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The jeweler's art, one of the oldest established arts in Uzbekistan, had acquired by the beginning of the nineteenth century its ethnographic characteristics in a wide variety of shapes, materials, technical methods and types of manufactured articles.
The cottage industry and handicraft arts were revived in the first half of the nineteenth century after the economic crisis brought about in the eighteenth century by internecine wars. At that time jewelers were working generally for the ruling class, who could afford to buy or order pieces made from precious metals and stones. However, popular belief in the protective properties of jewelry allowed jewelers to sell poorly made goods made from low-quality materials.
The manufacture of jewelry had involved many types of artisans in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Zargars (jewelers) made the filigree design of scabbards for swords and knives, details of the harness and belts with inlaid and gilt plates and pendants with incrustation of precious stones. In particular, they made a variety of adornments for women. Besides jewelry and weapons, zargars produced items for falconry, tableware with splendid ornamentation and small domestic objects of precious metals. Jewelers took part in the design of expensive leather book covers for manuscripts with metallic cover plates and fastenings.
Materials for the manufacture of jewelry in the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth centuries were gold, silver, and occasionally alloys such as bronze; semi-precious stones such as ruby, garnet and beryl; colored stones such as turquoise, cornelian and lazurite; sea-fossils such as coral, pearl, nacre and shells; and colored glass.
There were two distinct levels of production of jewelry in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the first one was linked with traditions of folk art and the second oriented to the rich. It should be noted that jewelry was manufactured with silver in the first half of the nineteenth century on the whole territory of Central Asia. Golden objects were made only in the courts of khans and generally in the court of the Bukhara Emir. Jewelers worked in general for the local nobility, high ranking officials, clergy and the merchant class, who were the main customers and consumers of jewelry.
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The material value of jewelry increased in the beginning of this century as a result of the spreading of golden manufactured articles imported from Russia to the local people. Imported factory-made pieces of jewelry made by Russians and Tatars became very popular among Uzbek people, and the local cottage industry had to try to compete with the foreign trade. The result was a deterioration in the quality of local production as jewelers transferred to easier and faster processes of manufacture such as punching. The labor-intensive chasing was exchanged for the less expressive stamping of the pattern on moulds. Adornments were being made in bigger sizes, quite often hollow inside and abundantly decorated with colored glass, spangles, pieces of mirror or different colored silk threads. As a result, the traditional art lost its artistic merit.
Uzbek jewelry was generally made for women and only occasionally for men. It can be subdivided into that worn on the head, on the forehead, forehead-temple, forehead-temple-neck, temple, occipital, situated on the collar bone, worn on the nose, the ear, the neck, the shoulders, the waist, wrist and foot. The names of jewelry probably came from the way of wearing, from the shape of articles, from the sound imitation, from the materials, and from the nation who had popularized this or that shape. They include:
• worn on the head: takya-tuzi, tqj, jiga, sanchok, sarsuzan, bodom-oy, zulfitilla, bosb-tuzi, bibishak, mokbi-tilla, ot-tuyagi, duo-tuzi, manglay-tuzi;
• worn on the forehead and forehead-temporal: tilla-kosh, kanot-osma, osma-tuzi, tilla-bargak, tanga-tuzi, tuHa-tuz'i, manot-tuzi, kush-ine;
• forehead-temporal-neck - silsila, tosaukele and shokila;
• temporal - gajak, naycha, kush-duo, butun-tiznok, yarim-tirnok, chakkalik, chakka-tuzi;
• ear rings - khalka, zirak; occipital - uk-ey;
worn on the nose - arovak, latiba, latbini, kholbini,biloki, natkhuni, natbini, natti, naticheka;
• pendants situated on the bones - sochpopuk, tuf, tillo-bargak, tamar savat;
• worn on the neck and breast - munchok, khafaband, gulband, tavk, murgak, jevak, tepish-i-dil, nozi-gardon, zebi-gardon, zebisina, khaykel, peshavez or bezzak-kubba, peshikhalta, kalit-bogi, buyin-tumor, kukrak-tumor, tumor, akik, duo-tuzi, the latter amulets were also worn on other parts of costume;
• worn on the waist - kamar, tugma, sitora;
• wrist-bracelets - bilak-uzuk, rings - uzuk;
• worn on the foot - khalkhol.
