DIVA Library

jewellery research

DIVA Library

Jewellery research is not just looking at beautiful jewellery, but involves a lot of desk study, too: looking for parallels, tracing provenance, finding out more about cultural context and meaning…Which is why I love books about jewellery just as much as jewellery itself, and so I was thrilled to visit the library of DIVA Antwerp: with 23,000 titles on jewellery, this is an incredibly important resource!

Antwerp has been a center of the diamond trade and expertise for centuries, as well as a major hub for silversmithing and jewellery creation. The DIVA museum showcases that history, serves as knowledge center and is a springboard for young designers. A visit to the museum is a treat in itself: each room is carefully designed with its own look & feel and focuses on one aspect of the diamond and jewellery history. From ancient Egyptian objects and their Art Déco counterparts, Moghul splendor from India and religious objects in silver and gold to shining tableware and dazzling parures, each of the six rooms in the museum has its own theme and stories to share.

And behind it all is an even larger treasure: the library. Here, you will find books on everything jewellery related, from archaeological works to modern designers, cultural significance of jewellery, art historian approaches, and related fields in the applied arts. Special care is given to auction house catalogues and even newspaper clippings that will help identify the provenance of jewellery items. Through these becomes possible to trace the journey of a certain piece through repeated auctions and sales. The emphasis of the collection is on Belgian jewellery, notably silver and diamond, but you will find plenty of books on other jewellery fields and geographical areas, too.

The library does not only house books, but other materials as well. Glass negatives, complete archives of designers and traders, model books, sales registers…the antique design drawings I was shown are works of art on their own. A special treat are the antiquarian volumes on jewellery making, which somehow survived the centuries and contain recipes for soldering, technique descriptions and overviews of gem cutting. All of these are carefully stored in custom made boxes, old drawings and prints are carefully restored, so as to survive the next few centuries as well.

The library is more than a static space filled with books, but is a vibrant knowledge hub. Design students come to find inspiration in the collection, regular talks share the many stories in this library with a larger audience, the reading room offers an airy, bright space to sit and enjoy the volumes of your choice. Whether that is to work on your school project or your dissertation, the librarians are happy to help. I definitely will be spending more time here to discover more!

See more about the museum itself here, and more about the library can be found here. The Instagram account of the library @DIVALibrary is a joy to follow, too!

I was shown around the library as a personal gesture by the librarian, with no obligation to write a blog. I am just enthousiastic about this large research library and wanted to share this treasure with you.

More places to go or books to read about jewellery? Explore my suggestions and reviews here!

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Sigrid van Roode

Sigrid van Roode is an archeologist, ethnographer and jewellery historian. She considers jewellery heritage and a historic source. She has authored several books on jewellery from North Africa and Southwest Asia, and on archaeological jewellery. Sigrid has lectured for the Society of Jewellery Historians, the National Museum of Antiquities in Leiden and the Sultan Qaboos Cultural Center, among many others. She curates exhibitions and teaches online courses on jewellery from North Africa & Southwest Asia.

Alexine Tinne

by dr. Sigrid van Roode | Reviews

photography

Alexine Tinne. Photographer. Her Worldview

Early photography in North Africa and Southwest Asia offers a wealth of information – about the photographed, but also about the photographers. Photographers create images, they capture the world as they see it. They include what they would like observers of their work to see, and exclude what does not fit the perfect image. In doing so, many early photographers constructed an image of ‘the Orient’ that reflects not the region itself, but the view Westerners had of it, as well as the dominance they exerted over its people. Among these early photographers, very few were women. The book Alexine Tinne – Photographer. Her Worldview and the accompanying exhibition present the photographical work of one headstrong Dutch lady who traveled extensively throughout North Africa.

Alexine Tinne is perhaps most famous for her death, after a less than ordinary life: she was killed in an attack on her campsite in Algeria. Born in 1835 in a wealthy Dutch family, she never married, but instead set out to explore the world. Her curiosity had been present at a young age, when she could be found exploring geographical works and maps, learning English, French, Spanish and Arabic – possibly even Tuareg, as she started out to copy a French – Tuareg dictionary by hand. Traveling with her mother to Egypt and Palestine turned into a trip of nearly two years: a trip in which we see her love for exploring and photography piqued.

