under my paw

Gift of Marilynn B. Alsdorf, www.artic.edu

You can barely see the mouse under this feline's golden paw, but those who know cats will know that look of open-mouthed triumph.  It's as if the cat was savoring the scent of victory.  When I tell you that this jewel was crafted in Baroque Spain (c. 1575-1625), when that nation was still the leading world power and at a high point of its culture, you can see this cat had something most delicious to symbolize. 
This piece has seen some changes in its time, most readily apparent in its ears.  See the holes?  It had earrings once.  If you'd like to do some art-historical-type digging into the life of this piece, find this:
 -- Ian Wardropper et al, "Renaissance Jewelry in the Alsdorf Collection," The Art Institute of Chicago Museum Studies 25, 2 (2000), p. 69 and 96, no. 32.  I have a link here, all text.

a dove in gold

Unknown artist
Pin with a Finial Shaped as a Dove Sitting on Pomegranates, 525–400 B.C., Gold
7.7 × 0.8 × 0.5 cm (3 1/16 × 5/16 × 3/16 in.), 96.AM.256
Gift of Barbara and Lawrence Fleischman
www.getty.edu

If this beautiful bird pin were mine, I could pin up my hair with it, or pin a loose dress together at my shoulder.  That's what its original owner, an Etruscan of 525-400 B.C. would have done.  Was she hoping to attract romance, or assured of it already?  Doves were favorites of Aphrodite/Venus, and pomegranates have symbolized beauty, love and fertility since the ancient Greeks.  Though the Etruscans lived in the area that eventually became Tuscany, they had transactions with expatriate Greek colonies in southern Italy.  I suspect that's where the idea for this imagery came from.  Just for the color and life  of it, I'll send you to this friendly article on pomegranate symbolism.

a mouse, living forever

Theodore M. Davis Collection, Bequest of Theodore M. Davis, 1915
metmuseum.org

Usually ancient Egyptian seal amulets were fashioned in the form of scarab beetles.  This one, set into a ring, is a mouse.  Its seal is the cartouche of Menkheperre, the throne name of Pharaoh Thutmose III (reigned 1479-1425 B.C.).  Across the mouse's shoulders are inscribed the words "Menkheperre, living forever."  Was there a link between the sentiment and the creature?  Mice and rats raided Egyptian grain stores, but that very ability to be small and destructive gave them top billing in a passage from Herodotus in which they devoured the bowstrings of an invading army.  Did this mouse remind the wearer not to discount the insignificant?

gold ring with dog, c. 1770-75

rijksmuseum.nl (PD)
http://hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.52094

Here is a simple wide gold band, made in the Netherlands around 1770-75.  Its only embellishment is a hunting dog's head in profile.  Here's a better look:

See how worn the ring is?  Someone wore this on their finger for a long time.  Was this just any dog, provided as a sign for fidelity, or a special little portrait to delight the ring wearer?

a golden bird in your ear

www.metmuseum.org Rogers Fund, 1922

I have a fanciful thought that perhaps some lover in 11th - 12th century Iran gave these earrings to a beloved, the better to symbolize sweet words chirped in their ears.  Look at the intricacy of the golden scrollwork and granulation (where the little dots are applied).  All that, in a bird only 1.25 inch tall. 
Various birds were of importance in Iranian mythology.  Doves were symbols of love, and also religious messengers; peacocks were royal birds; falcons are a central image of Zoroastrian iconography.  According to this page, birds in general also evoked freedom.  What freedoms were part of wearing these earrings, I wonder?  Freedom to choose a lover?  Freedom of spirit?  Someone wore these once, and I can't help but wish I knew their particular story.

awaken like a hedgehog

Rogers Fund and Edward S. Harkness Gift, 1920. https://www.metmuseum.org

Here's a tiny glazed soapstone hedgehog scaraboid (roughly beetle-shaped amulet) from Egypt ca. 1981–1295 B.C.  Right about now I wouldn't mind a hedgehog amulet:  because they hibernated, and survived the desert terrain, the Egyptians took them for symbols of resurrection.  That is something I particularly like in these days just past the winter solstice, as we navigate the cold and the dark and look for the days to lengthen oh just a little.  Here's another hedgie from the Met, this one on a string.

a family on one ring!

www.themet.org  Purchase, Patricia A. Cotti and Friends of Egyptian Art Gifts, 2017

