Kris­ten Stew­art at Met Gala 2011

Sig­nal­ing the black jew­elry trend noticed ear­lier on the Fall 2011 run­ways — or maybe she is just a girl after my own vin­tage jew­elry heart – Kris­ten Stew­art wore an antique pair of Berlin Iron bracelets from Fred Leighton to the Met Gala last night. Extant Berlin Iron jew­elry is rare and costly. The jew­elry was orig­i­nally lac­quered, how­ever once that pro­tec­tive layer has worn away over the course of two hun­dred years, the mate­r­ial is left vul­ner­a­ble to the rav­ages of time and rusts.

The Berlin Iron Foundry first pro­duced dec­o­ra­tive fur­nish­ings such as vases bowls, can­de­labra as well as fences, bridges and gar­den fur­ni­ture, and then began mak­ing chains around 1806. Dur­ing the Wars of Lib­er­a­tion (1813−1815), pro­duc­tion of Berlin Iron jew­elry was at its peak due to the Pruss­ian royal family’s encour­ag­ing cit­i­zens to donate their gold and sil­ver in exchange for iron to help fight against Napoleon’s inva­sion. Brooches, bracelets, fin­ger rings, and neck­laces were worked in del­i­cate, lace-like pat­terns often accented by neo-classical ele­ments like cameos. Around 1810, designs incor­po­rated Gothic Revival motifs and nat­ural ele­ments such as but­ter­flies, tre­foils and vine leaves. Often the jew­elry would be inscribed, “Gold Gab Ich Fur Eisen” — I gave gold for iron — ver­i­fy­ing the owner’s patri­otic con­tri­bu­tion. Highly rare pieces were dec­o­rated with gold, sil­ver, or pol­ished steel mountings.