Luxury for the masses

The last third of the eighteenth century saw base materials increasingly substituted for precious stones and noble metals in jewellery-making. They included polished steel, strass and coloured glass paste. Since jewellery incorporating such materials was not only affordable but also in tune with prevailing fashions, it was popular in all social classes. Jewellery made of cast iron was first used in England shortly after 1800 as mourning jewellery but became fashionable in Germany from 1813 on as an expression of patriotism in the context of the wars of liberation against Napoleon. The fashion was sparked off by the ‘Gold I gave for iron’ appeal to the women of Prussia to exchange their precious jewellery for ironwork jewellery.

The onset of the nineteenth century brought with it increasing democratisation of the jewellery market. Reasonably priced substitute materials, factory-made standardised individual elements and rationalised techniques for making jewellery by machine laid the groundwork for mass production, a flourishing jewellery industry and the development of a consumer society.