ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ANTIQUE JEWELLERY AND RELATED TOPICS

Welcome to the Lost Owl Encyclopedia: an A–Z of the words, materials, techniques, symbols, myths and makers you’ll meet in vintage, antique and ancient jewellery (or jewelry, if you’re reading in the US).

Some entries are practical: how to read a British hallmark, what 15ct gold is, why an old mine cut diamond looks the way it does. Others follow a motif back through history to discover why a Victorian would wear a bee, a snake or a sprig of ivy, or who on earth would commission a devil stickpin.

We add to it as new treasures pass through our hands, so if there’s a term you can’t find, let us know.

0–9 A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

0–9

9CT GOLD

9ct gold is an alloy of nine parts pure gold to fifteen parts other metals (usually silver and copper), or 37.5% gold, which is why it is stamped 375. Britain legalised it in 1854, together with 12ct and 15ct, to give the booming Victorian middle classes affordable gold, and it remains the most common gold standard in British jewellery.

Hard-wearing and warm in colour, 9ct suits everyday rings, lockets and chains. A hallmarked 9ct piece cannot date from before 1854. In the US, where 10K is the lowest fineness that can be sold as gold, 9ct is a distinctly British (and Commonwealth) standard.

See also: CARAT (GOLD); HALLMARK.

12CT GOLD

12ct gold is 50% pure gold, marked 12 and .5. It was one of the three lower standards introduced in Britain in 1854 and was abolished in 1932, so a hallmarked 12ct piece was made between those two dates. It never found much of a following, sitting awkwardly between affordable 9ct and the richer 15ct, so British 12ct jewellery is comparatively scarce.

14CT GOLD

14ct gold is 58.5% pure gold, stamped 585. Long the everyday standard across much of continental Europe and the United States (where it is written 14K), it became a British standard in 1932, replacing 12ct and 15ct. Strong and less prone to tarnish than 9ct, it is a favourite for rings, and antique European pieces are often marked simply 585.

15CT GOLD

15ct gold is 62.5% pure gold, marked 15 and .625. Introduced in 1854 and abolished in 1932, it was the classic standard for good-quality Victorian and Edwardian jewellery: richer in colour than 9ct, without the softness of 18ct.

Because its legal life lasted just 78 years, a clear 15ct hallmark is a handy dating clue: the piece was made between 1854 and 1932. It was also widely used by Australian colonial jewellers.

18CT GOLD

18ct gold is 75% pure gold, stamped 750; older British pieces show a crown alongside the number 18. Britain first accepted it as a legal standard in 1798, alongside the traditional 22ct, and through the 19th century it became the standard for fine gem-set jewellery. Its rich colour and excellent working properties still make it the benchmark for high-quality rings.

22CT GOLD

22ct gold is 91.6% pure gold, stamped 916; older British pieces show a crown and the number 22. It was the traditional English standard, the same fineness as the gold sovereign, and until 1798 it was the only legal standard for British gold wares.

Buttery-yellow and soft, 22ct was the favoured metal for Victorian wedding bands. It scratches and bends easily, which is why gem-set jewellery more often uses lower carats.

925

925 is the millesimal mark for sterling silver: 925 parts pure silver in every thousand. See STERLING SILVER.

Back to A–Z ↑

A

ACROSTIC JEWELLERY

Acrostic jewellery spells out a word using the first letter of each gemstone. The fashion began in France in the early 19th century and quickly crossed the Channel. The favourite word by far was REGARD: ruby, emerald, garnet, amethyst, ruby, diamond. DEAREST (diamond, emerald, amethyst, ruby, emerald, sapphire, topaz) and ADORE were close behind, and names and dates were sometimes spelled out too. A secret message hidden in plain sight, it is sentimental jewellery at its most playful.

AESTHETIC MOVEMENT

The Aesthetic Movement (c.1860s–1890s) championed “art for art’s sake”: beauty for its own sake rather than moral message or practical use. Its jewellery favoured Japanese-inspired motifs such as bamboo, fans, cranes and swallows, along with sunflowers, lilies and peacock feathers, mixed-colour gold and simpler, more artistic forms than High Victorian opulence. Oscar Wilde was its most famous champion.

AGATE

Agate is a banded variety of chalcedony (microcrystalline quartz) that forms in layers inside cavities in volcanic rock. Its endless variety of colour and pattern made it a staple of Victorian jewellery, above all Scottish “pebble” jewellery, in which polished agates are inlaid into silver like stained glass. Layered agates (onyx and sardonyx) are also the classic material for hardstone cameos and intaglios. Moss agate is not banded at all, but clear with fern-like green inclusions. Since the 19th century much commercial agate has been dyed, most famously in the cutting workshops of Idar-Oberstein in Germany.

See also: CHALCEDONY; SCOTTISH PEBBLE JEWELLERY.

AIGRETTE

An aigrette is a jewelled ornament for the hair or hat designed to hold a plume of feathers, originally the egret plumes that give it its name (aigrette is French for egret). Fashionable from the 17th century, aigrettes enjoyed a final flourish in the Edwardian era and the 1920s, pinned to bandeaux and turbans. Many surviving examples have since been converted into brooches.

ALBERT CHAIN

An Albert chain is a man’s watch chain worn across the waistcoat, from a buttonhole to a pocket, named after Queen Victoria’s consort, Prince Albert, who popularised the style. A typical Albert has a T-bar to secure it through the buttonhole and a swivel clasp for the watch, and often carries a fob, seal or vesta case; a “double Albert” stretches across to both waistcoat pockets. Today Albert chains are prized as chunky necklaces and are often converted into bracelets.

ALEXANDRITE

Alexandrite is a rare colour-change variety of chrysoberyl: green to bluish-green in daylight, raspberry red under candlelight or incandescent light. Discovered in Russia’s Ural Mountains in the 1830s, it was named after the future Tsar Alexander II, and its red and green were said to echo the colours of imperial Russia. Natural alexandrite is scarce and expensive. Many “alexandrites” in vintage jewellery, especially from the mid-20th century, are synthetic colour-change sapphire or spinel, which shift from blue to purple rather than green to red.

AMBER

Amber is fossilised tree resin, often tens of millions of years old, prized since prehistory for its warm glow and for the insects and plant fragments sometimes trapped inside. The richest source is the Baltic coast, and amber was traded across ancient Europe along routes known as the Amber Road. Genuine amber is warm to the touch and so light that it floats in strongly salted water, which helps to separate it from glass, Bakelite and other imitations.

AMETHYST

Amethyst is purple quartz, coloured by traces of iron and natural irradiation. Its name comes from the Greek amethystos, “not intoxicated”, from the ancient belief that it guarded against drunkenness. Until vast deposits were found in Brazil in the 19th century, fine amethyst ranked among the precious gems. Georgian jewellers loved it, often foiled in closed-back settings, and purple, white and green jewellery is now widely associated with the suffragettes, whose colours they were.

ANCHOR

In Christian symbolism the anchor stands for hope, after the Epistle to the Hebrews, which calls hope “an anchor of the soul, both sure and stedfast”. Paired with a cross (faith) and a heart (charity), it forms the much-loved Victorian Faith, Hope and Charity charm. It is also, naturally, a sailor’s emblem.

The anchor is the town mark of the Birmingham Assay Office, which seems odd for a city so far from the sea. Legend has it that while lobbying Parliament for their new assay offices in 1773, the men of Birmingham and Sheffield met at the Crown and Anchor tavern in London and divided the inn sign between them: Sheffield took the crown, Birmingham the anchor.

ANTINOUS

Antinous is instantly recognisable on cameos and intaglios: the wistful face, the gentle expression cast off to one side, seemingly enraptured in tender thought. Little is known about the life of this Bithynian youth (from present-day Turkey), said to be of humble farming stock and of rare, overwhelming beauty. Around 123 CE he was introduced to the Roman Emperor Hadrian, who was touring the region, and he quickly became the emperor’s favourite and lover. As Hadrian continued to tour his empire, Antinous remained steadfastly by his side, the two sharing a deep spiritual and romantic bond.

His story is a tragic one, however. In 130 CE, while sailing on the Nile, Antinous fell into the river and drowned, in circumstances that remain mysterious. Hadrian was beside himself with grief at the death of his companion. He proclaimed Antinous a god and founded a city, Antinoöpolis, near the place where he died. He also identified a star in the sky between the Eagle and the Zodiac as Antinous, and the rosy lotus that grew on the banks of the Nile came to be known as his flower.

Antinous’ legacy as a gay icon has endured ever since: a symbol of overwhelming, undeniable love, even in the face of tragedy. In times when homosexuality was forbidden, cameos and intaglios bearing his portrait could be worn as a covert, but still public, way to express one’s queer identity.

In Beloved and God: The Story of Hadrian and Antinous (1984), the historian Royston Lambert argues that the way Hadrian kept Antinous close in his most exalted moments, and surrounded himself with his images after his death, reveals an obsessive, almost mystical need for his companionship.

ANTIQUE

In the jewellery and antiques trade, an antique is generally an object at least 100 years old, the same threshold US Customs uses to admit antiques duty-free. Anything younger but more than about 20 years old is usually called vintage. The line moves every year: pieces made in 1926 became antiques in 2026, so the earlier Art Deco jewels are now crossing over.

See also: ESTATE JEWELLERY; VINTAGE.

