One aspect of the present subject, more attractive perhaps than any other, is that which concerns the representation of personal ornaments in pictures. Scarcely as yet have pictures been fully appreciated from the point of view of their utility to antiquaries or the light they throw upon matters of historical inquiry. The important part which from the fifteenth century onwards they have played in connection with the subject of jewellery is sufficiently attested by the number of times they have already been referred to during the course of the present inquiry. The truth, reality, and accuracy of the artists' work has eminently contributed to the value of these pictures. A sympathetic way of seeing things and reproducing them and a fine feeling for naturalistic detail is characteristic of all the work of the painters of early times, when a strength of realism made its wholesome influence universally felt. Such works, while they display the grandeur and magnificence of former ages and point out the fashions and customs of our ancestors, show in detail not only the bright splendour of patterned draperies in many materials, but also the shimmer of goldsmith's work in the form of a variety of actual ornaments, now for the most part entirely lost. In this way they set before us details unnoticed by chroniclers, and convey clearer ideas than can be attained by reading the most elaborate descriptive inventories. The special capability of the early painters for representing articles of jewellery need merely be alluded to again, seeing the close connection already shown, that always existed between them and the goldsmiths, in whose workshops most of them passed their apprenticeship. Every jewelled ornament figured in their works is, in fact, designed with the full knowledge of a goldsmith versed in his craft. The artists of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries are notorious for the extreme and elaborate minuteness of their painting of jewels. In the portraits of the time careful accuracy in depicting ornaments was the duty, and evidently the delight, of the painter. In every early picture the various details of costume and jewellery are rendered with scrupulous care and refinement. Though placed in the most prominent and decorative positions, jewellery was never, in the best works, allowed to intrude or to occupy an exaggerated place in the composition. For however minutely defined these accessories may be, they are so fused into the general design that they are only apparent if one takes the trouble to look for them.