Gifts of Grandeur: A Silver and Bone Amulet, c. 1750

Amulet of Silver, Bone and Shell
1750, Germany
The Victoria & Albert Museum

In the days when the same person cut your hair, pulled your teeth and performed surgery, it was pretty much a given that you’d want something on your person to protect you from dangerous illness.  Anything could be a death sentence before modern medicine.  Fevers, splinters, toothaches, and, especially childbirth, all could mean an early end to a life. 

So, amulets were created  by superstitious persons to protect them from…well, everything, but especially the all-encompassing, “evil eye.”  Amulets were often made from organic materials which were thought to have protective powers, stones, jet or horn.  Now, we should point out that the Catholic and Anglican churches frowned on such practices.  Still, did you think that they’d approve? Come on.

Here we see a German amulet of later creation that most.  It dates to the mid Eighteenth Century.  It is comprised of a ring hung with three individual amulets--a bone fist (Neidfeige), with a thumb protruding between the first and second fingers; an operculum shell in a silver setting (Schneckendeckel) which was meant to  generic promote fertility; and a small filigree case (Walburgisbüchse) with the letters S, W and B incorporated into the pattern. The case was meant to hold oil which was called “Walburgis oil.”  Why?   St Walburga was a British missionary to Germany in the 8th century. When she died, her body was buried at Eichstätt, where a liquid (Walburgis oil) was collected from her bones. Yum.  This oil was considered highly effective against all kinds of infection and wounds.

Unfolding Pictures: The Georges Barbier Fan, 1912

Hand Fan
Georges Barbier and Madame Paquin
French, 1911
The Victoria & Albert Museum

Georges Barbier (1882-1932), a celebrated Parisian fashion illustrator of the early Twentieth Century, collaborated with the most avant-garde fashion designers in France at the time. Barbier worked with such famous names as Paul Poiret and Madame Paquin (1869-1936) whose elaborate oriental costumes for the Ballets Russes tremendously influenced fashion in the 1910s.

Madame Paquin and Barbier worked together to design a series of fans on that Eastern theme. This decorated fan of printed and hand-colored paper and hand-painted silk is an example of the collaboration. Looking ahead to the designs which would dominate the Art Deco ideals of the 1920s, the fan features sticks and guards of bone which have been adorned with painted grapes and butterflies. Tassels of mulit-colored silks hanf from the gold rivet. A woman is also depicted. She wears a headdress which is identical to one which was designed by Madame Paquin. When folded, this fan, made in 1911, displays a zig-zag pattern between the guards.  

Unfolding Pictures: The Great Exhibition Fan, 1851

Click image for larger size.

Souvenir Fan from the Great Exhibition
England, 1851
This and all related images from:
The Victoria and Albert Museum

Created in England in 1851, this fan of hand-colored, printed paper and pierced bone sticks and guards inlaid with silver, commemorates the Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All Nations of 1851—a.k.a. Prince Albert big “Look What We Can Do” festival at Joseph Paxton’s ‘Crystal Palace’ in Hyde Park in London.

Fans were not only a major part of the exhibition, but they were also available for sale as souvenirs. This fan was made as a souvenir, but a high-end souvenir. Versions were also made without the silver inlay and with less-expensive wooden sticks and guards.

The reverse of the fan is printed in gilt with vignettes of female silhouettes between various coats-of-arms. The obverse features, in the center, a façade of the Crystal Palace flanked by the flags of participating nations.

Prince Albert, in all of his Coburg cleverness, saw to it that the proceeds of the Great Exhibition were used to purchase a large plot of land which would allow the building of the South Kensington Museum, now the V&A. Furthermore, a large portion of the winning entries in the exhibits were purchased for display in this proposed museum. So, without the Great Exhibition, we’d have no Victoria & Albert Museum. 

Click image for larger size.

Unfolding Pictures: The Georges Barbier Fan, 1912

Hand Fan
Georges Barbier and Madame Paquin
French, 1911
The Victoria & Albert Museum

Georges Barbier (1882-1932), a celebrated Parisian fashion illustrator of the early Twentieth Century, collaborated with the most avant-garde fashion designers in France at the time. Barbier worked with such famous names as Paul Poiret and Madame Paquin (1869-1936) whose elaborate oriental costumes for the Ballets Russes tremendously influenced fashion in the 1910s.

Madame Paquin and Barbier worked together to design a series of fans on that Eastern theme. This decorated fan of printed and hand-colored paper and hand-painted silk is an example of the collaboration. Looking ahead to the designs which would dominate the Art Deco ideals of the 1920s, the fan features sticks and guards of bone which have been adorned with painted grapes and butterflies. Tassels of mulit-colored silks hanf from the gold rivet. A woman is also depicted. She wears a headdress which is identical to one which was designed by Madame Paquin. When folded, this fan, made in 1911, displays a zig-zag pattern between the guards.  

Mastery of Design: A Silver and Bone Amulet, c. 1750

Amulet of Silver, Bone and Shell
1750, Germany
The Victoria & Albert Museum

In the days when the same person cut your hair, pulled your teeth and performed surgery, it was pretty much a given that you’d want something on your person to protect you from dangerous illness.  Anything could be a death sentence before modern medicine.  Fevers, splinters, toothaches, and, especially childbirth, all could mean an early end to a life. 

So, amulets were created  by superstitious persons to protect them from…well, everything, but especially the all-encompassing, “evil eye.”  Amulets were often made from organic materials which were thought to have protective powers, stones, jet or horn.  Now, we should point out that the Catholic and Anglican churches frowned on such practices.  Still, did you think that they’d approve?  Come on.

Here we see a German amulet of later creation that most.  It dates to the mid Eighteenth Century.  It is comprised of a ring hung with three individual amulets--a bone fist (Neidfeige), with a thumb protruding between the first and second fingers; an operculum shell in a silver setting (Schneckendeckel) which was meant to  generic promote fertility; and a small filigree case (Walburgisbüchse) with the letters S, W and B incorporated into the pattern.  The case was meant to hold oil which was called “Walburgis oil.”  Why?   St Walburga was a British missionary to Germany in the 8th century. When she died, her body was buried at Eichstätt, where a liquid (Walburgis oil) was collected from her bones. Yum.  This oil was considered highly effective against all kinds of infection and wounds.