Photography reveals a great deal about the photographer: personal predilections, and cultural assumptions or worldview. These personal preferences shine through in Alexine Tinne’s work as well. Looking at her photographs in a way is looking through her eyes, framing the world as she wanted it to see. She clearly thought in images and composition, and was very aware of the technical aspects of photography. She learned to correct image distortion and played with framing: I could not help but relate to how she tried out various cutouts of a photo she took in her backyard to create a composition she was satisfied with. Another example is the collage she made of the view from her window in The Hague. To us, used to digital cameras and smartphones with panoramic settings, that may not seem particularly groundbreaking, but in the 19^th century it was. In images like these, Alexine shows us she is not confined by conventional frames or considers herself limited by technical (im)possibilities. This is someone who literally thinks out of the box.

So, what happens when someone like that sets sail for North Africa? There are not all that much photographs left of her journeys, but those that do survive, are telling. Here, we see her world view change. Photography in North Africa and Southwest Asia in this timeframe was practiced by cultural outsiders with a colonial interest. As a result, the image they created of ‘the Orient’ reflected a worldview of dominance by Europeans and subservience by the colonized. Alexine’s first images fit right in that view, but after a while, they change. This change is discussed in detail in the last chapter of the book. Looking at some of her photographs, I got the impression she did not take photographs to send back home to serve an audience: she seems to have made them as mementos for herself. This is particularly visible in the photos she had made of damage after a devastating storm in Algeria: these are not constructing an idealized view, but showing a heartbreaking reality. The series of carte de visite portraits that she had made of her travel companions provides another view of how she perceived her world. Over the years, she had assembled a widely varied group of people around her, from North Africa and Europe alike. Now these portraits in the late 19^th century were usually made by wealthy families (photography was expensive!) and included only family members, not people considered to be of a lower social status. Alexine had them made of everyone. In group photos as well, she included all her travel companions as equals: it may be my imagination, but on some of these everyone looks equally bored to be standing outside in the heat for yet another time-consuming posing session. Many of her travel companions are known by name, and you will come to recognize them on the photos as you read on. I appreciated how the book does not portray Alexine Tinne as an enlightened white saviour. Instead, the authors carefully place her work in its cultural context and then proceed to point us to tiny differences that reveal her worldview was considerably more inclusive than that of many of her peers. To be clear: that is not inclusivity as we would expect it today, but it is definitely different from the majority of 19^th century photographers.

The book itself is in a large, square format. In 8 chapters, the authors place Alexine’s photographs in their cultural and technical context by including many photographs by other photographers for comparison. We see how her first journey to Egypt influenced her photography skills, and how she further honed these in The Hague before setting sail for Africa. At the beginning and end of the book an art photography project by Dagmar van Weeghel is presented, who photographs individuals in the style of Tinne. All photographs are shown against a black background, as if flipping through a photo album. I loved the generous size of the photos, which allows the reader to really look and compare. A peculiar aspect of the book is that it has no page numbers. I’m not sure whether that is a consequence of its lay-out as a photo album, but it does make quoting or referring to pages challenging. Also, not all captions can be related to corresponding photographs, as the captions are numbered but the photographs themselves aren’t. The one real drawback though are the small slip-ups throughout the book. Some captions are incorrect or contain misspellings (photograph 135 for example is labeled as Thebes, but depicting a cataract near Aswan; photograph 155 is a date seller, not a dade seller), some book titles are misspelled, the mention of Alexine and her mother traveling from Luxor to the Black Sea and back in a fortnight likely refers to the Red Sea instead, and so on.

I really enjoyed this book for its thoughtful approach of the photographical work by a remarkable woman in a timeframe where women generally did not travel or photograph. Old photos are shown once again to reveal much more than just an image: the authors show us how both a person and a worldview emerge if we know where and how to look. A valuable addition to your bookshelf!

