Jewellery is the largest category of products created from amber. The most common types of amber jewellery are necklaces, brooches, ear pendants, bracelets and rings. Both natural and pressed amber is used for these products, either alone or in combination with other materials, and either untreated or colored. They range from individual, one-of-a-kind designs to mass-produced pieces. In many of these jewellery designs, amber plays an additional role. E.g. as a complementary or background element. The amber has a special radiance in brooch
es and pendants. For these pieces, amber is often shaped and polished into cabochons and framed in silver. Amber and silver complement and enhance one another when used together in jewellery designs. The material itself is of secondary relevance here. The important and apparent aspect of these designs is the mutual anchoring of the forms, i.e. one cannot exists alone without the other. Jewellery designs of this kind were typical of the period between 1920 and 1930 as decorative forms that characterized nearly every type of handcraft. In this context amber has no independent, dominant function, but is instead a mosaic stone in a composition.
In their manufacture natural as well as pressed and colored amber was used, often in combination with metal. The natural beauty of the “sun stone” showed itself most vividly in brooches and pendants. Due to the peculiarities of the structure, it was in those articles that the repeatedly polished “wild” stone turned into noble cabochon whose beauty was emphasized by the dim shine of silver. The common motives for making brooches were plant leaves, flowers and fruits. Beads varied depending on the form and types of mount. Oblong and round beads from cloudy or transparent amber were rightly considered the most universal in mass production.
When we look at the piece of jewellery made from clear amber, it is not only skilled hand of craftsman but certainly also the light, particularly the sun light, that plays a tremendously important role as the “natural energy source” of the amber jewellery design. Only then can the amber achieve its full radiance and actual presentation.
Amber Necklaces differ from one another not only in the shapes of the amber pieces (somewhat rounded, though not uniform), but also in the styles of links. Some of them appear to have been inspired by folk art. Amber necklaces were an important product category for the State Amber Manufacturer, and various styles were produced. Jewellery made with geometrical compositions of amber pieces, sometimes alternating between light and dark amber, was attractive in early 1930s. During this period, pieces of jewellery with similar styles were also made from synthetic resins or glass, sometimes as deliberate imitations of amber jewellery.