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With the transfer of the imperial capital to Constantinople, the
centre of gravity of not only the administration but also of
artistic development moved to the East. Specific changes tookplace and, in art in particular, these led to an aesthetic
displaying obvious Hellenistic influences and with ancient
roots in the eastern Mediterranean. Art, primarily sculpturemade during the preceding period of the military emperors
and the tetrarchs, witnessed an upsurge of heavy figures in
frontal poses, characterised by harsh features and geometric
treatment of garments. These traits cannot be attributed to
technical ineptitude or an inability to imitate Classical models.On the contrary, they were the result of a conscious choice of
styles designed specifically to serve the needs of propaganda,to transmit from above messages of political power and
totalitarianism.
Beginning in the reign of Constantine the Great, however,
we can detect a merging of these traits with other, lighter,classicising models, characteristic of the eastern
Mediterranean; these were destined ultimately to prevail in the
formation of the art of Constantinople. This phenomenon canbe seen, for example, in large scale sculpture such as the
sarcophagus of Junius Bassus,1 on which an Early Christian
thematic repertoire also appears. Such works of Hellenisticcharacter reveal the technical ability of their creators as well as
the orientation of the sophisticated and educated strata of
society, who endeavoured to keep this tradition alive. It is no
accident that this tendency is particularly evident on luxuryobjects such as the ivory diptych of Symmachon and
Nikomachon2 executed with a purely classical rendering of the
figures and Greek iconography.Similarly, a large number of silver vessels dating from the
2nd to the 5th century are decorated with classicising figures in
mythological scenes.3 This trend was prevalent even in the
western provinces of the Empire, as evidenced by major
treasures or hoards such as those found at Mildenhall4
andKaiseraugst,5 despite many questions concerning the origin of
these objects and their absolute dating. Classical remnantsincluding gods and heroes, symbols, vegetal motifs and
geometric patterns survived and were repeated conscientiously
on silver vessels made as late as the 7th century, appearing
alongside Christian subjects, as for example on the David platesfrom the second Cyprus treasure.6
In jewellery this classicising trend is especially apparent in
the decoration, which had already excluded the human figurefrom its thematic repertoire, but retained f loral and geometric
motifs which emanate a delicacy and grace which recall
Hellenistic creations.7 The shape and decoration of somebracelets which survived essentially throughout the durationof Byzantine goldwork serve as examples of this tendency.
With few exceptions, characteristic elements of Hellenistic
jewellery such as the Herakles knot, coiled snaked bracelets
and bracelets with animal-headed terminals steadilydiminished in popularity throughout the Roman period up tothe 3rd century.8 One survival of the latter type (Pl. 1) is a
bracelet with confronted panthers in the Dumbarton Oaks
Collection.9 The felines bodies are rendered with particularcare, while their forelegs hold a mount for a precious stone. The
combination with the pierced-work technique on the back of
the mount suggests the bracelet should be dated to the 7thcentury. Even if the earlier dating proposed by Zwirn10 proves
not to be valid, nonetheless the craftsman was surely familiar
with bracelets with animal-head terminals and the manner of
rendering them.
Another category is that of bracelets composed ofinterlocking elements; these, too, are of Hellenistic origin. An
interesting example is the bracelet in the Zintilis Collection,11now in the Museum of Cycladic Art in Athens (Pl. 2). It
comprises a row of interlinked plaques with inlaid stones, now
lost, and light pierced-work filling decoration; the central
plaque was set with a larger stone. It can be related to acorresponding necklace in the same collection and is dated to
the late 4th century. Much later is a bracelet in the Pantalica
Treasure,12 with rows of interlocking heart-shaped elements,each one enclosing an arrowhead motif. This bracelet is dated
to the 7th century. It is puzzling, given how common this
technique is on necklaces, that bracelets with interlockingelements have not survived in greater numbers.