The shapes and decoration of jewelry of the nineteenth century have their origins in ancient tradition, although they gradually lost their symbolic meaning deriving from vestiges of ancient ritual conceptions of the pre-Islamic period. But jewelry kept its figurative treatment and some peculiar features of composition, and the jewelry of this period is characterized by vegetable ornamental patterns combined with geometric motifs, astronomical and zoomorphic patterns.
The jeweler's art in Uzbekistan reached the level of high art. New shapes, ways of wearing and combinations of colors appeared as a result of changes in consumers' preferences. The aesthetic value of jewelry increased as jewelry was designed to harmonize with the lines and colors of the national costume. A strong sense of proportion and color harmony in groups of adornments are characteristic of the jeweler's art in the middle of the last century.
The main centers of jeweler's art in the nineteenth century were Bukhara, Khiva, Samarkand, Kokand, Karshi, Shakhrizabz, Kitab, Chimbay, Turtkul, Urgench, Baysun, Denau, Khodjaa-bad, Kungrad, Gijduvan, Andijan, Mamangan, Margelan, Assake, Chust, Urgut, Khalkabad, Khodjeyli, Kasansay, Uchkurgan, riurata and Shirabad. Some settlements where jewelers' families were living had names reflecting their craft, such as Zargarlik, Zargar, or Zargaron.
The jeweler's art of Uzbekistan in the nineteenth century presents a complicated phenomenon in which local bases joined with foreign traditions. According to historical sources newly arrived jewelers from abroad came together and were working here. For example, the Indian jewelers Shangura, Kurdali and Abduladjan worked in Bukhara in 1872 and Dilbar Marvari and Shakhan Kabli, also from India, worked in Tashkent in 1878; the silversmith Samanshel Chutmaliev worked in 1890; the jeweler Portali and also Persian goldsmiths were mentioned in 1901; jewelers from the Caucasus also arrived in the end of the nineteenth century; and Daghestan masters Osman Pashaev and Badavi were working in Bukhara and Khiva. At the same time there was an increase in the amount of imported jewelry. It is surprising that, amid this melting pot of cultural influences, the Uzbek jewelers managed to adhere to the canons of local traditions and preserve the originality of the national style intact.
Jewelers adhered to a craft guild headed by the oldest member (aksakal). They were subject to regulations (risolay) along with foundry workers, smiths and chasers, and venerated the same pir, Khazrati Daud, the founder of metal production. Masters in the main center were subdivided into various categories: masters of adornment, of silver-chasing, gold-chasing or design. Half of the jewelers worked in the palace workshops. The others worked either independently or for a trader, who also supplied materials. The articles were made for the local market, for export, to special order, and both for urban and rural dwellers and the semi-nomadic population.
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The profession of jeweler was hereditary and passed on from father to son. Risolay accompanied a jeweler from the very first day of his apprenticeship. At the same time the devotion to the shop rites, production relations and the stability of the old artistic forms was being developed. Novelty was frowned on, and the apprentice was expected to copy the articles of his teacher. Thus an experienced eye was able to define the exact place of production from even the slightest variation in decoration from one center to another.
The social position of jewelers varied on the territory of present-day Uzbekistan in the nineteenth century. In Buhkara the court jewelers possessed a privileged position compared to the other craftsmen of the court, and were given ranks and titles. In Khorezm, however, the profession of jeweler was relegated to the lowest class. The main arbiters of local artistic taste in nineteenth century jewelry art were the craftsmen of the Buhkara, Khorezm, Tashkent, Samarkand, Kokand (or Ferghana), Surkhandarya and Karakalpak schools.
One of the main centers of jewelry art was Buhkara. The significance of this school is emphasized not only by the jewelry exhibited in the museums of the city, but also by the sixteenth century Taki-Zargaron, or Dome of the Jewelers, built as a trading and craft production center for the jewelers. Nineteenth century Buhkaran jewelry is characterized by simple, oval forms, deliberately soft angles, amalgamated details, easily understandable decor and expressive forms. The most commonly used techniques of nineteenth century Bukhara jewelers specialized in molding, forging and gem incrustation, and especially gilding. The negative attitudes towards articles made of gold were overcome in the nineteenth century by the introduction of gold-plated silver jewelry, while the jewelry produced in the Bukhara Emir's workshops was generally made of gold.
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