Czére Andrea szerk.: A Szépművészeti Múzeum közleményei 105. (Budapest, 2006)
MARIANNA DÁGI: Training the Eye: Technical Details as Clues in the Attribution of Ancient Jewellery
One ought, therefore, when studying technical details of jewellery-making, to clearly distinguish between primary and secondary marks of attribution. In the former case, one might point to punched decoration which attests to the excellent individual skill of the goldsmith (e.g. the curved line of dots over the animal's eye), or traces of tool-use typical of him (the serrated sheet-edge, or the heavier use of the punch on one side of the earring than the other). These are definitely primary marks: they clearly identify the hand of the goldsmith who made a given piece. On the other hand, the shape of the parts which were added to the basic structure of a piece, and which were repeated from earring to earring (e.g. the catch-ring, or the long arches decorating the connecting element), are attribuable cither to the goldsmith responsible for the entire piece, or perhaps to the maker of the parts in question. These are therefore only secondary marks of attribution, even if they are the result of characteristic automatisms, and therefore point in themselves to a particular hand. They provide useful evidence only when they are interpreted together wdth other technical details. The appearance of parts of the same shape and showing the characteristic features of a single hand on pieces of a wholly different technical character might point to a common place of production: in such a case, the secondary mark of attribution can be interpreted as a characteristic feature of a place of production. It would also prove that the goldsmith responsible for the parts was not the same as the one who made the whole piece: final proof that a division of labour existed in that place of production. This technical analysis of the bull's-head hoop earrings in the Collection of Classical Antiquities in Budapest has made possible observations concerning the structure, technique of manufacture, and decoration of the individual pieces that are applicable to other jewellery types too. Comparative analysis of the details of individual pieces has shown that the method will allow us to identify specific characteristics which are as it were compulsory for anyone making a bull's-head hoop earring —that is to say: the characteristic features of the type —and to separate these features from those which are open to free variation, and which give some scope for the demonstration of individual skill. The latter, as we have seen, can help to identify both goldsmiths and places of production. It is therefore possible to formulate a new hypothesis, whereby details of a purely technical kind might serve independently as marks of attribution. This would open the way for the identification of master-hands and workshops. lids body of material is clearly not large enough to permit reconstruction of the circumstances and organisational structure of jewellery-production —i.e. to define the relationships that existed between different masters and workshops, and their implications for the way which the goldsmiths worked, and the workshops functioned. At the present time, we can only try to find neutral terms in which to describe what we sec: terms that do no pre-suppose any