Alexine Tinne, Photographer. Her worldview. by Maartje van den Heuvel (ed). WBOOKS, 2021

Full-colour, bilingual in Dutch/English. Available with the publisher, the Haags Historisch Museum and online.

The book was received as review copy from the publisher.

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Sigrid van Roode

Juifs du Maroc

by dr. Sigrid van Roode | Reviews

Juifs du Maroc

photography

jean besancenot

Juifs du Maroc

One of the photographers whose work is widely circulated in the jewellery world is Jean Besancenot. His portraits of men and women from Morocco are featured both on the Internet and in books, as they provide detailed insight into how dress and adornment were worn. The Musée d’art et d’histoire du Judaisme in Paris has selected a variety of his photographs for their exhibition Juifs du Maroc – Photographies de Jean Besancenot 1934 – 1937. Unfortunately, I have not been able to admire the exhibition itself, but the accompanying publication is a delight.

The main asset of this book, besides the photographs themselves of course, is that it provides personal and historical context to the photographs. This is very valuable, as photographs often circulate in a vacuum and the who, what and why of their background is not always presented. This concise book combines the photographs with original notes from the photographer. These are taken from his 1988 publication Costumes du Maroc as well as from his notes that are kept in the Institut du Monde Arabe in Paris. Additionally, essays from various other authors provide context to the photographer as well as the world he was photographing. A personal account of the daughter of one of the young men portraited relates how she discovered it was her father – throughout the book the names of the persons portraited are given where possible. An essay about costume and dress along with a glossary complete this exploration into Jewish dress in Morocco.

The photographs themselves are subdivided into several regional areas. First, the cities are presented, followed by inhabitants of the Souss region, the Todhra and Dades Valleys, the region around Tafafilet and finally the Draa Valley. Each photograph is presented with an excerpt from his notes, detailing dress and jewellery items or presenting general observations. We learn for example how Jewish women would use the same facial designs as their Amazigh neighbours, because they shared the same local beliefs; the difference being that Jewish women did not tattoo these signs but painted them on with the paint mixture known as harqus (p. 62 and 108).

This book is not a complete overview of dress and adornment of the Jewish population in Morocco, and is not intended as such. Rather, it offers glimpses of this world through the photographs. By reading the captions and short descriptions with the pictures, you’ll learn a great deal about the names of items of dress and adornment and the occasions on which certain items would have been worn. Through the captions, we also get an idea of what the photographer wanted to convey. Many photographs are indeed posed portraits, but unlike the staged studio portraits we also encounter in North Africa: here, the ladies themselves showed the photographer how a certain dress was worn and what jewellery it would be paired with. Occasionally, the photographer himself orchestrated a picture, like the group photo of several ladies from Tahala (p. 51). His reason for this group photo was to show the abundance and similarities of jewellery worn. The context given about the motives of both photographer and photographed allows us to place the result in more context.

What I liked most about this book, apart from the amount of information it provides, is the incidental candid snapshot. As most of the photographs are portraits, the persons in them clearly pose: eyes downcast and posing with the static awkwardness we all feel when asked to stand still for a picture. But a few photos break this mould: a glance upwards in a synagogue courtyard where a few boys are sitting, a woman pouring water from a container, a radiant smile…

This is a book you will want to add to your bookshelf!

Juifs du Maroc. Photographies de Jean Besancenot, 1934-1937. 159 pp, black & white with a few colour plates, in French. Available through the super helpful shop of the Musée d’art et de l’histoire de Judaisme, Paris.

The book was purchased from the museum.

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Sigrid van Roode

Costumes of Saudi Arabia

by dr. Sigrid van Roode | Reviews

dress collection

Traditional Costumes of Saudi Arabia

Finally, a book about traditional dress in Saudi Arabia! The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is a relatively closed world. Its rich heritage in dress and adornment is not all that well known outside the region. The Mansoojat Foundation has assembled a large collection of traditional dress over the years, which is now published in the colourful volume Traditional Costumes of Saudi Arabia.

