Title: Chain with Birds and Geometric Motifs
Date: 1000–1200
Geography: Made in Kyiv (probably), Ukraine
Culture: Kyivan Rus’
Medium: Cloisonné enamel, gold
Dimensions: Overall: 4 9/16 x 15/16 x 3/16 in. (11.6 x 2.4 x 0.5 cm)
Overall (without ring): 3 15/16 x 15/16 x 3/16 in. (10 x 2.4 x 0.5 cm)
Overall (with 17.190.682): 10 3/8 x 15/16 x 3/16 in. (26.4 x 2.4 x 0.5 cm)
Classification: Enamels-Cloisonné
Credit Line: Gift of J. Pierpont Morgan, 1917
Object Number: 17.190.681
Chains, called riazni, were created from small cloisonné enamel medallions. The chains may have joined layers of dress, been worn as necklaces or bracelets, or used to suspend circular or crescent-shaped pendants known as temple pendants or kolti. Rus’ women wore temple pendants in pairs, suspended beside the face, at the temple, as part of their elaborate headdress. [Metropolitan Museum of Art]
L. V. Perars’ka, the Head of the Department of Medieval Kyiv at the Museum of Historical Treasures of Ukraine, and Special Research Assistant in the Department of Medieval and Later Antiquities at The British Museum in her work ‘Treasures from Ancient Kyiv in The Metropolitan Museum of Art and Dumbortan Oaks‘ wrote:
“These pieces of jewelry, a gold medallion necklace, and the kolts, are executed in a classic ancient Kyivan style, characterized by the great number of birds, branches, trees, and foliate ornament in panels arranged in a geometric pattern. Some of these depictions are unique in Kyivan art: for example, the scene with two birds on either side of a tree, as well as the enamel krin-shaped foliate ornaments. The krin has the shape of a lily and symbolizes natural beauty and the idea of growth and life. It is not a white garden lily, but a wild lily, which has a red bud between two leaves. The wild lily was familiar in Greek art and literature, and it was this image that became the basis of the medieval heraldic lily called the fleurde-lis…
Since the eleventh century, local architects, painters, and goldsmiths prospered in Kyiv. The numerous treasures of medieval Kyiv hidden in the ground indicate through the shape of their jewelry, style, and subjects that Kyiv developed its own goldsmiths’ workshops and traditions out of its Byzantine heritage. The remains of jewelry workshops, with tools and bits of enamel, were found on the grounds of the princely palace in Kyiv. Among the items found was an iron form that was used to make each half of a kolt’s convex section and a bronze pattern with a cutout openwork depiction of two birds flanking a tree that was used as a model in preparing the gold sheet. This matrix fits the depiction on one of the kolts from the Museum.”
The craft of cloisonné enameling is a metal and glass-working tradition practiced in the Byzantine Empire from the sixth to the twelfth century AD. The timeframe of the medallions mentioned in this article make it possible that they were made in Kyiv in the times of famous Olga of Kyiv and may have been worn at her court.
Olga of Kyiv’s famous journey to Byzantine Empire >
“Gardariki, Ukraine” ebook has a new perspective at the origin of Kyiv Rus state.
Title: Chain with Birds and Trees of Life
Date: 1000–1200
Geography: Made in Kyiv (probably), Ukraine
Culture: Kyivan Rus’
