Showstoppers
The MAKK jewellery collection contains a total of sixty-four sets of jewellery, or parures as they are also called in English. The term ‘parure’ is French for ‘necklace’ or ‘matching set of jewels’. The basic constituents of a set of jewellery are a necklace and a pair of matching earrings. The set can be expanded to include a brooch, a pendant, bracelets or other pieces. A demi-parure is a set of matching jewellery without a necklace.
The heyday of the parure was the nineteenth century, when the prosperous middle classes were eager to flaunt their social status in all social contexts. Fashions in clothing also changed early in the century and, concomitantly, the fundamental relationship to jewellery.
Gentlemen wore simple suits in the English style with only a watch chain, a tie pin, cufflinks and a signet ring while ladies dressed more sumptuously. Women were increasingly expected to be decorative and represent their husbands’ social status and wealth through public display. Elaborate sets of jewellery were an important prop in this role play. Ladies changed their clothing and, along with it, their jewellery, to suit the occasion and the time of day.
By 1820 multipiece sets of jewellery had become fashionable, at first in court circles, then among the middle classes, a trend that was international in scope. The most popular parures were those set with flashy, mainly coloured, gemstones such as garnets, topaz, amethysts, aquamarines, turquoise and pearls. The jewellery commissioned by men and women of more modest financial means was made of less valuable materials and was, in part, machine-made.
Most sets of jewellery in the MAKK were made between 1820 and 1850 and were donated to the Museum by Rosy Petrine Sieversen (1914–2001) as part of her extensive jewellery collection. Sieversen, an ardent jewellery connoisseur whose acquisition criteria were decorativeness and the aspect of material value, collected mainly jewellery from the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries made for the middle classes.
