Indian Jewellery from Oppi Untracht's Collection

19 Mar '08

3 min read

Jewelry was also used for political purposes, as a reward for fealty, as a form of bribery, or to pay a ransom or worn to solicit a response of subservience or awe in an observer.

Precious metal jewelry serves in India as a form of 'social security' investment. Pieces are generally not resold as used ornaments being normally not considered to be desirable for purchase by Indians who believe that they may still possess the possibly unpropitious karma of the former owner.

To the seller and the jeweler-merchant they are only valued for the amount of precious metal they contain. The jeweler sends this to a local precious metal refinery to be melted and transformed into ingots to become available on the market for conversion to new jewelry.

Every jewelry shop has a hidden box in which such purchased, used objects are accumulated. In these boxes interesting pieces of silver jewelry were almost always found. Usually a discovery necessitated their careful extraction from a tangled, dusty mélange of inconsequential scrap.

I felt, when design or workmanship was of outstanding interest. Thus, over the years, my collection of Indian silver jewelry was formulated."

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