Tag Archive | Scandinavian jewellery

Bobbly rings

I’ve long had a thing for granulation in silver jewellery, and I love orbs, balls, spheres, domes, bobbles and bubbles in all their forms. So it’s no surprise that I have a few bobbly rings in my Etsy shop right now:

NE From Danish sterling silver bypass bobble ring. For sale in my Etsy shop, Inglenookery: click photo for details. (NOW SOLD).

Modernist Finnish sterling silver bobble bypass ring. For sale in my Etsy shop: click on photo for details. (NOW SOLD).

Swedish modernist ring, imported to London in 1970. This one has a little silver ball inside that tinkles around. For sale in my Etsy shop: click on photo for details. (NOW SOLD).

1970 brutalist Finnish 930 silver ring by Valon Kulta & Hopea of Turku, Finland. Love the granulation on this! For sale in my Etsy shop: click on photo for details. (NOW SOLD.)

Bengt Hallberg (Sweden) sterling silver bypass ring. For sale in my Etsy shop: click on photo for details.

Modernist sterling silver ring in a Georg Jensen style. For sale in my Etsy shop: click on photo for details. (NOW SOLD).

1960s sterling silver jester ring by Anna Greta Eker. Eker was Finnish but worked in Norway, and is regarded as one of the greats of Scandinavian/Nordic silver design.

NE From sterling silver ring. For sale in my Etsy shop, Inglenookery. Click on photo for details. (NOW SOLD).

1950s sterling silver ring by John Lauritzen of Copenhagen. For sale in my Etsy shop, Inglenookery: click on photos for details.

Here’s an earlier post with a few more granulated pieces I’ve since sold, plus an interesting video showing how the bobbles are made.

The Viking bird pendant from Hattula, Finland

I recently got this fab vintage piece for my Etsy shop, with its goofy face and its jiggly, dangly legs, and tried to find a bit more about it.

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The bronze bird pendant necklace by Kalevala Koru, based on a silver Viking bird pendant from Hattula, Finland. For sale in my Etsy shop: click on photo for details. (NOW SOLD).

I knew it was made by the Finnish jewellery firm of Kalevala Koru of Helsinki, one of the largest jewellery firms in Finland, and a further google truffle told me it was designed by Kimmo Virkkunen. I also learned that it was based on a late Viking-era hoard find. My ears pricked up. I love me a hoard.

Here’s the original on which the modern iteration is based:

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The Viking-era original sheet silver pendant. Note it doesn’t have any legs.

The caption in Finnish on the National Board of Antiquities webpage translates as ‘The bird-shaped pendant in silver is decorated with filigree. The pendant is part of a silver treasure found in Luurila in Hattula’.

A further google truffle tells me that the hoard was found in a field, part of a farm called Luurila in the municipality of Hattula in south-central Finland, near the village of Pelkola. The farm is on the south-west shore of Lake Renkojärvi. It is thought that the hoard was originally buried in a leather bag or some other container that had disintegrated; the ploughing of the field had spread the contents over an area of about 25 m². In 1906, after a few coins and a pendant had been found in the field, the site was excavated by the National Museum, and produced a significant number of finds.

The pendant dates from between 800-1025 AD, and the hoard was buried around 1040 AD. The hoard comprised silver necklets, pendants, and strap mounts, carnelian and glass beads, and 126 silver coins, including Anglo-Saxon ones from England and Byzantine ones with Kufic Arabic. The coins allowed the date of deposition of the hoard to be established to a very close date.

The pendant is made of sheet silver, with a filigree decoration. The bird’s legs are missing, but the suspension loop from which they presumably would have hung survives. The modern version by Kalevala Koru gives the bird the long, webbed feet of a waterfowl. Given the preponderance of lakes and inland waterways in Finland (there are over 55,000 lakes there, according to Wikipedia, which rather knock the 4,000 holes in Blackburn, Lancashire into a cocked hat), and the shape of the bird’s body, this does not seem like an unreasonable interpretation. It reminds me of a coot (Fulica atra) or a moorhen (Gallinula chloropus):

A coot ( Photo by Marcus Rowland.

A coot. Photo by Marcus Rowland.

Moorhen (Gallinula chloropus). Photo by Tony Hisgett.

Moorhen (Gallinula chloropus). Photo by Tony Hisgett.

but as the moorhen doesn’t have webbed feet I guess the Kalevala Koru one at least can’t be that.

