Bracelet with Assyrian-inspired design

Following the excavation of Assyrian palaces in the mid-nineteenth century, ancient Mesopotamian imagery began to be used in European decorative arts, including jewelry and ceramics. Publicity in the form of news coverage and popular books around the excavations, removal of many sculptures from sites in northern Iraq to England and France, and public spectacles such as the reconstructed ‘Nineveh Court’ in the Crystal Palace at Sydenham, London, fostered a fascination with Assyria and Assyrian art among the Victorian public.

One side of the hinged bracelet is plain. The other shows a scene, framed between two ornamental bands, based on a specific stone relief of the Assyrian king Ashurnasirpal II (r. 883–859 BCE) from Nimrud (ancient Kalhu), now in the British Museum (124533 / 1849,1222.18). The design, like the original relief, shows the Assyrian king, facing the crown prince and surrounded by attendants and musicians, pouring a libation over the head of a bull that has been killed in a royal hunt. The Assyrian reliefs featured many scenes of the king as a hunter, alongside images such as this which make clear that the hunt had an important religious aspect.