The bracelet type of greatest longevity was that with a hoop
formed from two moveable parts fashioned of thick wire or of
thin cylinders intertwined, secured by a plain or more
Important Bracelets in Early Christian and ByzantineArt
Aimilia Yeroulanou
Plate 1 Bracelet, Washington DC, Dumbarton Oaks Collection (Acc. no. 3866)
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Important Bracelets in Early Christian and Byzantine Art
Plate 2 Bracelet, Athens, Cycladic Museum (Thanos Zintilis Collection)
Plate 3 Bracelet with Athena, New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art , Giftof J. Pierpont Morgan (Inv.-no. 1917,17.190.2053)
Plate 4 Bracelet with busts of Christ and the Virgin, Athens, NationalArchaeological Museum, Stathatos Collection
Plate 5 Pair of bracelets, WashingtonDC, Dumbarton Oaks Collection(Acc. nos. 38. 6465)
Plate 6 Pair of bracelets with agates,Richmond, Virginia Museum of FineArts, Purchase, The Adolph D. andWilkins C. Williams Fund(67.52.32.1/2)
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Plate 8 Bracelet, London, BritishMuseum (GR AF 2817)
Plate 9 The group of 19 bracelets from the Hoxne Treasure, London, British Museum (PE 1994,4-8,11-29)
Plate 10 Bracelet with inscription from the Hoxne Treasure, London, BritishMuseum(PE 1994,4-8,29)
Plate 11 Bracelet, Los Angeles, The J. Paul Getty Museum (83.AM.227.3)
Plate 12 Bracelet, Washington DC, Dumbarton Oaks Collection (Acc no. 75.1) Plate 13 Bracelet from the Tns Treasure, Algiers, Muse National desAntiquits
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bracelet from the same hoard, with horizontal and verticalbands creating panels of pierced-work scrolls of the same
simple workmanship as the previous bracelets. The bracelet
with the openwork inscription, vtere felix domina iuliane,
which serves the same function of consolidation of the
openwork surface, belongs to the class of jewellery withinscriptions.29 This last bracelet, another with mainly blank
circular discs on the surface, is reminiscent of easternMediterranean traits such as the pierced-work decoration that
forms around the discs, nested lozenges and a straight stem
with tiny ivy leaves placed symmetrically on either side (Pl.
8).30Exceptionally fine and strictly disciplined workmanship
also appears on a bracelet in the Getty Museum, on which
concentric circles of very fine stems are formed around smallanimals, birds, leaves and rosettes (Pl. 11).31 Exactly the same
arrangement is seen in the concentric circles and lozenges on a
bracelet in the Dumbarton Oaks Collection (Pl. 12),32
despitethe fact that on the criterion of shape it belongs within the
category of bracelets with moveable geometric openings.
Nonetheless, the similarity in the rendering of the pierced-
worksurface permits its almost certain attribution to the sameworkshop.
In every attempt at classifying or dating pierced-work
jewellery it is important to focus on the motifs and themes ofthe decorative programme of the pierced-work surface and
secondly on the shapes, the use of stones, and so on.
On the bracelet from the Tns Treasure (Pl. 13),33 a
geometric border encloses the vine leaves and the birds, with a
more lavish interposing of gold surfaces. The same principle isapplied on the large bracelet from the Hoxne Treasure, with
the cut-out leaves.34 Here, however, a lack of balance isobservable in the arrangement of the decorative motifs. More
accomplished is the composition on the Audemer bracelet,
where oak leaves are interposed between the wavy band, while
the pierced-work scroll is extremely fine and balanced.35These large bracelets recall a pair from Syria, now shared
between Berlin (Pl. 14) and Saint Louis in the USA.36 The
bracelet hoop differs and is of hexagonal cross-section, has nocut-out surfaces and is rendered completely in pierced work,
with concentric geometric shapes. The workmanship is
remarkably fine, so that the surface almost resembles filigree.In the central zone of both bracelets is the Greek inscription (use it for [your] luck throughout
life) and (beautiful,healthy soul, wear it). These bracelets are among the most
