During the middle and latter part of the 1800's, there were major archaeological projects all over the classical world, including Rome and the Italian peninsula. The beauty and craftsmanship of Etruscan jewelry had gone largely unnoticed and unacknowledged after 500 AD, until this time. These archaeological projects, and the wealth of artifacts and jewelry they uncovered, sparked the public's imagination, triggering Revival Styles in architecture, art, fashion and jewelry. Etruscan jewelry experience revival styles in the late 1800's, the 1920's, the 1950's and the 1980's.

The Butterfly Necklace pictured below is an Etruscan Revival Piece from the 20th century. Like the pieces associated with all Revival Styles, there was a tendency to copy original Etruscan jewelry components, and not to contemporize them.

This piece above is no exception. The gold butterfly components have hammered out details (repousse). The necklace is an assemblage of similar components, symmetrically arranged.

With my contemporized Butterfly Bracelet interpretation of this Etruscan piece, I've used bead weaving techniques (brick stitch and peyote stitch), some simple wire working and bead stringing assembling. Here I work with components, their coloration and dimensionality, and the arrangement of these components to create a more contemporary stylistic sensibility. In the contemporized vein, we want to add some sense of non-linearity, dimensionality, more complex use of color, more intricate techniques, more sensitivity to the body’s shape and movement.

In the Contemporizing Traditional Jewelry: Etruscan Butterfly Bracelet project...