Jet is an unlikely gemstone, mention the name and images of Victorian mourning dress come to mind. But before Queen Victoria’s long period of grieving, when the wearing of jet became de rigueur at court, jet was already favoured by the Victorians given their penchant for large jewels. With its relative lightness jet could be worn on the required and fashionable grand scale in the form of pendants, cameos and other statement pieces. In contemporary times jet has been championed for the craftsmanship and intricacy seen in vintage pieces – in a recent Financial Times article the American designer Anna Sui enthused about her collection of jet jewellery and credits jet for inspiring the design of the packaging for her line of cosmetics, she states ‘I think that’s really what’s made the brand such a success’.
Once upon a time an organic material, jet, was formed from the remains of wood immersed in stagnant water millions of years ago, compacted and fossilised through the pressure of burial. Whereas coal is created through the fossilisation of an entire forest, and so bears animal, vegetable and mineral remnants, jet is derived from individual logs only. As it remains stable in an oxygen-rich environment, jet is often seen in archaeological finds and faultless examples can be thousands of years old. On the Mohs mineral hardness scale jet ranges from 2.5-4, it’s easy to carve, takes a good polish and is often faceted, however, although it is easy to carve fine details and elaborate carvings rely on the skills of an experienced lapidarist.
Jet in the form of jewellery has been found in pre-historic burial mounds along with other jet objects, whose purpose is less easy to identify although they tend to be found in specific locations within a grave, suggesting that jet perhaps was thought to give protection to the deceased in the afterlife. In the form of necklace beads jet was used throughout the Bronze age but it fell out of fashion in the Iron Age, and then in the 3rd century AD during the Roman occupation it was again popular in jewellery and worked pieces from Britain were sent to Rome. Jet was also used in amulets and pendants during the Roman period, its perceived magical qualities were deployed here in the protection of the wearer. The Vikings wore jet rings and created miniature sculptures of animals in jet, with snakes a popular motif. In Medieval times jet was largely restricted to religious items, notably crosses and rosary beads, and during the era it was thought that water drunk from a jet bowl could assist in childbirth.
Jet can be found in Spain, France, Germany, Poland, India, Turkey, the former USSR, China and the USA, but its most famous historical source is Whitby on the North Yorkshire coast. Much of the jet used in the mourning jewellery of the 19th century originated in Whitby, where it was formed over 181 million years ago during the Toarcian age of the Early Jurassic period – a period of extreme climate change which witnessed the seventh-largest extinction event in geological record. The first Whitby workshops were set up in 1808 and by 1872 up to 1,500 men, women and children were working in the jet industry and over the course of the 19th century the mining and fashioning of jet provided Whitby with the majority of its income. Mining in Whitby took place officially from the 1840s until the 1920s, either along tunnels dug from the sides of cliffs or in vertical shafts excavated from the surface. With an absence of cracks and inclusions jet from Whitby is considered to be the best gem quality resource. Whitby’s jet connections to Queen Victoria can be traced to 1850 when Thomas Andrews of New Quay advertised himself as ‘Jet-Ornament Maker to Her Majesty’ and in the following year, 1851, at the Great Exhibition, the Queen of Bohemia was amongst a number of affluent Europeans to place orders for jet so boosting its profile further.
Jet was at its most popular in the 1870s, but thereafter went into decline and by 1884 the number of jet workers in Whitby had dropped to 300. It is interesting to note that as jet was so popular during the 19th century and demand was extremely strong, other materials were sourced to imitate it. Vulcanite, an early form of rubber is the most well-known and can easily be cast in elaborate forms. Black cast glass is also a jet imitation and is known as ‘French jet’ or ‘Vauxhall glass’.
At the time of her Golden Jubilee in 1887 Queen Victoria had relaxed her mourning and this contributed to the fall in demand for jet, although in 1889 when King Luis of Portugal passed away black dress accessorised with jet were again seen at court. However, fuelled by the failure of jewellery designs to evolve coupled with a change in fashions there was a move away from the use of jet and other black materials. There was a brief reprieve during the Art Deco period which in the 1920s favoured the combination of red and black. This can be seen early on in the poster for the seminal 1925 Paris Exposition – a vibrant woodcut in red and black, depicting a woman in a draped dress, carrying a large basket of flowers over her head, accompanied by a black leaping stag. But, despite this interest in jet continued to wane.
Along with its role in past cultures as revealed in archaeological sites jet makes frequent appearances in reference works and literature. The Venerable Bede in his Ecclesiastical History of the English people, completed in circa 731, when describing the nature of the island states ‘…it has much excellent jet, which is black and sparkling…and when heated, drives away serpents’. In Shakespeare’s Henry VI, Simpcox describes Gloucester’s gown as ‘Black, forsooth, coal-black as jet’, and so the descriptive term ‘jet-black’ has been used ever since.
Today, jet jewels justly occupy a place on the radar of jewellery collectors and aficionados, and fine vintage pieces appear regularly at auction. However, there is no doubt that it is an under-appreciated material, struggling to move on from the sombre context in which it was mostly worn in the 19th century – a resurgence is well earned and due. Its rich hue and deep black lustre work with all other hues and shades and when deployed in bold designs jet makes a unique, strong statement.
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