Jewelry collection of I.V. Savitsky State Museum of Arts of the Republic of Karakalpakstan

Abstract

This article provides information about the jewelry of the Karakalpak people in the collection of I.V. Savitsky State Museum of Arts of the Republic of Karakalpakstan. Karakalpak jewelry art is one of the brightest manifestations of the artistic culture of the people. Judging by the specimen preserved in the museum collections, they have much in common with the art of neighboring peoples in terms of names, pattern and form. Simultaneously, some Karakalpak jewelry has original ethnic and artistic features. The article presents all types of traditional Karakalpak jewelry dating back to the 19th – 20th centuries. Women’s jewelry are distinguished by notable features of originality and distinctive character, which testify to the existence of the Karakalpaks’ local school of jewelry art. The style of jewelry art of the Karakalpaks is characterized by integrity, monumentality, archaism of forms, clarity of contours, expressiveness and at the same time laconic decor. In the article, the author classifies the museum’s jewelry collection into the following categories: headdress ornaments; neck-chest ornaments; chest-waist ornaments, and ornaments for hands. The classification of women’s adornments of the Karakalpaks showed the undeniable wealth of their types, shapes and designs. In addition to the Karakalpak folk jewelry collection, information about the jewelry of the Uzbek, Turkmen and Kazakh peoples is also presented.