AQUAMARINE

Aquamarine is the blue to blue-green variety of beryl, the mineral family that also gives us emerald, and its name comes from the Latin for “seawater”. Art Deco and mid-century jewellers prized its icy clarity in large step-cut stones. Most aquamarine today is heat-treated to remove greenish tints and leave a purer blue, so antique stones are often softer and greener in tone.

ARCHAEOLOGICAL REVIVAL

Archaeological Revival jewellery (c.1850s–1890s) recreated the goldwork of ancient Etruria, Greece and Rome, inspired by the spectacular excavations of the 19th century. Its pioneers were the Castellani family of Rome, who studied ancient jewels at first hand and revived techniques such as granulation (tiny gold beads fused to a surface) and fine filigree. In London, Carlo Giuliano and John Brogden carried the style forward. Look for soft, buttery yellow gold, intricate wirework, amphora-shaped drops, and mounted ancient coins or scarabs.

See also: CASTELLANI; ETRUSCAN REVIVAL; GIULIANO; GRANULATION.

ARROW

The arrow is one of the oldest symbols of all: lightning, rain, fertility, virility, power and war. Once loosed from the bow it cannot be called back, so it also stands for actions whose consequences cannot be undone. Apollo’s arrows were the rays of the sun, able both to nourish and to scorch. The arrows of Eros (Cupid) were the piercing darts of love, and a heart pierced by an arrow signifies union.

In Ovid’s telling, Cupid carried two kinds of arrow: golden ones to kindle love and leaden ones to repel it (see DAPHNE). Arrows were a natural favourite for Victorian sweetheart jewellery, and slim arrow brooches and jabot pins became an Art Deco staple.

ART DECO

Art Deco is the bold, geometric style that dominated design between the wars, named after the 1925 Paris Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes. In jewellery, roughly 1915 to the late 1930s, it meant strong lines and symmetry, platinum and white gold set with calibré-cut and baguette stones, and vivid contrasts: black onyx with white diamonds, or emeralds, sapphires and rubies together. Long sautoirs, stacked bracelets and slender bar brooches suited the new, streamlined silhouette, and influences ranged from Cubism to ancient Egypt, where Tutankhamun’s tomb was discovered in 1922.

Browse our Art Deco collection.

ART NOUVEAU

Art Nouveau (c.1890–1910) was a sensuous, nature-obsessed style of flowing “whiplash” curves, flowers, insects, and women with streaming hair. Its jewellers valued artistry over intrinsic value, combining gold with enamel (especially translucent plique-à-jour), horn, glass, moonstone and opal. René Lalique was its genius in Paris. In Britain, Liberty & Co offered a gentler version laced with Celtic interlace, and in Germany the style was known as Jugendstil.

See also: LALIQUE; LIBERTY & CO; PLIQUE-À-JOUR.

ARTS AND CRAFTS MOVEMENT

The Arts and Crafts movement (c.1880–1930) was a reaction against industrial mass production, inspired by John Ruskin and William Morris, that championed the hand-made, the honest and the beautiful. Its jewellers hammered silver and gold by hand, set humble cabochons (moonstone, turquoise, amethyst, mother-of-pearl, blister pearls) and enamel, and drew on medieval and natural forms, often leaving the marks of the tools visible. Key names include C.R. Ashbee’s Guild of Handicraft, Arthur and Georgie Gaskin, Sibyl Dunlop, Bernard Instone and the Edinburgh enameller Phoebe Anna Traquair.

Browse our Arts & Crafts collection.

ASSAY OFFICE

An assay office tests (assays) the precious-metal content of gold, silver, platinum and palladium articles and strikes them with hallmarks. Britain has four today: London (the Goldsmiths’ Company, hallmarking since 1300), Birmingham and Sheffield (both founded in 1773) and Edinburgh. The historic offices at Chester, Exeter, Glasgow, Newcastle, Norwich and York have all closed, and their marks are now collectable in their own right. Each office has its own town mark: a leopard’s head for London, an anchor for Birmingham, a crown (later a rose) for Sheffield and a castle for Edinburgh.

See also: HALLMARK; TOWN MARK.

ASSCHER CUT

The Asscher cut is a square step cut with deeply cropped corners, giving an octagonal outline and a hypnotic “hall of mirrors” effect. It was developed in 1902 by Joseph Asscher of Amsterdam, whose firm famously split the 3,106-carat Cullinan diamond in 1908. A classic of the Art Deco years, it was revived in modified form at the turn of the 21st century.

ATHENA (MINERVA)

Athena, the Greek goddess of wisdom, crafts and strategic warfare (the Roman Minerva), is one of the most common figures on classical and Neoclassical cameos and intaglios. Look for her crested helmet and sometimes the aegis, a goatskin cloak or breastplate bearing the head of Medusa. Her sacred bird is the little owl, which is why owls stand for wisdom (and, we’d like to think, why owls make such discerning collectors).

See also: MEDUSA; OWL.

Back to A–Z ↑

B

BAGUETTE CUT

A baguette is a small, narrow, rectangular step-cut stone, named after the French loaf. Baguettes arrived with Art Deco, when jewellers needed straight-edged stones to build crisp geometric designs, and they remain a classic accent either side of a centre stone. Tapered baguettes narrow towards one end.

BAKELITE

Bakelite was the first fully synthetic plastic, invented in 1907 by the Belgian-American chemist Leo Baekeland. Cheerful, chunky Bakelite bangles, brooches and beads in butterscotch, cherry red and green were a hit in the 1930s and ’40s and are highly collectable today. Collectors identify it by its weight, its dull “clunk” and the faint chemical smell it gives off when rubbed briskly or warmed under hot water.

BANGLE

A bangle is a rigid bracelet, either a solid hoop slipped over the hand or a hinged design that opens with a clasp. The Victorians wore them in quantity: hollow gold bangles chased with flowers, engraved buckle and padlock designs, and narrow gem-set bangles stacked several to an arm. The word comes from the Hindi bangri, a glass bracelet.

BAR BROOCH

A bar brooch is a long, slender horizontal brooch, the everyday brooch of the late Victorian and Edwardian woman, worn at the collar or on a lapel. Many carry a central motif (a horseshoe, a bird, a flower or a single gem) on a plain gold bar, while Art Deco versions are often all diamonds and platinum.

See also: LACE PIN.

BAROQUE PEARL

A baroque pearl is an irregularly shaped pearl. The word baroque is thought to come from the Portuguese barroco, a misshapen pearl, and later lent its name to an entire artistic style. Renaissance jewellers delighted in turning baroque pearls into the bodies of mermaids, dragons and sea creatures, and Art Nouveau and Arts and Crafts makers loved their organic, lustrous shapes.

BASSE-TAILLE

Basse-taille (French for “low cut”) is an enamelling technique in which metal is engraved or chased with a pattern in low relief and then flooded with translucent enamel. The enamel pools deeper in the recesses, so the design glows through in lighter and darker tones. When the pattern is machine-turned, the result is guilloché enamel.

See also: GUILLOCHÉ.

BEE (INSECT)

The Victorians were big on symbolism, particularly in their jewellery. It was a time of great upheaval: imperialism, the Industrial Revolution and huge advances in scientific understanding and method radically changed Britain’s view of its past and future. With the social upheaval came a philosophy of purity, as the Victorians set themselves up as the apotheosis of what it meant to be a moral and “civilised” society.

The bee was a popular motif of the era, representing hard work, cooperation, industriousness and loyalty. Victorian bee brooches are often set with pearls, which were associated with purity, chastity and grace. Long before the Victorians, Napoleon had adopted the golden bee as an imperial emblem, borrowed from the ancient Frankish kings, and paired with a crescent moon a bee makes a “honeymoon” brooch (see MOON, CRESCENT).

There are countless ways to analyse the symbolism of a bee brooch, but the best of them hold their own as remarkable (and very cute) pieces of jewellery.

BELCHER CHAIN

A belcher chain is made of round, usually D-section links joined in a simple, sturdy pattern. Strong and handsome, it has been a British favourite for lockets and pendants since the Victorian era.

BELLE ÉPOQUE

The Belle Époque (“beautiful era”) was the long spell of peace and prosperity in France and much of Europe from the 1870s until the First World War in 1914. In jewellery the term usually means the light, lacy, white-on-white style of c.1890–1914, called Edwardian in Britain: platinum set with diamonds and pearls in garlands, bows and tassels.

See also: EDWARDIAN; GARLAND STYLE.

BERLIN IRON

Berlin iron jewellery is delicate cast-iron jewellery, lacquered black, made in Prussia from the early 19th century. Its finest hour came during the War of Liberation against Napoleon in 1813, when Prussians were urged to donate their gold to the war effort and received iron jewellery in exchange, some of it inscribed “Gold gab ich für Eisen” (“I gave gold for iron”). Lace-fine, with Gothic and Neoclassical designs, it survives in small numbers.

BEZEL

In a ring, the bezel is the part that holds the stone. More specifically, a bezel setting encircles the stone with a continuous collar of metal pressed over its edge, rather than gripping it with claws. Watch collectors use the same word for the metal ring around a watch face.

See also: CLAW SETTING; COLLET.

BLISTER PEARL

A blister pearl grows attached to the inside of the shell rather than loose in the mollusc’s flesh, so it has to be cut free, leaving a flat or irregular back. Arts and Crafts jewellers loved their luminous, free-form shapes. A mabé pearl is its cultured cousin, a half-pearl deliberately grown against the shell.

BLOODSTONE

Bloodstone (heliotrope) is dark green chalcedony spotted with red jasper, which medieval Christians read as drops of Christ’s blood. It was a favourite of Victorian gentlemen for signet rings, fob seals and cufflinks, often paired with carnelian or set in Scottish pebble jewellery. It is the traditional birthstone for March.

