Jewels in Italian Renaissance Paintings

The talk will provide an overview of jewels depicted in Italian female portraits during the 1400s and

the 1500s. Portraits of this period provide an invaluable record of jewellery of the time as little of it

has survived, these paintings clearly illustrate the fashionable types of ornaments and show how the

jewels were worn during this time.

It is interesting to note that during the 1400s the majority of important Florentine painters such as:

Botticelli, Ghirlandaio, Pollaiolo and Verrocchio were trained also as goldsmiths. Their familiarity

with jewelled ornaments inevitably led these artists to depict jewels with great accuracy and

prompted them to depict jewels profusely also in paintings of religious subject matter. The

differences and similarities with jewels depicted in secular images will be explored and explained,

revealing also some hidden secrets.