Democratic Sentinel, Volume 14, Number 47, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 12 December 1890 — Gypsy Jewelry. [ARTICLE]

Gypsy Jewelry.

Like their more favored and better civillxed sisters, gypsy women are represented by the best authorities to be passionately fond of jewelry, notwithstanding tbe fact that their extreme poverty rendersit impossible for .many of them to gratify this taste. Trinkets of greater or less value, according to circumstances, are worn by them, being limited in number only by the means of the wearer. If the gitana is unable to have her ornaments of gold, silver jewelry will do; and if silver trinkets are beyond her means, brass will suffice. As brilliancy of color is the first consideration in a gypsy’s attire, size is the chief merit of her jewels. Among the wealthier gypsies, if there be such a thing as wealth connected with the race, the Moorish, Egyptian and Oriental designs find most favor. The poorer ton tent themselves with strings of coins or cheap medals, without regard to the event or personage they are Intended to commemorate, and even with rudely designed ornaments of brass made by the male artisans of their, tribes. Large earrings are preferred to any other articles, and the comparatively opulent gitana indulges in bangles, beads, and necklaces. Mr. Pastagh has chosen one of the latter as the subject for his painting. His gitana wears a necklace of coins, medals, and odd bits of metal of the forms supplied by fortune-telling women to their credulous customers as charms. In addition to this, she wears several strings of glass beads of bright colors and odd shape*, made up in a manner that indicates a Ipve for variety, If not artistic taste, A couple of coins are mounted in a primitive,manner as earrings, and our gypsy is probably not less proud of her possessions than her more fortunate-sisters whose persons are flashing with diamonds.— Jewelers' WeMy.