Most of the information on the hoard in this post comes from Anglo-Saxon Coins Found in Finland by C.A. Nordman, published in Helsingfors in 1921 and which has been digitised and made available on the web by the University of Illinois as part of its Brittle Books Project. Hurrah for UIUC!

Scandinavian silver

UPDATE May 2017: For Scandinavian silver pieces currently in my Etsy shop, please click here.

I seem to be sourcing more and more pieces of 20th century Scandinavian silver jewellery for my shop. I started off with the idea of stocking early 20th century pieces – English Arts and Crafts, Germanic Jugendstil and Nordic Skønvirke jewellery, but gradually my eye was drawn towards the sleek, minimalist lines of mid century Scandinavian modernist jewellery as well. 

A selection of Scandinavian jewellery. Click on photo for details.

A few of the pieces of Scandinavian jewellery for sale in my Etsy shop. Click on photo to see my current selection of Scandinavian jewellery and silver objects. 

At the moment I have 40 pieces of Scandinavian silver for sale in my Etsy shop, and more to come that I haven’t got round to listing yet!

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Scandinavian 3

Coming up roses

I’ve just realised I seem to have a lot of rose jewellery in my shop at the moment. This is totally unintentionalI think I must have have a subconscious thing for the little beauties!

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Grann & Laglye Skønvirke malachite and silver brooch. For sale in my Etsy shop: click on photo for details.

From Denmark, I have a beautiful Grann & Laglye Skønvirke malachite and silver brooch with a rose border. Skønvirke (meaning ‘beautiful work’, and which is often anglicised to Skonvirke) was a development of the Art Nouveau and Arts and Crafts movements as developed in the Scandinavian countries of Denmark, Sweden and Norway. Grann & Lagyle was founded in 1906 in Copenhagen, Denmark by Jalhannes Lauritz Grann (18851945) and Johannes Laglye (1878?). The firm finally closed in 1955.

Also Scandinavian, probably from Denmark, and from the same period I have a lovely Skønvirke pendant with a rose design:

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Scandinavian, probably Danish Skonvirke rose pendant and chain. For sale in my Etsy shop: click on photo for details. (NOW SOLD).

I also have an Art Nouveau style ring with a lovely rose design, made by Chritsoph Widmann of Pforzheim, Germany. This design is known as the Hildesheimer Rose, and is named after the wild or dog rose (Rosa canina) that grows up the walls of Hildesheim Cathedral in Germany. This famous rose is said to be over a thousand years old.

Art Nouveau style 835 silver ring by Christoph Widmann of Pforzheim, Germany, with a Hildesheimer Rose design. For sale in my Etsy shop: click on photo for details.

Art Nouveau style 800 silver ring by Christoph Widmann of Pforzheim, Germany, with a Hildesheimer Rose design. For sale in my Etsy shop: click on photo for details.

I also have a socking great modernist silver tone metal pendant with a rose design (well, I say roseit just as easily could be a camellia or a gardenia or similar). This takes some wearing, as it weighs almost 20 g.

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Big silver tone metal rose pendant. For sale in my Etsy shop: click on photo for details. (NOW SOLD).

And finally I also have a Malcolm Gray Ortak sterling silver and enamel brooch, with a design inspired by Charles Rennie Mackintosh and featuring a Glasgow Rose.

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Malcolm Gray Ortak sterling silver and pink enamel Glasgow Rose brooch, inspired by the designs of Charles Rennie Mackintosh. For sale in my Etsy shop: click on photo for details. (NOW SOLD).

And to go with the jewellery roses, here are a few flowery beauties that I have photographed:

Madame Hardy, in our garden, June 2006.

Rosa ‘Madame Hardy’, in our garden, June 2006. This beautiful damask rose has a tiny green button at the centre of the white flowers.

Rosa 'Climbing Souvenir de la Malmaison' in our garden, June 2006. The buds of this spoil very easily in the rain.

Rosa ‘Climbing Souvenir de la Malmaison’ in our garden, June 2006. The buds of this spoil very easily in the rain.

And again, in June 2007.

And again, in June 2007.  Rosa ‘Climbing Souvenir de la Malmaison’ is a climbing bourbon rose.

Rosa 'Constance Spry' growing up an apple tree in my sister's garden in Devon.

Rosa ‘Constance Spry’ growing up an apple tree in my sister’s garden in Devon. This is a climbing shrub rose with gaudy pink flowers of the most gorgeous cupped shape.

and here’s a photo of the Hildersheimer Rose growing against the wall of the apse of Hildesheim Cathedral:

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