important and ty pical examples of the pierced-work technique.Some bracelets with hoops in the form of a pierced-work
band (Pl. 15) are enriched with precious stones. One pair from
the de Clerq Collection and one bracelet in the Cabinet des
Mdailles, Paris, are of the same shape, with two zones of
pierced-work scrolls separated by tooled wire.37
The onlydifference is that the single bracelet in the Cabinet des
Mdailles has a moveable clasp. The pierced-work scroll is alsothe same on the two bracelets, with a clear design rendered on
a rather thick surface, so that the scroll has substance and is
discernible on the reverse too. A bracelet from Cologne38 is also
in the form of a fine pierced band with precious stones (Pl. 15).The scrolls in particular, which describe a largepelta, bring to
mind the corresponding design on the medallions of
Constantine the Great.39To the group that combines pierced-work technique with
inlaid precious stones belong also some bracelets with hoops of
semi-circular cross-section but which are not closed at theback, like the tubular bracelets. In this way they achieve the
desired transparency. On a pair of high quality bracelets in the
Virginia Museum of Fine Arts (Pl. 16), the running scroll, above
and below the settings with sapphires and emeralds, formsextremely fine concentric circles with details that are
encountered on other bracelets.40 The delicacy and the balance
of the accomplished workmanship are due to the manner inwhich the pierced work is executed, by excising the gold
completely and neatly, leaving the design clearly visible on the
reverse as well. Very closely related are a bracelet from the
Ashmolean Museum in Oxford and one in the Rmisch-
Plate 14 Bracelet, Berlin, Staatliche Museen, Antikensammlung (30219, 509) Plate 15 Bracelet, Cologne, Rmisch-Germanisches Museum (1498)
Plate 16 Pair of bracelets, Richmond, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, TheAdolph and Wilkins C. Will iams Fund (67.52.31.1/2)
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Oaks Collection: this has a scene on its circular clasp of an
emperor in a chariot accompanied by Victories.49 Depicted on
the hoop is a vine branch enclosing animals and birds. Two
bracelets of the same type were found at Hebron in Palestine.
On another group of bracelets, vine stems enriched with leavesand bunches of grapes are worked on the hoop (Pl. 22). The
bracelets in the second Lambousa treasure, on which the same
symmetrical vine stem also fills the disc of the clasp,
50
arecharacteristic of this type. The Lambousa treasure includes
some of the most important pieces of jewellery known from the
6th to 7th century.
Two more pairs of bracelets, also with vine stems, butvaried by the addition of precious stones, are known: one is
from the Assit treasure, 51 now in Berlin, the other from Varna
in Bulgaria (Pl. 23).52 The first have openwork vine scrolls aspart of the hoop and a clasp, which are slightly wider than the
height of the hoops, in the shape of multi-petalled rosettes. On
the second pair, the vine scrolls are contained between two
fixed tooled wires that form the hoops, laden with bunches of
grapes formed by pearls and leaves of pale green stone. Finally,one more important bracelet with a hoop and circular clasp
from the Assit treasure, now in the Metropolitan Museum ofArt, is encrusted with splendid precious stones and only the
reverse of the disc has a design of pierced-work interlace (Pl.24).53
Bypassing the dark age of the 8th century, we come to theperiod when the use of enamel prevails in the goldsmiths art. It
features mainly on ecclesiastical objects, icons, book covers,
and so on, preserved in church sacristies, while items ofjewellery are few and these predominantly religious amulets.
One exception is the pair of armbands from Thessalonica (Pl.25), a unique example of enamelling, which continues the
tradition of depicting birds and plant motifs with particularlyharmonious colours.54
There is a notable decline in both the production and the
quality of bracelets surviving from the subsequent periods ofByzantine art. Wars, looting, and economic difficulties were all
factors that contributed to this apparent decline in jewellery.