The book is based on the collection itself. Although it clearly states in the introduction that the book is not meant as an exhaustive and complete discussion of traditional dress in Saudi Arabia, it certainly is not limited but offers a very wide introduction into various tribes and regions. It does not contain a contemporary map though, so you’ll have to look elsewhere to find where the tribes and cities mentioned are located. The book also does not contain references or a bibliography. That having been said: there is much to see in this book!

The book is a cooperation of 9 authors and 3 editors, so as to make sure each region or tribe is discussed by a specialist best versed in that area. This results in a recognizable style for each author: some chapters are longer and more detailed than others, but each of the chapters provides background information on the tribe or region presented. And each chapter is such a visual feast: the dress items in the collection are shown from several angles and not limited to a front view, which I find very informative. Even more informative are the sections where the order in which items of clothing are put on, are illustrated. This provides the reader with a detailed understanding of how the various elements function, such as the six elements that form the headdress of women of the Bani Sa’ad tribe. I enjoyed the line drawings and diagrams of costume schemes, as these greatly add to understanding complex items of dress.

All of the chapters are lavishly illustrated, not just with the costumes in the collection but also with landscape photographs, views of architecture, scenes of daily life and historical photographs. As there is no page without a photograph, this full colour book is as much an introduction into Saudi Arabia itself as in its costumes. A valuable glossary in the back explains clothing terms and names as well as fabrics and decoration techniques. Where possible, the accompanying jewellery has been included as well. This is also most informative: for example, the well-known rings with granulation and coral or glass beads, as they are also worn in Yemen and Ethiopia, are shown as part of the headdress of a woman of the Yam tribe: a great illustration of how closely connected dress and jewellery are! The names of jewellery items themselves are only presented in very few instances, but seeing them worn provides them with much needed context.

Traditional Costumes of Saudi Arabia is the only one of its kind in its coverage, illustrations and background information that is readily and widely available: you will want to add this to your bookshelf! A beautiful publication that introduces the colourful world of dress in Saudi Arabia: the preface expresses the hope that this book will form an important introduction to the costumes and heritage of Saudi Arabia, and I’d say that that has definitely succeeded.

Traditional Costumes of Saudi Arabia. The Mansoojat Foundation Collection. Edited by Lamya F. Algharib, Hamida Alireza and Richard Wilding. ACC Art Books, 2021. 320 pages, full colour. In English

Available with the Mansoojat Foundation, the publisher, and online stores such as Amazon.

The book was purchased through bol.com.

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Sigrid van Roode

Early Photography Portraits

by dr. Sigrid van Roode | Opinion

an unreliable source

Early photography portraits of the Middle East

Updated Jan 11, 2024

Don’t you just love those old photos of women wearing jewellery? Many collectors search for these and use them to get an idea of how jewellery was worn. But there are some serious considerations to take into account with these photos: you can’t take them at face value.

Staged studio photographs

The thing with old portraits is that in almost all cases they have been staged. Early photographic equipment was heavy and cumbersome: you couldn’t snap a candid picture like we are used to nowadays, the subject had to stay really still.

Buildings and landscapes are better at that than people, so these form a large part of early photos.⁠ For people, photographers would have their own studio and their own props, and they could create photographs of people dressed in just about anything that they believed would sell.

And that is an important aspect of early photography: the point of view from which these photos were taken.

Early photography: creating the ‘Orient’

Early photography very often served to create an image of ‘the Orient’ to send back home. Of course, this new art was also used in documentation like for example of archaeological sites and monuments, but documenting more often than not switched to creating when contemporary life was photographed.

What was photographed had to fit into a specific framework: idyllic scenes in the countryside ‘like it had been in Biblical times’, and studio photography of men and women at their most ‘Oriental’. This included strangely misplaced clothing and sometimes complete nudity, as well as unnatural poses.⁠ Life as it actually happened was rarely photographed.⁠

Old photographs therefore are not neutral sources of information: we always need to be aware of the intent with and purpose for which they were taken. The photograph shown above was taken by Jean Besancenot in Morocco, and is more reliable than for example images from photo studios operating in the main cities.

Constructing the Orient: modern media

But is that misrepresentation a thing of the past? Sadly, no. In this digital age, photographs circulate faster and wider than ever before.