How funny I find it that after coming up for air after a holiday weekend of family travel, the first thing I should find is this Egyptian ring upon which an entire cat family perches neatly. From circa 1295-664 B.C. and made of faience, this ring probably celebrated a particular festival.  Have a look at its page over at the Met for more info.

dog badge

www.rijksmuseum.nl (PD)

Here's what amounts to a landscape in one piece of jewelry:  this silver badge at the Rijksmuseum, created circa 1784-87, shows a wolfy-looking keeshond in his front yard.  There's his house, his dish, his shady tree.  There's also a chain - but not on him!  Why does the chain lie upon the ground?  Is he free to go?  Was this a reward to someone faithful, or a statement of pride?  Here's the object's page at the Rijksmuseum.

dog cameo

By Jonathan Cardy (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)],
 via Wikimedia Commons

The Wikipedia Commons page for this jewel states that this photo was taken at the Georgian National Museum.  While I wasn't able to find this item in the collections available online, I was intrigued by the Museum website - you should have a look.  There are many curious and beautiful items there.  Then you might like to read this essay at the Met about the history of cameos.  The Romans appreciated dogs for their fidelity among other reasons; I wonder if this was a gift to a wife.

wear a dog book

Gift of Mrs. Leslie Legum, 1991 art.thewalters.org

Even at its page at the Walters Art Museum, this tiny enameled book is hard to see, but then it measures only 1 inch tall.  That is indeed a white dog seated on the spine, picked out in enamel and gold.  What's to be discovered inside this charming creation, dating from England of the 1840's?  Well, you must follow the link I gave you and see the "additional views."  It folds out into a bracelet!
I found another "book" bracelet here, and another on Pinterest.

precious hedgehog

Gift of Helen Miller Gould, 1910 www.metmuseum.org

This gold hedgie on his snug little box is a piece of jewelry - a pendant.  He is thought to have been made in Egypt sometime in the Late Period to the Ptolemaic Period (4th century BC to about 30 AD).  This piece's page at the Metropolitan Museum of Art notes that hedgehog amulets were often worn by Egyptians, possibly because they thought of its hibernation and waking as a symbol of rebirth.  I find the thought of someone in ancient days occasionally touching their hedgehog jewel, taking comfort in the idea of new beginnings, is a warm and pleasant one.  Perhaps I need a hedgehog pendant.  Of course you'll see that the Met's page says that they also admired the animal's ability to roll into a small ball - what's that about?  The orb of the Sun?  Just Egyptian goodnatured humor?  Who doesn't like cute animals that roll up into tiny balls?

a dog to ward off illness

© Trustees of the British Museum (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) 

Say you're a Babylonian living sometime round 700 - 500 BC, and you'd like to get or stay in the pink of health.  Here's something you do:  Get yourself one of these.  This is a gold amulet in the form of a sitting dog, thought to be representative of Gula, the goddess of healing.  Dogs were Gula's favored animal, and images of her often include one.
Want to see the original British Museum page for this?  Here.

a precious beggar

The Jack and Belle Linsky Collection, 1982 (The Metropolitan Museum of Art CC0 1.0)

Once upon a time, someone with a sense of humor and a healthy income had this pearly mooch for a pendant. Its design and craft has been attributed to a Spanish goldsmith working around 1580 to 1590, a late Renaissance piece, when pendants were a very popular form of jewelry.  Here's a pretty good page on this subject.

cat luck

the metropolitan museum of art, Bequest of Mary Anna Palmer Draper, 1915 1891 www.metmuseum.org 

This little creature is 7/8th of an inch high, if you can imagine that.  Even so, within that tiny scope, its long lost Egyptian creator (26-29th dynasty, 664-380 BC) made a cat amulet with presence and physicality.  Look how stout it appears; this is a miw (Egyptian for cat) ready to do you some good, you bet.  Bastet, the cat-headed goddess, was invoked for fertility, and perhaps that's the good fortune this amulet brought to someone.

a mouse's dazzling morsel

The Walters Art Museum,  Gift of Mrs. Leslie Legum, 1991

There's a diamond in that golden spoon, and that mouse (he's silver) has his beady eye upon it.  If you were a well-dressed, well-off gent in 1870s England, you might have selected this to be the perfect stick pin for your tie.