Where do you source your treasures?
Which museums and collections are your favourites?
Which books would you reccommend?
Where have your travels taken you?
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Where do you source your treasures?
Which museums and collections are your favourites?
Which books would you reccommend?
Where have your travels taken you?
You need to be a member of Ethnic Jewels to add comments!
Replies
Hi everybody! I´m very happy to have found this blog with people sharing the love for ethnic jewels.
I´m a pyschologist, but my main interest is ethnicities, arab and jewish the most. My love for learning semitic languages took me to Yemen seven years ago. It was one of the most fantastic experiencies I´ve had. The discovery of bedouin jewels, jewish filigree and arab amulets lead me to be here now. I run a website where I post articles and some of the beauties I find every time I go to Yemen. www.arabiafelixjewels.com . You can find me on Ebay too with the same name.
At the moment I´m also interested on Turkoman jewels, love their design.
My next trip will take me to Tiznit in Morocco at the end of this month, I would like to find some berber jewels.
Hope to learn a bit more of ethnic jewels with you all!
Verónica.
Hi Patricia!
Nice to hear from you. Yes of course, I remember you have bought some beautiful yemeni rings with coral.
So you like central Asia pieces, I think they are really gorgeous.
Your trip to Morocco for beads and jewels sounds great! I will be going next week to the south Morocco, hope to find some beauties there. Thanks for your tips about jewish work.
I´ll be enjoying looking at the jewels on this forum, you know I already saw some Uzbek necklaces from Linda Pastorino and they are to die for!
Regards, V.
Dear all, finally some time to write a little more...
I started collecting when I lived in Egypt during my study in Egyptology, some 15 years ago. As part of the curriculum of our university a semester in Egypt was obligatory, and that is where I first noticed traditional jewelry in silver shops. The first years I could easily pick up beautiful objects in Cairo, Luxor and Aswan when I was in Egypt for fieldwork, but the amount of available objects has steadily diminished over the years and prices have gone up, a development I am sure you all will have noticed in your areas of interest as well.
As for books I completely agree with Linda: I collect books as well as jewelry. I have listed some of my favourite books here, but have not gotten around to list them all...yet. I have traveled mostly in Egypt for my work as an Egyptologist, and other opportunities have taken me to Jordan, Oman, Qatar and Iran as well. Every time I find so much joy in spotting jewelry: being worn, on display, being sold, being made...and I hope for many more of these times to come!
I have searched and selected by the stories my items that I would teach. I am a Ph.D. in History and worked 5 years as a cultural mediator. The stories he told me he saw them reflected in folk art in tribal jewelry.
I began to search for objects and stories and I'm still here.
My favorite museums are the ones closest to the sites souks.
I don't reccommend books: images in internet an encyclopedia.
Confirm the theory or rectify about the peoples. They have the items: they have the power. Value theory.
I love this.
Hi Howah,
Thanks for this insight into you interests, and a big welcome to the Forum.
You will find that Patti Deany has a wonderful collection of Uzbek, Turkoman and Moroccan pieces to name but a few! You can see pics of some of her pieces here. https://ethnicjewels.ning.com/photo/photo/listForContributor?screenN...
I myself am a devotee of Moroccan travel, and seek Berber and Tuareg treasures. I love the Turkoman pieces too, but still feel I have much to learn in my chosen regions, and continue to study there! I travel frequently in Morocco, and organise visits there for collectors. I am currently involved in a Museum project in Morocco.
Thanks for sharing your interests with us , I look forward to seeing pics of your treasures and hearing tales of your travels.
Warm wishes
Sarah
dear fellow collectors,
I first became interested in ethnic jewellery in 2002 after reading an article in a magazine about an exhibition on ethnic jewellery in my hometown. I had already developed a fondness for oriental art the year before when I was studying and doing an internship in Beijing, china.
In the article were a.o. 2 images of very striking pieces that triggered my interest; A turkoman heart shaped breast ornament and a turkoman crown. The crown looked like something that would have belonged to a exotic alien queen. I am a sci fi fan, haha…
So I decided to go to the exhibition with a friend and I have been hooked on ethnic jewellery and art ever since. A few months later I went traveling with another friend to china and bought my first jewellery pieces at the antique market in beijing. Those were cheap newly made pieces of the miao minority, but I loved those.
i try to buy the stuff at the place of origin but the internet is a wonderful place too. In the Netherlands the best city to find ethnic jewellery is probably Amsterdam. I have a dealer in Beijing who has nice Chinese minority stuff for reasonable prices and the antique market in Beijing has stuff from all over china. You can find genuine old Tibetan, Chinese, Mongolian jewellery if you look carefully, but cheap they are not.
I have some of the standard books on ethnic jewellery and some harder to find written in Chinese and I love to search on the internet for photos of people in traditional ethnic dress and jewellery. i know there is a museum in south korea that is specialised in jewellery. unfortunately, i do not have the details.
I would like to do more traveling and so far the exotic travels have brought me to china, Malaysia, Singapore, turkey. The grand bazaar in Istanbul is actually a good place for central asian jewellery. You can find lots of (expensive) turkoman and uzbek jewellery at the shops in the grand bazaar.
In the near future I would love to go to Uzbekistan, morocco and ladakh.
What a wonderful background to have!.
Linda Pastorino said:
I do not find any museums having broad good selections. From what I have seen I would either say the Russian museums with many having excellent rare specimens as well as some of the Mongolian holdings in either Beijing and or Ulan Bator. I know of private collections I work with that have incredible holdings but for the time being they are very private.
I think if one is a serious collector having a good library is essential. I have about three thousand books so I would say that I collect books as well as jewelry and antiques! If you ask me in each collecting area of jewelry which are the best titles I could suggest and prepair a list however there are many that are really specific. As far as quality and breadth of material I think the series highlighting Collete and Jean Pierre Ghysel's collection (a series of books as well as the first one The Splendor of Ethnic Jewelry) is a good start to the understanding of quality. As far as information and backround to each type of jewelry there are many specific titles.
I have traveled all over Europe but spending years living in India, traveling to Ladakh, Sikhim and Nepal really influenced me in my understanding of the anthropology of the people making things. I have traveled to China also, but mostly for buying. I would say my interest in jewerly is equal to my interest in the ethnography of culture which helps me identify oddities in particular groups which I find really important for myself, not as much for the clients. I was a jeweler when I was younger so technology is also important and the way things are made and through this interest I have an ability to determin period of manufacture.
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