Bohemian garnets

The Bohemian garnet is a term denoting a pyrop of sufficient quality to be used for jewellery, with a unique colour, mined in the Central Bohemian Highlands. These small gems, measuring between 3 and 7 millimetres in size, with a small degree of natural irregularities on their surface (“sculptations”) are a part of the large group of silicates. They have specific magnesium-aluminium chemical composition and excel with their unique dark-red to brown-black colour. Best known deposits of this mineral are located on the southern slopes of the Central Bohemian Highlands, along the geological fault between Bílina and Litoměřice, especially near Třebenice and Podsedice.

The first records of Bohemian garnets were found in a document written by the Flemish humanist, mineralogist and personal physician to Emperor Rudolf II, Anselmus Boëtius de Boodt (1609), although Bohemian garnets had been used by Bohemian jewellers as early as the Middle Ages. For example, they were used for decorating the crowning cross of Přemysl Otakar II in 1260 and the decorative belt attributed to Elizabeth of Pomerania from the late 15^th century, as well as a number of splendid liturgical artefacts. They were also used in glassmaking.

In folk wisdom, the mineral was regarded as a symbolic stone ensuring God’s grace and its intensive colour was identified with vitality. It was sewn into decorative hats for folk costumes and served as a popular material for rosaries, made from drilled, only slightly cut raw nuggets.

František Xaver Maxmilian Zippe started the golden era of garnet jewellery in 1836, when he identified garnet as the mineralogical symbol of Bohemia. Wearing garnet cords, decorated clips and cameo broaches with garnet frames became an expression of Czech patriotism. Adding river pearls and Moldavite, another genuinely Czech stone, to it was very popular. Another characteristic of Bohemian-garnet jewellery were elaborate geometric compositions, emphasising the stone’s fiery colour.

The tradition was successfully continued by the jewellery-making company Garnet Turnov, founded in 1953 by nationalising several private production facilities in the Turnov region. It prepared jewellery collections for Expo 1958 in Brussels with Surrealist garnet curtains from Jan Nušl’s studio. Jewellery for exhibitions in Montreal, Canada (1967), and Osaka, Japan (1970) were equally successful. Nowadays Garnet Turnov specialises in mining the stone and manufacturing garnet jewellery for the Czech market, within its own network of shops. The tradition of artistic jewellery-making is carried on by jewellers such as Jiří Belda, who has created a minimalist jewel collection.

The largest garnets were mined near Třebívlice and are parts of the unique Empire collection of jewellery owned by Ulrika von Levetzow (1820), heiress to the noble family Klebelsberg and the last platonic love of the famous poet Johann Wolfgang Goethe. The five-row necklace, connected with gold and silk, earrings, two bracelets and a ring were made from 469 gems of exceptional size. They are the largest known collection of Bohemian garnets.

The largest collections of these gems are housed in the National Museum in Prague and in Moravian Galley in Brno, while the biggest collection of Bohemian-garnet jewels is stored in the Museum of Decorative Arts in Prague.