silverwork, vessels, utensils, jewelry, coinage, and ornamentation made from silver. A brief treatment of silverwork follows. For full treatment, see metalwork.

The oldest silver artifacts date from ancient Sumer about 4000 bce. The scarcity of silver, combined with its softness and malleability, precluded its use for making tools. These same characteristics, however, combined with its brilliant white colour and resistance to oxidation, ensured its prominence in ornamentation and as a major part of the monetary systems of most cultures. Silver is readily worked by nearly all metalworking techniques, including casting, chasing, embossing, engraving, forging, inlaying, and enameling.

In ancient times, especially in Rome, silver was highly prized for the making of plate ware, household utensils, and ornamental work. Silver later lost its position of dominance to gold, but during the Middle Ages it once again became the principal material used for metal artwork in Europe. The similarity between solid gold and gilt silver assured that the less expensive silver would command a large market. Large quantities of silver from the New World also encouraged eager buyers in Europe. The art of silverwork flourished in the Renaissance, finding expression in virtually every imaginable form. Silver was often plated with gold and other decorative materials. Although silver sheets had been used to overlay wood and other metals since ancient Greece, an 18th-century technique of fusing thin silver sheets to copper brought silver goods called Sheffield plate within the reach of most people.

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jewelry, objects of personal adornment prized for the craftsmanship going into their creation and generally for the value of their components as well.

Throughout the centuries and from culture to culture, the materials considered rare and beautiful have ranged from shells, bones, pebbles, tusks, claws, and wood to so-called precious metals, precious and semiprecious stones, pearls, corals, enamels, vitreous pastes, and ceramics. In certain eras artist-craftsmen have sometimes placed less emphasis on the intrinsic value of materials than on their aesthetic function as components contributing to the effect of the whole. Thus, they might fashion a brooch out of steel or plastic rather than gold or platinum. Furthermore, in addition to its decorative function, during much of its history jewelry has also been worn as a sign of social rank—forbidden by sumptuary laws to all but the ruling classes—and as a talisman to avert evil and bring good luck. During the Middle Ages, for example, a ruby ring was thought to bring its owner lands and titles, to bestow virtue, to protect against seduction, and to prevent effervescence in water—but only if worn on the left hand. The famed Claddagh ring, a traditional Irish ring featuring a heart, a crown, and two hands, has long symbolized love, loyalty, and friendship, respectively. According to Irish custom, the ring’s positioning on the hand conveys the wearer’s marital status. It is also called the “friendship ring” or “hands and heart ring.”

Materials and methods

The first materials used to make objects for personal adornment were taken from the animal and vegetable world. The material taken from the animal world, in a natural or processed form, constituted the actual adornment, whereas vegetable fibres served as its support. A great variety of shells and pieces of shell were used during the prehistoric age and are still used in certain island and coastal cultures to make necklaces, bracelets, pendants, and headdresses. In the inland regions the first materials used for personal adornment came from mammoths’ tusks, the horns of reindeer and other animals, and, later on, amber and lignite.

All materials that have been used over the centuries for the manufacture of jewelry have undergone to some extent mechanical, physical, or chemical treatment for the purpose of transforming their raw shapes into shapes that, in addition to being functional, also satisfy certain aesthetic concepts.

Metals

Precious metals and their properties

Of gold’s properties, when it was first discovered (probably in Mesopotamia before 3000 bce), it was the metal’s malleability that was a new phenomenon: only beeswax, when heated to a certain temperature, could be compared to it. Gold’s molecules move and change position in accordance with the stresses to which it is submitted, so that when it is beaten it gains in surface area what it loses in thickness. In modern jewelry, gold can take on a variety of hues when it is alloyed with other metals: water green, white, gray, red, and blue.

After gold, silver is the metal most widely used in jewelry and the most malleable. Although known during the Copper Age, silver made only rare appearances in jewelry before the Classical age. In general, silver was, and still is, used in jewelry for economic reasons or to obtain chromatic effects. It was often used in the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries, however, as support in settings for diamonds and other transparent precious stones, in order to encourage the reflection of light.

Another rare metal, whose use in jewelry is fairly recent, is platinum. From the 19th century onward this metal was used ever more frequently in jewelry because of its white brilliance and malleability, as well as its resistance to acids and its high melting point.

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Modern jewelry, such as that designed by early 20th-century artists, introduced nonprecious metals such as steel.

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