BOG OAK

Bog oak is ancient wood, mostly oak, preserved and blackened for thousands of years in the peat bogs of Ireland. In the mid-19th century it was carved into brooches, bracelets and souvenirs with Irish motifs (shamrocks, harps, round towers and castles), and its dark colour also suited mourning. Bog oak is light and shows a visible wood grain, which helps to tell it apart from jet and vulcanite.

BOHEMIAN GARNET

Bohemian garnet is the deep red pyrope garnet mined in Bohemia, now part of the Czech Republic. Small, rose-cut Bohemian garnets were pavé-set by the hundred into gilt metal and low-carat gold to make the glittering clusters, stars and bows of Victorian garnet jewellery. Their intense, slightly brownish red is unmistakable.

See also: GARNET.

BOOK CHAIN

A book chain is a Victorian chain of flat, rectangular links that fold like the pages of a book, often engraved or chased. Popular in the mid-to-late Victorian period, it was usually worn with a locket.

BOX CLASP

A box clasp is a catch in which a sprung tongue slides into a hollow box until it clicks shut, and is released by pressing a small lever. It is the classic closure on antique bracelets and necklaces, often backed up by a safety chain or a figure-of-eight catch.

BRIGHT-CUT ENGRAVING

Bright-cut engraving uses a tool held at an angle to carve faceted, bevelled grooves that catch the light and sparkle. Fashionable on Georgian silver from the 1770s, it was later widely used on Victorian bangles, lockets and brooches.

See also: HAND ENGRAVING.

BRILLIANT CUT

The brilliant cut is the faceting style designed to maximise a diamond’s brilliance and fire; the modern round brilliant has 57 or 58 facets. Its ancestors include the old mine cut and the old European cut, and its proportions were refined mathematically by Marcel Tolkowsky in 1919. In antique descriptions, “brilliant” often simply means a diamond with brilliant-style faceting.

See also: OLD EUROPEAN CUT; OLD MINE CUT.

BRIOLETTE

A briolette is a teardrop-shaped stone faceted all over with triangular facets and no flat table, usually drilled at the top and hung as a drop. Briolettes sparkle as they move and were a favourite of Edwardian jewellers for earrings and pendants.

BRITANNIA STANDARD

Britannia silver is 95.84% pure, finer than sterling (92.5%), and is hallmarked with a figure of Britannia. It was the compulsory standard for English silver from 1697 to 1720, introduced to stop people clipping and melting down silver coins to make plate. It has been an optional higher standard ever since, and is now marked 958.

BUCKLE RING

A buckle ring is shaped like a belt or garter buckle, a symbol of loyalty, protection and devotion that recalls the Order of the Garter. Buckle rings and bracelets were especially popular in the mid-Victorian period as gifts between lovers and friends.

BUTTERFLY

The butterfly has long symbolised the soul: in Greek, psyche means both “soul” and “butterfly”, and the goddess Psyche is often shown with butterfly wings. Its transformation from caterpillar to winged creature made it an emblem of resurrection, and of the soul’s flight from the body on mourning jewellery. Butterflies flutter across late Victorian and Art Nouveau jewellery in enamel and gems, and 1920s souvenir jewellery sometimes sets real iridescent butterfly wings under glass.

See also: PSYCHE.

Back to A–Z ↑

C

CABOCHON

A cabochon is a gemstone cut with a smooth, domed top and no facets, usually with a flat back. It is the oldest way of shaping gems, and remains the natural choice for opaque or optically special stones (opal, turquoise, moonstone, star sapphires and cat’s-eyes) whose beauty lies in colour and glow rather than sparkle. The name comes from the Old French caboche, “head”.

CAIRNGORM

Cairngorm is smoky quartz, in shades from honey to whisky brown, named after the Cairngorm Mountains of Scotland where it was once found. It became the signature stone of Victorian Scottish jewellery after Queen Victoria fell in love with the Highlands and Balmoral, appearing in kilt pins, plaid brooches and the hilts of ceremonial dirks. Much later “cairngorm” is actually imported smoky quartz or heat-treated citrine from Brazil.

CALIBRÉ CUT

Calibré-cut stones are small gems cut to precise shapes and sizes so that they fit snugly together in a line or pattern, with almost no metal showing between them. Perfected by the great Paris houses in the early 20th century, calibré-cut rubies, sapphires, emeralds and onyx outline many of the crisp geometric designs of Art Deco jewellery.

CAMEO

A cameo is a carving in relief, the design standing proud of its background, usually cut from a layered material so that a pale figure sits against a darker ground. Cameos have been carved since antiquity in hardstones such as sardonyx and agate, and from the 18th century in shell (above all at Torre del Greco, near Naples), lava, coral and glass. They were essential Grand Tour souvenirs and stayed wildly popular throughout the Victorian era. A cameo is the opposite of an intaglio, which is carved into the surface.

See also: HABILLÉ; INTAGLIO; LAVA CAMEO; SHELL CAMEO.

CANNETILLE

Cannetille is ornate goldwork made from fine coiled and twisted wire, built up into rosettes, spirals and scrolls, often around a central gem. It was the height of fashion in the 1820s and 1830s, when gold was scarce after the Napoleonic Wars and jewellers needed to make a little go a long way. The name comes from a French embroidery term for coiled metal thread.

CARAT (GEMSTONE WEIGHT)

For gemstones, the carat is a unit of weight: one metric carat is 0.2 grams, divided into 100 “points”, so a 50-point diamond weighs half a carat. The name is traditionally traced to the carob seed, once used as a counterweight on gem scales. Not to be confused with the carat (or karat) that measures the purity of gold.

CARAT (GOLD)

For gold, the carat measures purity in parts per 24: 24ct is pure gold, 18ct is 18 parts gold to 6 parts other metals, and so on. Americans spell it karat (K) to avoid confusion with the gemstone carat. Pure gold is too soft for most jewellery, so it is alloyed with silver, copper and other metals, which also tint it yellow, rose, green or white.

See also: 9CT GOLD; 15CT GOLD; 18CT GOLD; 22CT GOLD.

CARBUNCLE

Carbuncle is the old name for a red gemstone, especially a garnet, cut as a smooth cabochon, from the Latin carbunculus, “little coal”. Victorian carbuncles are often large, domed almandine garnets, sometimes hollowed out from behind and foiled to lighten their deep colour, glowing like embers in heavy gold mounts.

CARNELIAN

Carnelian is translucent orange to red-brown chalcedony, coloured by iron. Hard, glowing and easy to carve, it has been used for seals and intaglios since antiquity, helped by the fact that hot sealing wax does not stick to it. Georgian and Victorian fob seals and signet rings set with carnelian are classics of the genre.

CARTIER

Cartier is the Parisian jewellery house founded by Louis-François Cartier in 1847. Under his grandsons Louis, Pierre and Jacques it became the jeweller to Europe’s royal courts (Edward VII reputedly called it “the jeweller of kings”). Cartier pioneered the light, lacy garland style in platinum in the early 1900s and created some of the defining jewels of Art Deco, from colourful carved-gem “Tutti Frutti” pieces to the Tank watch of 1917.

CASTELLANI

The Castellani were a family of Roman goldsmiths who founded the Archaeological Revival. Fortunato Pio Castellani opened his workshop in 1814, and with his sons Alessandro and Augusto he studied ancient Etruscan, Greek and Roman jewels and revived techniques such as granulation. Their work, often marked with two interlaced Cs, influenced jewellers across Europe and is highly sought after today.

See also: ARCHAEOLOGICAL REVIVAL.

CHALCEDONY

Chalcedony is a microcrystalline variety of quartz that comes in a huge range of colours and patterns, each with its own name: agate (banded), onyx (black and white bands), carnelian (orange-red), sard (brown), chrysoprase (apple green), bloodstone (green with red spots) and more. In the trade, “chalcedony” on its own usually means the translucent, milky blue to lavender variety. Hard and fine-grained, it is ideal for carving and has been used for seals, cameos and beads for thousands of years.

CHAMPLEVÉ

Champlevé (French for “raised field”) is an enamelling technique in which hollows are carved, engraved or etched into a metal surface, filled with enamel and fired, leaving the metal between them as outlines. It decorated medieval church treasures and was revived in Victorian Gothic and Arts and Crafts jewellery.

See also: CLOISONNÉ.

CHASING

Chasing decorates metal from the front by hammering it with blunt punches (“chasers”) to push the surface into patterns and textures, without removing any metal. It is often combined with repoussé, which works the metal from behind. Victorian gold bangles, lockets and brooches are frequently chased with flowers, scrolls and foliage.

See also: REPOUSSÉ.

CHATELAINE

A chatelaine is a decorative clasp or hook worn at the waist, with chains hanging from it to carry useful things: keys, scissors, a thimble, a watch, a notebook, a scent bottle. Named after the mistress of a château, it was the 18th- and 19th-century equivalent of a handbag. Fine examples were made in gold, silver and cut steel, and individual chatelaine fittings are often worn today as pendants or charms.

CITRINE

Citrine is yellow to orange-brown quartz, named after the French citron, lemon. Natural citrine is rare; most is amethyst or smoky quartz that has been heat-treated. It was popular in Victorian Scottish jewellery and especially in the 1930s and ’40s, when large, golden, step-cut citrines suited the Retro style.

