Talk:Yemenite silversmithing

Yemeni silver

Thanks Davidbena, for starting this article! Yemeni silver is a fascinating topic. But you are wrong if you equate Yemeni silver with Yemeni Jews. Yes, Yemeni Jews absolutely played an important role among Yemeni silversmiths, but Yemeni silversmiths are still active, now without many Jews. Look at the commons category. Huldra (talk) 23:27, 2 August 2017 (UTC)

The article wasn't written by me, but I hope to contribute to it. There is much that can be said about it. And, yes, the title is "ethnicity-neutral," and would include non-Jewish works, about which I am no expert. I have, however, worked on many pieces that treat on Yemenite Jewish jewelry.Davidbena (talk) 23:33, 2 August 2017 (UTC)

• Huldra, there are excellent sources describing this as having been an entirely Jewish occupation well into the 1900s. And many, many sources documenting the steep decline of the craft of silversmithing in Yemen in recent decades, particularly the Yemen Times, which runs a lament to the dying trade almost annually, but also other media an the Marjorie Ransom book.E.M.Gregory (talk) 23:24, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

• These articles discuss the reason for this, which is that mass produced gold and silver jewelry have flooded into Yemen, undercutting the market for traditional craft production. This is so universally true of traditional crafts in general and of silversmithing across the world that it would only be surprising if it was not true in Yemen. Handmade silver today is either extremely high end, or very low end. In addition, several sources discuss the steep drop-off in the caliber of the craftsmanship c. 1950, with the mass migration of Jewish craftsmen to Israel - this predates the flooding of the market in Yemen with mass-produced imported jewelry. I chose not to emphasize - or indeed to mention - this in the text, but the fact is that collectors only collect early jewelry, pre- 1950. People pay a lot for the old stuff; and that's what the big collectors used to go to Yemen for (before the present fighting). It's not what the art world means when it talks about Yemenite silversmithing. And, of course, there are - or, at least, until recently there have been silversmiths in Yemen who made repairs, and and reworked bits from genuinely old pieces into handmade fake "antiques" in Yemen, just as there are everywhere else. If you have sources, I have no objection to your adding a section about contemporary silversmithing in Yemen.E.M.Gregory (talk) 23:39, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

Suggested change of title

User:E.M.Gregory, I saw Yoninah's comment on my Talk-Page, and her suggestion that the title of the article be changed. What do you think about the title, "Yemenite silversmith"? Another option might be to write: "Silversmithing (Yemen)", or perhaps "Yemenite silversmithing", or else "Silversmithing in Yemen". Do you have any better suggestions?Davidbena (talk) 22:45, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

• I think I like Yemenite silversmithing. Partly because "Yemenite", not the now widely used "Yemeni" is what curators and collectors tend to use. And partly because this is about a dying/dead craft. an oldfashioned thing, like the word "silversmithing."E.M.Gregory (talk) 23:42, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

• Thanks for the page name change. But the lead needs to be rewritten to reflect the subject – silversmithing. The Jewish silversmiths appear, as they should, in the History section. Yoninah (talk) 22:47, 10 August 2017 (UTC)

Copyediting of March 7 2022 and some further suggestions

Hi, I have just made a number of changes to this fascinating article. Mainly, these are changes to make the grammar more fluently, as well as some corrections of typos. Also, I have reduced the gallery to 4 pictures as recommended in our Style Guide and rearranged the other pictures.

In the long paragraph about Niello technique and casting, I am not sure that the whole process of casting relates to Niello. As I understand the explanations in this article and from other types of jewellery, Niello is a black mixture to highlight engraved patterns. - Also, the description of the casting is a bit too long and detailled for an encyclopedic article, at least in my view.

If anyone finds anything about the use of this kind of jewellery by women, as part of their gender-specific identity and beauty, or more on the importance of their heirloom and changes in tastes and styles, that would be a welcome addition, too. (Similar to how I have tried to include it in Jewellery of the Berber cultures, which of course, was also a mainly Jewish Berber tradition.) Munfarid1 (talk) 12:39, 7 March 2022 (UTC)