's bench and on to the bodies of wearers, this book challenges the persistent notion that the forces of industrialisation led to the decline of craft. It instead reveals a vivid picture of skilled producers who were driving new and revived areas of hand skill, and who were key to fostering a focused cultural engagement with the natural world - among both producers and consumers - through the things they made. By placing producers and their skill in cultural context, the book reveals how examining the materiality of even the smallest of objects can offer new and multifaceted insights into the wider transformations that marked British history during the long 19th century. The Material Landscapes of Scotland's Jewellery Craft 1780-1914 brings together a vast array of jewellery objects with a range of other sources - including paintings, engravings, newspaper reports, letters, inventories of big houses and small workshops, sketchbooks, novels, works of literary geology and early travel writings - to provide a detailed cultural history of jewellery production. In doing so, it sets out innovative methodologies for writing about the histories of craft production, the natural environment and the material world.

Contents:

Introduction: Revealing Craft: Fusing Nature and Culture Chapter 1: Making Things: In the Jewellery Workshop Chapter 2: New-Old Objects: Deconstructing and Reconstructing the Past Chapter 3: Metals: Landscape and Memory in Gold and Silver Chapter 4: Minerals: Crafting Colour Worlds in Stone Chapter 5: (Un)Living Things: Material Afterlives in Pearls, Shells and Taxidermy Bibliography Index

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9781350469921

1350469920

9781501357978

1501357972

9781501357985

1501357980

OCLC:

1377817715