CLADDAGH RING

The Claddagh ring is an Irish ring showing two hands clasping a heart topped with a crown, for friendship, love and loyalty. It takes its name from the old fishing village of Claddagh, just outside Galway city, and its design is traditionally credited to the 17th-century goldsmith Richard Joyce. Tradition says that worn on the right hand with the heart pointing outwards, it shows the wearer’s heart is unclaimed; turned inwards, it is taken. The Claddagh is a descendant of the medieval fede ring.

See also: FEDE RING.

CLAW SETTING

A claw (or prong) setting holds a stone with slender metal points that grip its edges, letting light flood in from the sides and back. Claws became widespread in the 19th century, and the six-claw “Tiffany setting” of 1886 lifted the diamond solitaire high above the band. Old claws wear thin over time, so re-tipping them is a common and sensible repair.

See also: RE-TIPPING.

CLOISONNÉ

Cloisonné is enamelling in which thin wires or strips (cloisons, French for “compartments”) are soldered onto a metal base to form cells, which are then filled with enamel and fired. The wires stay visible as fine outlines between the colours. Used since antiquity, notably in the Byzantine world and in China, it was revived in Victorian and Art Nouveau jewellery.

CLOSED-BACK SETTING

A closed-back setting encloses the back of a gemstone in metal, so that no light passes through from behind. It was standard in Georgian jewellery, where stones were often foiled to boost their colour and sparkle, and lasted into the early Victorian period. Keep closed-back pieces dry: water that seeps in can tarnish the foil and dull the stone.

See also: FOILING.

CLUSTER RING

A cluster ring has a central stone surrounded by a ring of smaller stones, creating a flower-like or halo effect. Georgian clusters are often set with foiled stones in closed-back silver collets; Victorian and Edwardian “daisy” clusters typically surround a sapphire, ruby or opal with diamonds or pearls.

COCKTAIL RING

A cocktail ring is a large, bold statement ring, typically set with a big coloured stone or a showy cluster of gems. It takes its name from the cocktail parties of the American Prohibition era (1920–33), and reached its peak in the glamorous Retro jewellery of the 1940s and ’50s.

COLLET

A collet is a band or collar of metal that encircles and holds a stone, the simplest and oldest type of setting. Georgian and early Victorian collets were often closed at the back and finished with a decorative edge of tiny beads or cut-down points. A “collet necklace” is a rivière of stones each set in its own collet.

See also: BEZEL; RIVIÈRE.

COLLIER DE CHIEN

A collier de chien (“dog collar”) is a wide, close-fitting choker of several rows of pearls or a jewelled band, worn high on the neck. Queen Alexandra, wife of Edward VII, made it the defining necklace of the Edwardian era, reputedly to hide a small scar on her neck.

COMMEMORATIVE HALLMARKS

Commemorative hallmarks are optional marks struck alongside the standard British hallmark to celebrate national occasions. The first marked the Silver Jubilee of George V and Queen Mary in 1935. It was followed by marks for the Coronation of Elizabeth II (1953), her Silver Jubilee (1977), the Millennium (2000), her Golden, Diamond and Platinum Jubilees (2002, 2012 and 2022), and the Coronation of Charles III (offered 2023–24). They are a handy way to date a piece precisely.

CONVERSION

A conversion is a piece of jewellery adapted from its original form into another: a brooch made into a pendant, cufflinks into earrings, a watch chain into a bracelet, or Victorian earrings fitted with modern posts. Conversions are as old as jewellery itself and can give an unwearable piece a new life. A good dealer will always tell you when a piece has been converted.

CORAL

Coral is the skeleton of tiny marine animals. The precious red and pink coral used in jewellery comes mainly from the Mediterranean, and the 19th-century coral trade centred on Naples and Torre del Greco, where it was carved into cameos, beads and branch-like brooches. Coral was believed to protect children, so coral teething sticks, rattles and necklaces were traditional christening gifts. Some coral species are now protected, so check the rules before buying or shipping.

CREOLE EARRINGS

Creole earrings are hoops that swell towards the bottom and taper towards the top, often hollow and engraved, like a crescent moon in profile. They were fashionable in the mid-Victorian period and remain a timeless favourite.

CROSS PATTÉE

The cross pattée is a cross whose arms are narrow at the centre and flare out towards the ends. It is an enigma, rich in meanings and interpretations, which crosses the boundaries of time and culture to stimulate human curiosity. Also known as the cross of the Templars, it was adopted by the Crusaders in the Middle Ages and became a symbol of faith and devotion to Christianity. Since then it has been associated with honour and dignity, exemplified by the Victoria Cross, the highest award for gallantry in the British armed forces, which takes the form of a bronze cross pattée.

The cross pattée is also a powerful symbol of protection in many cultures, acting as a spiritual shield against harmful outside influences. It was often worn as a talisman to repel negative energies and invoke benevolent forces, and is seen as a means of strengthening spiritual connection. Serving as a focal point during meditation and ritual, it helps practitioners immerse themselves in a state of deep contemplation and inner connection.

CULET

The culet is the tiny point, or small flat facet, at the very bottom of a faceted gemstone. Old mine and old European cut diamonds usually have a large culet polished flat, which shows as a little circle in the centre when you look down through the stone: a charming sign of a hand-cut antique diamond. Modern brilliants are cut to a point.

CULTURED PEARL

A cultured pearl is a real pearl grown with human help: a bead or a piece of tissue is implanted in an oyster or mussel, which coats it in nacre over months or years. Japan’s Kokichi Mikimoto produced his first cultured half-pearls in 1893, and round cultured pearls flooded the market in the 1920s, helping to collapse the price of natural pearls. Telling natural and cultured pearls apart takes a gem laboratory and X-rays; it cannot be done by eye.

See also: NATURAL PEARL.

CUSHION CUT

A cushion cut is a square or rectangular stone with rounded corners and gently curved sides, like a plump pillow. The old mine cut is an early cushion-shaped brilliant, and cushion-cut sapphires, rubies and diamonds are classics of Georgian, Victorian and Edwardian jewellery.

CUT STEEL

Cut steel jewellery is made from small, faceted steel studs, traditionally said to have been fashioned from the nails used to secure horseshoes, riveted onto a metal backplate so that they glisten and gleam in candlelight. Cut steel had been used to adorn shoe buckles, scissors and watch chains since the early 18th century, with much of the early production taking place in Woodstock, Oxfordshire. As shoe buckles fell out of fashion towards the end of that century, the makers diversified into other decorative items, including earrings, pendants and brooches.

Its prestige soared when Napoleon presented his second wife, Marie Louise, with a full cut-steel parure. It is often said that he chose steel because he couldn’t afford gemstones, but cut steel was a fashionable luxury in its own right and not necessarily cheaper than precious materials (and Marie Louise received plenty of diamonds too).

CYPHER

A cypher (or cipher) is a design of intertwined initials, typically of a couple or a family, engraved on signet rings, seals and lockets. Where a monogram may merge letters into a single shape, a cypher usually keeps each letter distinct, sometimes mirrored for symmetry. Royal cyphers, such as Victoria’s VR or Charles III’s CIIIR, are their most famous form. Our Spells & Sigils service hand-engraves cyphers onto vintage and antique signet rings.

See also: MONOGRAM; SIGNET RING.

Back to A–Z ↑

D

DAPHNE

A nymph of Greek myth, Daphne is the personification of the laurel; her name still means “laurel” in Greek today. She is sometimes said to be the daughter of the river god Ladon, sometimes of the Thessalian river god Peneus. There are two versions of Daphne’s myth, and both involve creepy and unrequited love.

In the first, best known from Ovid’s Metamorphoses, Apollo mocked Eros (Cupid) for his archery. In revenge, Eros shot Apollo with a golden arrow that fired his desire for Daphne, and Daphne with a leaden one that made her flee from love. Apollo chased her until, just as he was about to catch her, she begged her father to transform her so that she might escape. She became a laurel tree, which Apollo made sacred to himself: hence the laurel wreaths of victors and poets, and the title “poet laureate”.

In the second, Laconian version, Daphne is the daughter of Amyclas, a huntress who roams the mountains as a favourite of Artemis. A youth named Leucippus falls in love with her, disguises himself as a girl and joins her companions. The jealous Apollo inspires the group to bathe, Leucippus is unmasked and attacked, and only the gods’ gift of invisibility saves him. Apollo then tries to seize Daphne, but she flees and, answering her prayer, Zeus turns her into a laurel (as retold in Pierre Grimal’s Dictionary of Classical Mythology).

Laurel leaves and wreaths run through Neoclassical, Napoleonic and Victorian jewellery as emblems of victory, glory and poetic inspiration.

DATE LETTER

A date letter is the part of a British hallmark that shows the year an item was assayed. Each assay office used cycles of letters, changing the typeface and the shape of the surrounding shield with each new cycle, so a letter and its shield together pin down a single year. London introduced date letters in 1478; since 1999 they have been optional, though most items still carry one.

See also: HALLMARK.

DEMANTOID GARNET

Demantoid is a rare, brilliant green garnet discovered in Russia’s Ural Mountains in the mid-19th century. Its name means “diamond-like”, because its fire (the rainbow flashes of light it throws) is even greater than a diamond’s. Fabergé and late Victorian and Edwardian jewellers adored it, setting demantoids into lizards, frogs, beetles and dragonflies. The finest Russian stones contain golden, fibrous “horsetail” inclusions, prized as a sign of their origin.