Even so, representations of emperors bedecked in magnificent
jewellery, and of ordinary persons too, as attested by the wall-
paintings in the early 14th-century church of St Nicholas theOrphan in Thessalonica, as well as other representations,
Plate 20 Pair of bracelets, Athens,Benaki Museum (18351836)
Plates 21a and bRepoussmedallions of a bracelet, Washington DC, Dumbarton Oaks Collection (Acc. no. 50.37)
Plate 22 Pair of bracelets , New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gif t of J. Pierpont Morgan (Inv. no. 17.190.148149)
a b
a b
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Important Bracelets in Early Christian and Byzantine Art
Plate 23 Pair of bracelets, Varna,Narodni Museum
Plate 24 Bracelet, New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of J. PierpontMorgan (Inv.-no. 17.190.16701671)
Plate 25 Pair of bracelets, Thessalonika, Museum of Byzantine Culture (BKU 262/6)
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Here the hoop is decorated with three relief medallions, eachdecorated with a banded cross with four volute palmettes. The
presence of the cross places it in the sphere of purely amuletic
jewellery. The other bracelet has bosses decorated with
palmette interlaces and arabesques in niello on a silverground.61
Although these bracelets of the 11th to 12th century are
devoid of opulence and offer little information regarding thediversity of decoration, we should note that bracelets overall,
and those included in this short article, constitute a
particularly interesting corpus of jewellery, which has given usexquisite examples of superb art, as well as ample ground fordeliberation on problems.
Notes1 W.F. Volbach,Early Christian Art , London, 1961, pls 413.2 K. Weitzmann (ed.),Age of Spirituality: Late Antique and Early
Christian Art, T hird to Seventh Century, New York, 1979, nos 1656.3 See for example thesitula with six deities, ibid., no. 118.4 Ibid., no. 130.5 Trsors d orfvrerie gallo-romains (Exh. cat.), Paris, 1989, no. 224.6 Weitzmann (n. 2), 47583, nos 42533.7 Cf. a necklace with coin pendants: T. Hackens and R. Winkes (eds),
Gold Jewelry: Craft, Style and Meaning from Mycenae to
Constantinopolis, Louvain-la-Neuve, 1983, no. 36.8 Cf. the central piece of a diadem in the Benaki Museum:, , Athens, 1999, no. 68 as well as thesnake bracelets nos 88, 89, 90 and the bracelets nos 56 and 57.
9 M.C. Ross, Catalogue of the Byzantine and Early Mediaeval
indicate that a love of luxury continued to exist. Braceletscontinued to be produced with a band hoop. The most
important example of this group which dates to the 11th12th
century is the bracelet in the Kanellopoulos Collection, on
which lions, griffins and birds are represented on either side ofa braided repoussstem (Pl. 26).55 This piece is made of gold
and along the edges is a palmette volute picked out in niello.
There is a corresponding silver bracelet with the samerepresentations of animals and the niello scroll on the edge, in
the Dumbarton Oaks Collection (Pl. 27),56 and a similar but
wider bracelet in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.One bracelet in the Benaki Museum has griffins inscribed
in squares all around the hoop (Pl. 28).57 Even though the
griffin was a common subject in ancient Greek art, here it may
bear witness to Islamic inf luence in this period, becausefantastic creatures of this kind were much in vogue in
Constantinople, both in ceramics and textiles. Griffins in the
same arrangement are encountered also on a silver bracelet inthe Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, although on this example
the borders enclosing the design are more pronounced and the
hoop is much narrower.58 On one other bracelet in the Benaki
Museum, square panels enclose pseudo-Kufic letters inlaid in
niello, while the whole is surrounded by a band of scrolls.59
The last two bracelets in this sur vey, again from the Benaki
Museum, appear to be related to the previous ones in theirmaterial, their nielloed decoration and their shape (Pl. 29).60
Plate 26 Bracelet, Athens, P. and A. Kanellopoulos Museum (no. 14) Plate 27 Silver bracelet, Washington DC, Dumbarton Oaks Collection, (Acc.no. 59.53)
Plate 28 Silver bracelet , Athens, Benaki Museum (11454, 11455) Plate 29 Silver bracelet, Athens, Benaki Museum (11457)
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Important Bracelets in Early Christian and Byzantine Art
Antiquities in the Dumbarton Oaks Collection , Vol. 2: Jewelry,Enamels, and Art of the Migration Period , Washington DC, 1965, no.47.
10 Stephen Zwirn in his lecture Out of the seventh century: wheredoes some Byzantine jewellery belong?, given at the BritishMuseum Byzantine Seminar on Intelligible Beauty: Recent
Research on Byzantine Jewellery, advanced the theory that thebracelet is much older.