Social media platforms like Instagram and Pinterest are picture-based entirely and a quick search will get you dozens of image results. The context that goes with these however often does not come along, and as a consequence misinformation and misrepresentations are repeated again and again. It’s why I started this blog, as I wrote about here.

With the availability of photography for virtually everyone, paired with the slow disappearance of traditional dress and adornment, we enter a new era of constructed images.

Again, mashups of dress and adornment are created, photographed and circulated widely with just one click of a mouse. The photo shown above is an example for such a mashup: the headdress and face veil are not worn together like this, as they belong to two different social groups.

How to observe early portrait photos from the Middle East

Here are three points to consider when looking at old photographs of women wearing jewellery.

First of all, don’t take them at face value immediately but have a close look at what you actually see. Is it a studio photograph? Is the photographed person (semi-) nude? Is the photo part of a series, recognizable by captions like ‘scènes & types’? These are all indicators for posed and constructed photography. Postcards in particular are notoriously posed and in some cases a far cry from reality.

A second point is to look for other work by the same photographer: there is a difference between the well-known photo studios in large towns, and photographers associated with for example archaeological or military expeditions.Who was the photographer? What else did he (it was almost always a he, see for a remarkable exception this blog) photograph?

Thirdly, see what information, if any, you can dig up about the photograph itself. Especially with photographs found online, see what information comes with it: not every ‘Bedouin bride’ or ‘Woman in traditional clothing’ is identified accurately. As mislabeled info is often copied many times over (see more about that here), this may take some searching, but using the search feature for comparable images it may in some cases be possible to find a source with more information.

Taking the time to form an opinion about the trustworthiness of a photograph as visual source will help you gain a better understanding of the jewellery and dress you’re researching.

Early portrait photos and jewellery: what we can learn

Is there anything we can learn with certainty from early portrait photographs, regarding jewellery? Well, yes: we can observe which jewellery items were in existence at the time of photographing.

Even if they are props and used randomly (you’d be surprised to see how many necklaces ended up as headdresses, just because it looks so exotic), logic dictates they were available when the picture was taken.

This provides us with a timeframe: ‘this type of jewel existed as early as…’, and to some extent an idea of clothing. These pieces of information can then be used again to contribute to the actual story of the photographed people as they really were, instead of how the photographer invented them to be.⁠

And that’s the story jewellery research aims to bring back to life!

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References

I have written this blog post from a perspective of photography as resource for jewellery studies and not as a discussion of early photography itself. This field is widely explored by scholars from a variety of angles. Here are a few starting points:

The essays in the Postcard Women’s Imaginarium are a very important contribution by contemporary artists and scholars to the interpretation of Orientalist postcards.

Tied in to the inventing and constructing of photographs is the power balance between the (foreign) photographer and the photographed. The Civil Contract of Photography by Ariella Azoulay explores these ethical aspects in depth. The video A Snapshot of Empire: the racist legacy of colonial postcards shows how these pre-staged photographs continue to influence our view today: watching these 8 minutes is highly recommended!

Local photography is discussed in Ritter and Scheiwiller (eds), The Indigenous Lens? Early Photography in the Near and Middle East (Berlin 2018), of which the introductory chapter can be read here.

A selection of sources for historical photographs of the Middle East can be found here and here.

Would you like to quote this article? Please do! Here’s how:

S. van Roode, [write the title as you see it above this post], published on the Bedouin Silver website [paste the exact link to this article], accessed on [the date you are reading this article and decided it was useful for you].

Sigrid van Roode

Sigrid van Roode is an archeologist, ethnographer and jewellery historian. Her main field of expertise is jewellery from North Africa and Southwest Asia, as well as archaeological and archaeological revival jewellery. She has authored several books on jewellery. Sigrid has lectured for the National Museum of Antiquities in Leiden, Turquoise Mountain Jordan, and many others. She provides consultancy and research on jewellery collections for both museums and private collections, teaches courses and curates exhibitions. She is not involved in the business of buying and selling jewellery, and focuses on research, knowledge production, and education only.

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