DEVIL

Devils and demons feature in the religion and mythology of most cultures, from the ancient world to the modern day. Such figures are associated with darkness, the unknown and, at worst, evil and death. They prey on our greatest fears, none more so than Satan, God’s rival, who stands for Hell as opposed to Heaven. Much like Prometheus, punished by Zeus for defying him, the angel Lucifer was cast out of Heaven for challenging God’s authority. He became Satan, the Devil: the symbol of pure evil, a master of deception and the embodiment of temptation.

Many of the popular images of Satan originate in the Middle Ages. The trident, which in ancient Greek and Hindu culture represented a weapon against evil, became the Devil’s pitchfork, a tool of evil. His horns and goat’s legs owe much to the Greek god Pan, and some see in them an echo of horned pagan gods such as the Celtic Cernunnos: by making horns a mark of the Devil, medieval Christians may also have discredited the old gods of nature, flora and fauna, and fertility.

The inverted pentagram adds a later twist. In the Sigil of Baphomet, an emblem developed by 19th- and 20th-century occultists, the three downward points signify the rejected Holy Trinity, while the two upward points become the horns of a goat, symbolising carnality. In the “Black Mass” of legend, much of the Christian symbolism is reversed: the cross hangs upside down and blood, not wine, is consumed, with sexual overtones or a sacrifice to signify the triumph of the carnal nature.

All of which raises the question: who, in the 19th century, would have commissioned and worn a devil stickpin? A nostalgic admirer of Britain’s infamous 18th-century Hellfire Clubs, perhaps. Or simply an opera lover, since many Victorian devils are really Mephistopheles, the suave tempter of the Faust legend, whose popularity soared after Gounod’s opera Faust (1859).

See also: PAN.

DIAMOND

Diamond is pure carbon crystallised under immense heat and pressure deep in the Earth, and the hardest natural substance known. Until the 18th century almost all diamonds came from India. Brazil took over after deposits were found there in the 1720s, and the discovery of diamonds in South Africa in 1867 brought them within reach of a far wider market.

Antique diamonds were cut by hand to make the most of candlelight and of each rough crystal, so old cuts (rose, old mine, old European) have a softer, more broken-up sparkle than modern brilliants, and no two are quite alike.

See also: OLD EUROPEAN CUT; OLD MINE CUT; ROSE CUT.

DOUBLET

A doublet is a composite gem made of two pieces fused or glued together, usually a thin slice of genuine stone on top of a cheaper base. The best-known antique example is the garnet-topped doublet; opal doublets, a thin layer of opal backed with dark ironstone or glass, are another. A triplet adds a clear protective cap on top. Doublets are honest ingenuity, but should always be described as such.

See also: GARNET-TOPPED DOUBLET.

DOVES

Doves have found their way into almost every corner of the Earth, except the driest areas of the Sahara Desert, Antarctica and the high Arctic. These birds have an exceptional sense of direction and can navigate over long distances using the Earth’s magnetic field. Doves have been symbols of peace and love for thousands of years: in ancient Greece they were associated with Aphrodite, the goddess of love, and in Christian art they often carry an olive branch, a symbol of peace that recalls the dove returning to Noah’s ark. A descending dove also represents the Holy Spirit.

In jewellery, a pair of doves or “lovebirds” is a favourite Victorian sweetheart motif, and the dove of the Holy Spirit hangs from the Huguenot cross.

DRAGONFLY

The dragonfly, with its jewel-bright body and glassy, veined wings, was a favourite Art Nouveau motif, rendered most spectacularly by René Lalique in plique-à-jour enamel. In Japan it has long symbolised courage and victory; in English folklore it was more ominously nicknamed the “devil’s darning needle”. Late Victorian insect jewellery set dragonflies with demantoids, rubies, pearls and diamonds.

DUTY MARK

The duty mark is a small profile of the reigning monarch, struck in British hallmarks between 1784 and 1890 to show that the tax on gold and silver had been paid. It shows George III, George IV, William IV and then Victoria, which can help narrow down a date. When the duty was abolished in 1890, the mark disappeared.

Back to A–Z ↑

E

EDWARDIAN

The Edwardian era is named after Edward VII, who reigned from 1901 to 1910, though its style lasted until the First World War. Edwardian jewellery is famously light and feminine: platinum, strong enough to hold stones in fine, lacy settings, paired with diamonds and pearls in garlands, bows, tassels and lattice work, often with millegrain edges. Pastel stones such as peridot, amethyst, aquamarine and pink topaz were fashionable, as were négligée pendants, lavalières and dog-collar chokers.

Browse our Edwardian collection.

See also: BELLE ÉPOQUE; GARLAND STYLE.

EGYPTIAN REVIVAL

Egyptian Revival jewellery borrows the motifs of ancient Egypt: scarabs, lotus flowers, sphinxes, pharaohs’ heads, winged discs and hieroglyphs. Egyptomania came in waves: after Napoleon’s Egyptian campaign of 1798, again with the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869, and most famously after Howard Carter found Tutankhamun’s tomb in 1922, when Egyptian motifs swept through Art Deco design. Many revival pieces incorporate genuine ancient faience scarabs or amulets.

See also: FAIENCE; SCARAB.

EMERALD

Emerald is the green variety of beryl, coloured by chromium or vanadium. Almost all fine emeralds contain inclusions, poetically called the jardin (French for “garden”), and since antiquity they have been oiled to make these less visible. From the 16th century the Spanish brought the finest emeralds from Colombia to Europe, and royalty has prized them ever since. Emeralds are brittle, so protect them from knocks and keep them away from ultrasonic cleaners.

EMERALD CUT

An emerald cut is a rectangular step cut with cropped corners, its long parallel facets creating a calm, mirror-like play of light rather than sparkle. Developed for emeralds, whose brittleness makes sharp corners vulnerable, it became a defining shape of Art Deco jewellery and suits aquamarines, citrines and diamonds beautifully.

EN TREMBLANT

En tremblant (French for “trembling”) describes jewellery with elements mounted on tiny coiled springs, so that they quiver and catch the light with every movement. Diamond-set flower sprays en tremblant were among the most glamorous jewels of the 18th and 19th centuries, glittering by candlelight as the wearer moved or breathed.

ENAMEL

Enamel is powdered glass fused onto metal at high temperature to make a hard, glossy, permanent coating in almost any colour. Different techniques produce very different effects: champlevé and cloisonné fill cells with colour, basse-taille and guilloché let patterns glow through translucent enamel, plique-à-jour leaves it unbacked like stained glass, and painted enamels form miniature pictures. Black and white enamel were the colours of Georgian and Victorian mourning jewellery. Enamel can chip, and losses are hard to repair invisibly, so check it closely.

See also: BASSE-TAILLE; CHAMPLEVÉ; CLOISONNÉ; GUILLOCHÉ; PLIQUE-À-JOUR; TAILLE D’ÉPARGNE.

ESSEX CRYSTAL

Essex crystals are reverse-carved rock crystal cabochons with painted, three-dimensional subjects, magnified by the domed front. But what does that all mean? Imagine a horse and jockey against a gold background, painted in full colour: a brown horse standing on green grass, the jockey in red and yellow silks. If you move it around, you notice that it’s three-dimensional, with space between the grass and the horse, the horse and the reins, the rider and the background. The glyptographer (the gem carver) has taken a cabochon of rock crystal and carved down into its flat base, known as reverse carving, to create the subject. It has then been painted and mounted, dome up, to create the final piece: an Essex crystal.

The name is a misnomer. The technique has nothing to do with the county, nor with the enamel painter William Essex, to whom it was mistakenly attributed. It seems to have been developed around 1860 by Émile Marius Pradier of Belgium and was brought to England in the early 1860s by the carver Thomas Cook, whose pupil Thomas Bean passed the craft on to his son and grandson. Dogs, horses, foxes, game birds, insects, flowers and monograms in cufflinks, stickpins, brooches and pendants were the classic subjects, and the fashion lasted into the 1920s and ’30s. Collectors also call them reverse intaglio crystals.

ESTATE JEWELLERY

Estate jewellery is a mainly American term for any previously owned jewellery, whatever its age; it originally meant pieces sold from a deceased person’s estate. An estate piece may be antique, vintage or quite recent, so it is always worth asking for a date.

See also: ANTIQUE; VINTAGE.

ETERNITY RING

An eternity ring is a band set with a continuous line of matching stones, either all the way round (full eternity) or across the top (half eternity), symbolising never-ending love. Its ancestors are the Georgian and Victorian half-hoop rings, and it became a popular anniversary gift in the 20th century. Full eternity rings cannot easily be resized, so getting the size right matters.

See also: HALF-HOOP RING.

ETRUSCAN REVIVAL

Etruscan Revival jewellery is the branch of the Archaeological Revival inspired by the Etruscans, who flourished in central Italy before Rome and were master goldsmiths. Their tombs yielded jewels covered in granulation so fine it looks like gold dust, and 19th-century jewellers such as Castellani and Giuliano raced to rediscover the technique. In the trade, “Etruscan” is also used loosely for any Victorian gold decorated with applied wirework and tiny gold beads.

See also: ARCHAEOLOGICAL REVIVAL; GRANULATION.

Back to A–Z ↑

F

FABERGÉ

Fabergé was the St Petersburg firm of Peter Carl Fabergé (1846–1920), goldsmith to the Russian imperial court. It is most famous for the jewelled Easter eggs made for the Romanovs from 1885 until the Revolution, but it also produced exquisite jewellery, cigarette cases, and hardstone animals and flowers, often with guilloché enamel in luminous colours. The firm was nationalised by the Bolsheviks in 1918, and fakes abound, so provenance is everything.

