Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, November, 1880Various
History
Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, November, 1880
Various
Literature, Modern -- 19th century -- Periodicals; Science -- Periodicals
If this people carried such arms, what must their jewelry be? An
answer is found in the museum. We again find jade set with emeralds
and rubies. From Trichinopoly are gold chains of the snake pattern so
finely wrought that the scales are almost invisible, and the chain
doubles like thread, or chains and bracelets of rose open-work, most
minute and beautiful. From Madras and Delhi comes granulated gold
made into ear-drops or set as bosses in open-work. About everything
there is a lightness as far removed as possible from Western ideas of
handsome solidity and valuable weight. In the museum a model stands for
the purpose of showing how the woman of India wears jewelry. She has
not only "rings on her fingers and bells on her toes," but in nose and
ears, on her hand, dropping over her bosom, round her arms and waist,
and loading her ankles, are stringed gems and hoops of gold.
Akin to the jewelry is the gold and silver plate. The cup, or Buddhist
relic-casket, already mentioned, is interesting as being one of the
oldest examples found in India, and its age, about two thousand years,
only tells how much India art-work in the precious metals has been
destroyed or lost. There are many excellent examples of the parcel-gilt
work of Cashmere, and one shrine-screen of silver, pierced and
repoussée, is exceptionally fine in design and treatment. There are
tinned brass vessels with incised decorations, sculptured vessels of
brass, brass incrusted with copper and copper incrusted with silver,
but which can be called the baser and which the richer metals when
all assume shapes of such wondrous beauty as the _lotas_ and _sarais_,
and are decorated with designs so pleasing and with a skill so perfect
with damascened work, incrustations or enamel? The metal excipient is
forgotten in the art. The enamelled huku-stand in the illustration
belongs to the best Mogul period of transparent enamelling, and is
painted in green and blue enamels. At Jaipur red, blue and green
enamels are laid upon pure gold, and the richness and brilliancy of the
result have raised the enamels of that place to the first rank among
those of all the East.
Here our round of inspection may close, and as the doors shut behind us
a remarkable fact presents itself: that in no branch of industrial art,
either in metal-work, weaving or carving, can the science of Europe
cope with the plodding industry of the East.
JENNIE J. YOUNG.
ADAM AND EVE.
CHAPTER XXXIII.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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