19:00 - 2005-04-04
Week 32: Sir Alfred and the Illingworth Necklace
Week 32: Sir Alfred and the Illingworth Necklace
This week's theme is "Freeform".
My inspiration for this week's project was Sir Alfred Gilbert (1854-1934), arguably the original "wire sculptor" of the modern era. He is most famous for his memorial fountain to the Earl of Shaftesbury in Piccadilly Circus, London.
He is principally known as a sculptor, but also dabbled in making jewellery, and is considered by many to be one of the more forward-thinking jewellers of his time. Using wire and a combination of casting techniques, he made some magnificent pieces of chain work, notably the Presidental Chain for the Royal Institute of Painters in Watercolour, and the Illingworth Necklace (no photos available online :-( ). Unfortunately, working quickly was not his strong suit. The Illingworth Necklace took six years to complete - and that was speedy by Gilbert standards!
What is amazing is that looking at the photos of his jewellery today, you'd think they were made by a modern wire artist.
The only artist who comes anywhere close to replicating Gilbert's style is Jon Goode of Goode Wrapps and his work is much more dense than Gilbert's. Actually, now that I'm looking at Goode's work again, I see similarities to the work of Isaac of NattyWraps.
Anyways... I'm getting off topic .
I have a photo of the Illingworth necklace in my Wire Jewellery History file from when I gave a lecture to the Toronto Bead Society a couple of years ago. The theme for this week made me pull out the file again, and have another look at the necklace.
I wanted to try creating a series of links similar to those in the necklace. The idea was to make the links similar enough to each other so that the necklace worked as an overall piece, but each link would be completely different.
A couple of close-ups:
The centre piece:
The clasp:
It's been quite a while since I've made a complex necklace. I stopped making necklaces like this (i.e. "dramatic" evening wear type pieces) because they don't sell. But I enjoyed making this immensely.
As it happened, two of the links ended up being almost perfect mirror images of each other. I'm half considering taking them out of the chain and making a pair of earrings, since the chances of me replicating a mirror pair on purpose are next to nil!