FAIENCE

Faience is a glazed, non-clay ceramic that was made in Egypt for thousands of years and was thought to hold magical properties of fertility, renewal and rebirth. It is made from powdered quartz (silica, quite possibly simply sand) mixed with small amounts of lime and alkaline salts such as natron or plant ash, and coloured with metal compounds, most often copper, which gives faience its famous blue-green glaze. The Egyptians called it tjehenet, “that which is dazzling”; our name comes from Faenza in Italy, home of a quite different tin-glazed pottery. Faience was moulded into amulets, scarabs, beads and figurines, and ancient pieces are still set into jewellery today.

FAITH, HOPE AND CHARITY

Faith, hope and charity are the three virtues of St Paul’s First Epistle to the Corinthians, symbolised by a cross (faith), an anchor (hope) and a heart (charity, or love). Victorian charms and brooches often combine all three, a popular gift and a pocket-sized reminder of the virtues they stand for.

FEDE RING

A fede ring (from the Italian mani in fede, “hands in trust”) shows two right hands clasped together, a symbol of faith, friendship and betrothal that goes back to Roman betrothal rings. Fede rings were popular throughout the medieval and Renaissance periods, often as wedding rings, sometimes combined with a posy or a gimmel, and their descendants include the Irish Claddagh ring.

See also: CLADDAGH RING; GIMMEL RING.

FILIGREE

Filigree is delicate lacework made from fine twisted gold or silver wire, soldered into scrolls, curls and openwork patterns. One of the oldest goldsmithing techniques, it was revived during the Archaeological Revival and remains a speciality of Genoa, Portugal and Malta. Its airy look also inspired the die-struck “filigree” white gold and platinum engagement rings of the 1920s and ’30s.

FLORA

In Ovid’s poem on the Roman calendar, the Fasti, the goddess Flora tells her own story. Her husband Zephyrus, the West Wind, gave her a fertile garden as a wedding gift and made her ruler of the flowers. Each morning the Hours gather her blossoms in baskets and the Graces weave them into garlands, and she claims credit for making flowers spring from the blood of Hyacinthus and from Narcissus, Crocus, Attis and Adonis, so that each is remembered in bloom.

Here Ovid borrows figures from Greek mythology to give substance and context to Flora, an Italian fertility goddess with few myths of her own. She was the Roman goddess of youth, fertility, spring and flowering (particularly of grain and the vine), usually shown with leaves and blossoms in her hair. A young woman in profile with flowers in her hair is one of the classic subjects of Victorian shell cameos, often simply called “Flora”.

In ancient Rome, the festival of Floralia was held between 28 April and 3 May in honour of its namesake goddess. It was a jovial and spirited (and often salacious) affair, full of theatre, competitions, comedy, hunting and lots of drinking. Unlike many festivals of the time, held by and for the patrician ruling class, it was rather democratic in nature and held mainly for the enjoyment of the plebeian, or working, classes.

FOB

A fob is an ornament hung from a watch chain or ribbon, named after the small “fob pocket” in a man’s breeches or waistcoat that held a pocket watch. Georgian and Victorian fobs are often seals with an engraved stone at the base; later fobs include coins, lockets, compasses, medals and Masonic orbs.

See also: ALBERT CHAIN; SEAL.

FOILING

Foiling is the practice of placing a thin sheet of coloured or silvered metal foil behind a gemstone in a closed-back setting to boost its colour and sparkle. Georgian jewellers foiled almost everything, from diamonds and paste to topaz and amethyst, a necessary trick in an age of candlelight and imperfect cutting. Foils are delicate and easily ruined by water, which is why closed-back jewellery should never be immersed.

FORGET-ME-NOT FLOWER

That blue and bright-eyed flow’ret of the brook,
Hope’s gentle gem, the sweet forget-me-not.

— Samuel Taylor Coleridge

The Victorians were big on symbolism and sentiment, and floral motifs regularly feature in the jewellery and decorative arts of the day. The language of flowers was a code that attached meanings to various flowers and plants, and the forget-me-not bore a simple and uncomplicated message of love. Combined with a lock of an absent lover’s hair, the flower would serve as love’s reminder.

Forget-me-nots appear on countless pieces of Victorian sentimental and memorial jewellery: clusters of turquoise (the perfect forget-me-not blue), and gold and enamel rings such as early Victorian memorial rings with a diamond-set forget-me-not over royal-blue guilloché enamel and a small glazed compartment at the back, so that a keepsake such as a lock of hair could be worn against the skin.

The forget-me-not takes its name from a tragic German folk tale set on the banks of the Danube. A young couple on the eve of their wedding are taking a walk along the riverbank when the bride spots a cluster of small blue flowers by the water. Her gallant fiancé reaches down to pick them for her but, losing his footing, is swept away by the turbulent waters. With his last breath he manages to cry “Vergiss mein nicht!” (“Forget me not!”) as he throws the flowers at the feet of his beloved. The English name is generally credited to Coleridge, who spent time in Germany and would almost certainly have known the tale.

See also: LANGUAGE OF FLOWERS.

FOX

In Victorian jewellery the fox usually means one thing: hunting. Fox heads, masks and brushes (tails) appear on stickpins, cufflinks and brooches made for sporting gentlemen, often alongside horseshoes, riding crops and stirrups, and foxes were favourite subjects for Essex crystals. In folklore the fox stands for cunning and cleverness.

FRENCH HALLMARKS

French hallmarks look very different from British ones. Since 1838, 18ct gold made in France has been marked with an eagle’s head and silver with a head of Minerva, while imported pieces have carried an owl (yes, really) since 1893. French makers’ marks sit within a lozenge, or diamond shape. The marks are tiny, so a loupe is usually needed to find them.

FRENCH JET

French jet is not jet at all but black glass, faceted or moulded to imitate the real thing. It was hugely popular for Victorian mourning jewellery and dress trimmings. French jet is heavier and colder to the touch than true jet, and its facet edges are sharper.

See also: JET.

Back to A–Z ↑

G

GARLAND STYLE

The garland style is the light, airy, Neoclassical-inspired look of Edwardian and Belle Époque jewellery (c.1900–1915): swags of laurel and flowers, ribbons, bows and tassels, rendered in diamonds and platinum with millegrain edges. It was pioneered by Cartier and taken up by fine jewellers everywhere.

See also: EDWARDIAN.

GARNET

Garnet is not one stone but a family of related minerals that come in almost every colour except blue. In antique jewellery the most familiar are the deep red pyrope (including Bohemian garnet) and the purplish-red almandine, often cut as cabochons (carbuncles) or tiny rose cuts. Rarer are the vivid green demantoid and tsavorite, and the orange spessartine and hessonite. Garnet is the birthstone for January.

See also: BOHEMIAN GARNET; CARBUNCLE; DEMANTOID GARNET.

GARNET-TOPPED DOUBLET

Garnet-topped doublets are a marvel of ingenuity: paste gemstones with a thin slice of garnet fused onto the crown before the whole thing is faceted. Made since around the mid-19th century, they combine the vibrant colours possible in paste with a much harder, more durable crown that has the bright, vitreous lustre of garnet.

To spot one, look for a faint join line around the stone, or place it face down on white paper: a garnet-topped doublet imitating a blue or green stone will often show a tell-tale red ring.

See also: DOUBLET; PASTE GEMSTONES.

GASKIN, MR & MRS

Georgie and Arthur Gaskin were pivotal figures in the English Arts and Crafts movement. Arthur illustrated books for William Morris’s Kelmscott Press, and, influenced by lectures delivered by Morris and Edward Burne-Jones, the couple became leading members of the Birmingham Group, which sought to integrate fine art and decorative art. In Pre-Raphaelite to Arts and Crafts Jewellery (1996), Charlotte Gere and Geoffrey Munn describe how the Gaskins took up metalwork as part of this mission, bringing to it all the dedication, and all the indifference to commercial considerations, that Morris could have wished for.

Arthur, a student and then a teacher at the Birmingham School of Art, met his student Georgie Cave France there; they married in 1894 and began making jewellery together around 1899, under the name “Mr & Mrs Arthur Gaskin”. From 1903 to 1924 he was headmaster of the Vittoria Street School for Jewellers and Silversmiths, influencing generations of Birmingham jewellers, before the couple retired to Chipping Campden. Together they developed a distinctive style which they exhibited internationally, characterised by flowers and leaves in gold or silver, punctuated with small coloured stones and often finished with enamel. Gere and Munn judged their work “absolutely in keeping with the taste of Morris and his circle”.

Of their early work, the critic Aymer Vallance wrote:

“Their home is in a locality where a large amount of very deplorable jewellery is produced; so deplorable that they determined, if possible, to provide an antidote to the prevailing degradation.”

Arthur Wainwright, meanwhile, observed that while the Gaskins could not at first match the mechanical perfection of the trade jeweller, all their work was made by hand and based on simple floral forms of their own invention.

See also: ARTS AND CRAFTS MOVEMENT.

GAZELLE

A symbol of peace, speed and grace, the gazelle holds cultural and mythological significance in many regions around the world. Though traditionally hunted in the Arab world, it has long been admired for its elegance and has become associated in Arabic literature with female beauty. A traditional theme of Arabic love poetry is the comparison of the beloved with a gazelle, and some linguists believe the ghazal, a form of love poem, shares its root with ghazāl, the Arabic word for gazelle and the source, via French, of our own word.

