The V&A is one of the world's greatest museums of the decorative arts and houses perhaps the finest and most comprehensive jewellery collection illustrating the development of Western jewellery over the last 500 years.

As the book Jewels and Jewellery about the museum's collection reminds us, "Gold has been central to jewellery at least since the middle of the third millennium BC …Its rarity and its beauty have made it precious to all civilisations". This is the museum in which to appreciate that span of history. The opening spread of Jewels and Jewellery depicts an Etruscan rosette decorated with granulation from the 7th century BC, a great gold collar made in Ireland around the same period, gold coins and bars from a Spanish galleon wrecked in 1656 and the lid of an 18th century Swiss snuff box decorated with different coloured golds.

The heart of the collection is in the Jewellery Gallery, beginning with masterpieces of the Middle Ages, including a gold and sapphire ring worn by the Archbishop of Canterbury between 1362 and 1374, a gold ring brooch decorated with foliage made in France before 1300, another heart-shaped French brooch and the only surviving English gold rosary from around 1480. The court jewellery of Queen Elizabeth I has pendants of enamelled gold set with diamonds, and gold lockets with miniature portraits of the Queen. Slightly later the imperial workshops in Prague were making chains of gold and pearls, enamelled in white, black and blue or set with rubies. In Europe, 18th century jewellery often looked like bouquets of flowers with enamelled gold studded with precious stones, while the late 19th century had a vogue for 'archaeological' jewellery copying ancient Greek or Egyptian pieces. Look out for Carlo Guiliano's stunning necklace with a mask of Achelous, and a sophisticated 'Greek' bracelet by Carl Fabergé. And for modern tastes there is Elizabeth Treskow's subtle brooch in the form of a fish, made of gold decorated with granulation and set with a sapphire, a pearl and diamonds or, from Japan in the 1990s, Yasuki Hiramatsu's brooch of crumpled gold foil. At the V&A the jewellery is from all ages for all tastes.

Victoria & Albert Museum
Cromwell Road
London
SW7 2RL
UK

Tel.     +44 20 7942 2000
Fax     +44 20 7942 2266
e-mail  infodome@vam.ac.uk
Web    www.vam.ac.uk (Museum)
           www.vandashop.co.uk (Online shop)

Open

Thursday to Tuesday 10 -17.45
Wednesday 10 -22.00
Last Friday of every month 10 -22.00