11 A. Yeroulanou,Diatrita: pierced-work gold jewellery from the 3rd to
the 7th century, Athens, 1999, no. 232, f ig. 91.12 New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Inv. no. 52.76.1;ibid.,233, fig. 92. See Baldini Lippolis, this volume, Pl. 17.
13 For one example, see a bracelet in the Benaki Museum:(n. 8), no. 103.
14 Weitzmann (n. 2), no. 282.15 C. Johns and T. Potter, The T hetford Treasure, London, 1983, pl. 3b,
no. 26.16 J. Heurgon,Le Tresor de Tns, Paris, 1958, 47.2, pl. V,4.17 E. Kypraiou (ed.), , 6000 , .
. . , Thessalonika, 1997/8, nos 172, 173, 243, 244,255.
18 . Coche de la Fert, Collection Hlne Stathatos: les objetsbyzantins et post byzantins, Limoges, 1957, nos 1415, 32, pls III, V.
19 Ross (n. 9), no. 46.20 W. Dennison,A Gold Treasure of the Late Roman Period (University
of Michigan Studies in East Christian and Roman Art), New York,1918, nos 30, 31.
21 Ibid., no. 34.22 C. Lepage, Les bracelets de luxe romains et byzantins du IIe au Vie
sicle: Etude de la forme et de la structure, Cahiers Archologiques21 (1971), 123, at 57, fig. 10.
23 A. Gonosov and C. Kondoleon,Art of Late Rome and Byzantium inthe Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, The Virginia Museum of Fine
Arts, Richmond, 1994, nos 1315.24 Kypraiou (n. 17), nos 225 and 231.25 Yeroulanou (n. 11), nos 197, 198.26 Ibid., no. 113.27 Ibid., no. 210.28 I. Baldini Lippolis,Loreficeria nellimpero di Costantinopoli tra I V e
VII secolo, Bari, 1999, 184, 2.VI.3.C1.
29 See Yeroulanou (n. 11), 1649.
30 C. Johns, The Jewellery of Roman Britain, London, 1996, 11617.31 B. Deppert-Lippitz, A Group of Late Antique Jewelry in The Getty
Museum, Studia Varia from The J. Paul Getty Museum 1 (1993),10740, at 1201, fig. 12 ac.
32 D. Buckton, The beauty of holiness: Opus interrasile from a LateAntique workshop,Jewellery Studies 1 (198384), 1519, at 1518,figs 67.
33 Heurgon (n. 16), 4850, fig. 16, pl. V.1 and XXV.34 Johns (n. 30), fig. 5.31.
35 Yeroulanou (n. 11), no. 201.36 Lepage (n. 22), 1012, figs 1718.37 Ibid., 1213, figs 201.38 Yeroulanou (n. 11), no. 205.39 Buckton (n. 32), 16 and 19, no. 9, fig. 7.40 Gonosov and Kondoleon (n. 23), no. 16.41 Yeroulanou (n. 11), nos 2078.42 J. Durand (ed.),Byzance. Lart byzantin dan s les collect ions
publiques franaises (Exh. cat., Muse du Louvre), Paris, no. 75.43 Deppert-Lippitz (n. 31), 11417, no. 4, fig. 6ab.44 Lepage (n. 22), 17, fig. 28.45 Durand (n. 42), no. 76.46 Dennison (n. 20), nos 267.47 D. Buckton (ed.),Byzantium: Treasures of Byzantine Ar t and
Culture from British Collections (Exh. cat., British Museum),London, 1994, no. 99.
48 (n. 8), no. 113.49 Ross (n. 9), no. 2A.50 A. and J. Stylianou, The Treasures of Lambousa, Nicosia, 1969, 55,
fig. 43.51 Dennison (n. 20), nos 323.52 Weitzmann(n. 2), no. 299.53 Dennison (n. 20), nos 289.54 Kypraiou (n. 17), no. 275.55 Ibid., no. 282.56 Ross (n. 9), no. 108.57 Kypraiou (n. 17), no. 284.58 Gonosov and Kondoleon (n. 23), no. 18.59 Kypraiou (n. 17), no. 285.60 Ibid., no. 126.61 Ibid., no. 127.