The gazelle’s alertness to its surroundings reflects qualities of adaptability, intuition and resourcefulness, while its sense of freedom and peace highlights the beauty of living in harmony with nature and the importance of finding solace in simplicity. In modern spiritual writing it is often a reminder to channel energy into positive thinking and not to let fear, doubt and shame hold you back. In the 1920s and ’30s the leaping gazelle became one of the signature motifs of Art Deco design.

GEORGIAN

Georgian jewellery was made during the reigns of George I to George IV (1714–1830) and, by convention, that of William IV, up to Queen Victoria’s accession in 1837. It is rare today, because so much was broken up and remade, and hallmarks are often absent, since most jewellery of the period was exempt from compulsory hallmarking. Look for hand-made settings, closed backs and foiled stones, rose and old mine cut diamonds set in silver, paste, cannetille, and sentimental pieces such as mourning rings, lover’s eyes and hairwork.

Browse our Georgian collection.

GIARDINETTI RING

A giardinetti ring (Italian for “little gardens”) has an openwork bezel of gold or silver set with small coloured stones and diamonds arranged like a vase or basket of flowers. Giardinetti rings were fashionable in the 18th century and were revived in Victorian and later pieces.

GILDING

Gilding is the application of a thin layer of gold to a less precious metal, creating “gilt” metal or, over silver, vermeil. Before electroplating took over in the 1840s, the usual method was fire (mercury) gilding: gold dissolved in mercury was painted on and heated until the mercury evaporated, a beautiful but toxic process. Antique gilt pieces often show wear on the high points, revealing the base metal beneath.

See also: VERMEIL.

GIMMEL RING

A gimmel ring (from the Latin gemellus, “twin”) is made of two or three hoops that fit together to form a single ring, often with clasped hands on the bezel. Lovers could each wear a hoop during their betrothal and reunite them at the wedding. Gimmel rings were especially popular in the 16th and 17th centuries, and some conceal an inscription or a tiny memento mori skull revealed only when the hoops are opened.

GIRANDOLE

A girandole is a brooch or earring with a large central stone from which three pendant drops hang, often from a bow, like a branched candlestick (girandola in Italian). Girandole earrings were among the grandest jewels of the 17th and 18th centuries.

GIULIANO

Carlo Giuliano (c.1831–1895) was a Naples-born goldsmith who settled in London around 1860 and became one of the great Victorian jewellers. Closely associated with the Archaeological Revival, he was celebrated above all for his exquisite enamelling and his Renaissance-inspired jewels in vivid colours. His sons Carlo and Arthur continued the business into the early 20th century, and pieces are typically marked C.G.

See also: ARCHAEOLOGICAL REVIVAL.

GOLD COLOURS

Pure gold is a deep, rich yellow, but alloying it with other metals produces a range of colours. More copper makes rose or red gold, fashionable in the 19th century and again in the 1940s; silver tints it towards green gold; and nickel or palladium make white gold, developed in the early 20th century as a cheaper alternative to platinum. Victorian and Retro jewellers loved combining two or three colours of gold in one piece. Most white gold today is rhodium-plated to make it whiter, and the plating wears over time.

GRAND TOUR

The Grand Tour was the extended journey around Europe, especially Italy, that young British aristocrats made in the 18th and early 19th centuries to finish their education among the ruins and art of antiquity. They brought home souvenirs that still turn up today: cameos and intaglios, micromosaics from Rome, pietra dura from Florence, lava cameos from Vesuvius, and glass paste copies of famous ancient gems.

See also: LAVA CAMEO; MICROMOSAIC; PIETRA DURA.

GRANULATION

Granulation is the ancient technique of decorating gold with tiny gold grains, fused to the surface without visible solder to form patterns and textures. The Etruscans were its greatest masters, and their method eluded jewellers for centuries. The Castellani came close in the 19th century, but the secret, a form of fusing using copper salts, was only fully rediscovered in the 1930s.

GUARD CHAIN

A guard chain is a long chain, often well over a metre, worn looped around the neck to secure a watch, lorgnette or locket tucked into a pocket or belt. Victorian women’s guard chains (also called muff chains) are often fine and delicate, with a decorative slide; today they make wonderful long necklaces that can be doubled or tripled.

GUILLOCHÉ

Guilloché, or engine-turning, is a precise, repeating pattern of fine lines cut into metal by a rose engine or straight-line engine, machines guided by cams. On its own it gives a shimmering, textured finish; under translucent enamel it creates guilloché enamel, which glows with shifting light. Fabergé made it famous, and it is common on Edwardian lockets, compacts and watch cases.

GYPSY RING

A gypsy ring has its stones set flush into a heavy, smooth band rather than standing proud in claws, so they are protected from knocks. Often the stones sit in star-shaped engraved settings, known as star-set. Popular with Victorian gentlemen and as sturdy everyday rings, gypsy rings are typically set with diamonds, sapphires or rubies. The name is traditional in the trade; some now prefer “flush-set”.

Back to A–Z ↑

H

HABILLÉ

A cameo habillé (French for “dressed”) is a cameo whose carved figure has been embellished with real jewellery, such as a tiny diamond necklace, earring or tiara set into the stone itself. The technique was fashionable in the late 19th century and adds a delightful touch of sparkle to a portrait.

HAIRWORK

Hairwork is jewellery made from, or containing, human hair, usually that of a loved one, as a keepsake of love or mourning. In the 18th and early 19th centuries hair was typically arranged under glass in “palette work”: laid flat, cut and shaped into sheaves, plumes, urns and weeping willows. By the mid-19th century it was also woven, using a weighted “table”, into hollow tubes and intricate braids to make whole bracelets, watch chains and earrings, a craft taken up by professional hairworkers and amateur Victorians alike.

See also: MOURNING JEWELLERY.

HALCYON

In Greek mythology, Alcyone (also Halcyon or Halcyone) and her husband, King Ceyx of Trachis, incurred the wrath of Zeus for their romantic hubris: according to Pseudo-Apollodorus, they presumed to call each other “Zeus” and “Hera”. Zeus struck Ceyx down with a thunderbolt while he was at sea. Morpheus, the god of dreams, then appeared to Alcyone in her husband’s form to tell her of his fate, and in her grief she threw herself into the sea. Out of compassion, the gods transformed them both into halcyon birds, the common kingfisher named after her (though Apollodorus says Ceyx became a gannet).

From the myth comes the phrase “halcyon days”. Each winter, the story goes, Alcyone’s father Aeolus, keeper of the winds, calms the sea for a week either side of the winter solstice so that the kingfisher can lay her eggs in a nest floating on the waves. Halcyon days have meant calm, peaceful, golden times ever since.

HALF-HOOP RING

A half-hoop ring has a row of stones set across the top half of the band only, usually three, five or seven graduated stones, sometimes divided by tiny diamond points. Hugely popular from the mid-Victorian period to the Edwardian era, half-hoops combine diamonds with rubies, sapphires, opals, emeralds or pearls, and are the forerunner of the modern half-eternity ring. A “carved half-hoop” sets the stones in a deeply scroll-carved gallery, a classic late Victorian look.

HALLMARK

A hallmark is a set of official marks stamped on gold, silver, platinum or palladium to guarantee its precious-metal content. Britain’s system is one of the oldest forms of consumer protection in the world: the London Goldsmiths’ Company began testing and marking silver in 1300, and the word itself comes from Goldsmiths’ Hall. A traditional British hallmark is made up of:

• the sponsor’s (maker’s) mark, usually initials in a shield;
• the standard (fineness) mark, such as the lion passant for sterling silver or a number for gold;
• the assay office (town) mark;
• the date letter, showing the year of testing;
• sometimes a duty mark (1784–1890) or a commemorative mark.

Today only the first three are compulsory. Under UK law, items below certain weights are exempt (1g for gold and palladium, 0.5g for platinum, 7.78g for silver), and articles made before 1950 may be sold as precious metal without a hallmark if they meet the minimum fineness and haven’t been altered since. Platinum has only been hallmarked since 1975 and palladium since 2009, so older pieces in those metals are usually stamped by the maker, if at all.

See also: ASSAY OFFICE; DATE LETTER; DUTY MARK; LION PASSANT; TOWN MARK; UNMARKED.

HAND

Hands carry many meanings in jewellery. Clasped hands (the fede) stand for faith and fidelity; a hand holding a flower, wreath or garland is a classic Victorian brooch, offering friendship or love; and a hand holding a wreath can also mourn the dead. In Mediterranean folk jewellery a clenched fist with the thumb between the fingers, the figa, wards off the evil eye.

See also: FEDE RING.

HAND ENGRAVING

Hand engraving is the art of cutting designs into metal with a sharp steel tool called a graver or burin, pushed by hand to lift a fine curl of metal. Every line is cut individually, giving crisp, deep, subtly varied lines with a life that machine or laser engraving can’t match. It is used for monograms, crests, inscriptions and decorative patterns, and cut in reverse for seals. We offer custom hand engraving on vintage and antique signet rings and posy rings through our Spells & Sigils service.

See also: BRIGHT-CUT ENGRAVING; SEAL; SIGNET RING.

HARDSTONE

Hardstone is a general term for the semi-precious stones used for carving cameos, intaglios, seals, beads and pietra dura: mostly varieties of quartz and chalcedony such as agate, onyx, carnelian, jasper and bloodstone, plus lapis lazuli, malachite and others. “Hardstone cameo” distinguishes a stone carving from one in shell or lava.

HEART

The heart has stood for love since the Middle Ages, and Georgian and Victorian jewellers used it endlessly: crowned hearts for loyalty, padlocked hearts for fidelity, hearts pierced by arrows for love’s sting, and heart-shaped lockets holding portraits and hair. A heart with a bent tip, the “witch’s heart”, was a Scottish charm against witchcraft and the evil eye, and the crowned Luckenbooth brooch was a Scottish love token.

See also: LUCKENBOOTH.

HEMATITE

Hematite is a heavy, metallic grey-black iron oxide that takes a mirror-like polish. It was a favourite of Victorian and early 20th-century men’s jewellery, especially carved intaglios of classical warriors’ heads set in signet rings and cufflinks, many of them cut in Idar-Oberstein. Scratched or powdered, hematite leaves a reddish streak, which gives it its name, from the Greek for blood.

HERALDRY

Heraldry is the system of hereditary coats of arms that grew up in medieval Europe to identify knights in armour, and it is the language of most engraved signet rings. A full coat of arms includes a shield, helmet, mantling, crest and motto, but a signet ring usually shows just the crest: the emblem that sat on top of the helmet, on a wreath of twisted silk.

Because engraving has no colour, engravers use a system of lines and dots, credited to the 17th-century Jesuit Silvester Petra Sancta, to show the heraldic tinctures: vertical lines for red (gules), horizontal lines for blue (azure), dots for gold (or) and plain metal for silver (argent).

See also: SIGNET RING.

HERCULES KNOT

The Hercules (or Heracles) knot is a reef knot of two interlaced loops, a motif that goes back to ancient Egypt and Greece. Believed to protect and heal, it was worn as an amulet and became a favourite centrepiece of Hellenistic diadems and bracelets. Roman brides wore it tied into their girdles, for the groom to untie (hence, some say, “tying the knot”). Revived in Archaeological Revival jewellery, it remains a powerful symbol of love and fidelity.

HOLBEINESQUE

Holbeinesque jewellery is a Victorian style inspired by the jewels in Hans Holbein the Younger’s portraits of the Tudor court. Typical pieces are oval or shield-shaped pendants with a central gem (often a garnet, amethyst or chrysoberyl) framed in colourful enamel scrolls and hung with a drop. They were fashionable from the 1860s to the 1880s, part of the wider Renaissance Revival.

HORSESHOE

The horseshoe is one of the most popular lucky charms in jewellery, especially in the late Victorian and Edwardian years, when diamond-, pearl- and turquoise-set horseshoe brooches and stickpins were everywhere. Whether to wear it points-up (to hold the luck in) or points-down (to pour the luck over you) is still argued over. Iron was traditionally believed to repel evil spirits, and horseshoes were naturally beloved of racing and hunting enthusiasts.

HUGUENOT CROSS

The Huguenot cross is the emblem of the French Protestants, the Huguenots: a Maltese cross with fleurs-de-lis between its arms and a dove (the Holy Spirit) or a teardrop hanging below. Traditionally said to have been created by a goldsmith in Nîmes around 1688, it travelled with Huguenot families who fled persecution across Europe, including to Britain.

See also: MALTESE CROSS.

Back to A–Z ↑

I

ILLUSION SETTING

An illusion setting surrounds a small diamond with a plate or collar of polished white metal, often cut with tiny facets or millegrain edges, so that the stone appears much larger than it is. It was a clever economy of the 1920s to 1940s, used especially in engagement rings and Art Deco clusters.

INTAGLIO

An intaglio is a design carved into the surface of a stone or other material, the opposite of a cameo, which stands in relief. Intaglios have been used as seals since ancient Mesopotamia: carved in reverse and pressed into wax or clay, they leave a raised impression that reads the right way round. Carnelian, sardonyx, chalcedony, amethyst and hematite are classic intaglio stones, and Georgian and Victorian signet rings and fob seals carry crests, initials, portraits and classical scenes. Grand Tourists collected ancient intaglios, along with glass paste copies of the most famous ones.

See also: CAMEO; SEAL; TASSIE.

IVORY

Ivory is the dense, creamy material of elephant tusks (and of walrus, hippo and other animals’ teeth). For centuries it was carved into brooches, bangles and beads, and thin ivory sheets were the traditional surface for painted portrait miniatures. To protect elephants, the UK’s Ivory Act 2018, in force since June 2022, bans dealing in items made of or containing elephant ivory, apart from narrow exemptions that require registration or a certificate, notably items made before 3 March 1947 with less than 10% ivory by volume, and portrait miniatures made before 1918. Bone, celluloid and vegetable ivory (the tagua nut) can look very similar.

IVY

The ivy that clings to the wall,
Symbols my heart’s love for thee;
The ivy clings closely, so does my heart,
To the one adored by me.

— Anon.

The sentimental Victorians LOVED ivy. In the language of flowers it represented fidelity, high on the list of Victorian virtues: once ivy chooses to embrace its companion, be that a tree, a wall or a fencepost, nothing but death can separate the two. They become entwined to the last.

True friends, like ivy and the wall,
Both stand together, and together fall.

— Thomas Carlyle

As far as sentiments went, fidelity was a biggie for the Victorians, and ivy leaves appeared everywhere from jewellery to paintings to poetry, often accompanied by the words I cling to thee or Nothing can detach me from you, or the French motto Je meurs où je m’attache: “I die where I cling”.

See also: LANGUAGE OF FLOWERS.

Back to A–Z ↑

J

JABOT PIN

A jabot pin is a brooch with a decorative element at each end of a long pin, worn horizontally so that the shaft shows between them. Named after the ruffled jabot at the throat of a shirt or blouse, jabot pins were especially fashionable in the 1920s and ’30s, often in onyx, diamonds and platinum, or as a slender arrow.

JACOBITE JEWELLERY

Jacobite jewellery was worn by supporters of the exiled Stuart kings and their heirs, above all Prince Charles Edward Stuart, “Bonnie Prince Charlie”, after the failed Rising of 1745. Since open support for the Stuarts could be dangerous, loyalty was expressed in code: rings and lockets with hidden portraits, white roses (the Jacobite emblem), oak leaves, and words such as FIAT (“let it be done”). Loyal toasts were drunk to “the king over the water”.

JADE

Jade is the name given to two different minerals, nephrite and jadeite, both tough, fine-grained and beautifully carvable. Nephrite was the jade of ancient China, revered for thousands of years; vivid green jadeite from Burma (Myanmar) reached China in the 18th century and became the more precious of the two. Carved jade plaques, buttons and rings were set into Art Deco jewellery by Cartier and others.

JET

Jet is fossilised wood from trees related to the monkey puzzle, which grew around 180 million years ago, compressed into a light, warm black material that takes a brilliant polish. The finest comes from Whitby in Yorkshire, where the jet industry boomed after Queen Victoria went into deep mourning for Prince Albert in 1861 and black jewellery became essential. Real jet is light and warm to the touch and leaves a brown streak; imitations include French jet (glass), vulcanite and bog oak.

See also: FRENCH JET; MOURNING JEWELLERY; VULCANITE.

Back to A–Z ↑

K

KARAT

Karat (K) is the American spelling of carat when it measures the purity of gold, as in 14K or 18K. See CARAT (GOLD).

KEEPER RING

A keeper ring is a sturdy band, typically 18ct gold and often engraved or chased with patterns, worn above a wedding ring to stop it slipping off. Victorian keepers were often given together with the wedding band, and today they make handsome rings in their own right, many of them fully hallmarked with a precise year.

KEY

The key is a symbol of love, trust and access: the key to one’s heart, often paired with a heart-shaped padlock. Victorian sweethearts exchanged key and padlock charms, and a golden key was a traditional British 21st birthday gift, symbolising the “key of the door” and the arrival of adulthood.

KNIFE-EDGE

Knife-edge describes a thin metal bar or band with a sharp ridge along its top, so that it looks finer from the front while staying strong. Knife-edge bars link the elements of many delicate Edwardian pendants and brooches, and knife-edge shanks appear on rings of the same period.

Back to A–Z ↑

L

LACE PIN

A lace pin is a small, slim bar brooch, usually under 5cm long, used by Victorian and Edwardian women to secure lace collars, cuffs and jabots. Lace pins were made by the thousand in gold, set with seed pearls, turquoise or small gems, and are often found in pairs or sets.

See also: BAR BROOCH.

LALIQUE

René Lalique (1860–1945) was the greatest of the Art Nouveau jewellers. Working in Paris, he thrilled the jewellery world by valuing artistic effect over intrinsic value, combining gold with plique-à-jour enamel, carved horn, glass, ivory and opals in dreamlike designs of dragonflies, peacocks, serpents and sensuous women. His triumph at the 1900 Paris Exposition Universelle made him famous; he later turned to glass, the medium for which he is best known today.

LANGUAGE OF FLOWERS

The language of flowers, or floriography, was the 19th-century fashion for giving meanings to flowers and plants, so that a bouquet or a jewel could carry a coded message. Dozens of flower “dictionaries” were published, and they sometimes contradicted one another, but certain meanings became fixed: ivy for fidelity, forget-me-nots for true love and remembrance, pansies for thoughts (from the French pensées), roses for love, lily of the valley for the return of happiness, and violets for modesty. Victorian jewellery is full of these silent messages.

See also: FORGET-ME-NOT FLOWER; IVY; PANSY.

LAPIS LAZULI

Lapis lazuli is an intense blue rock flecked with golden pyrite, mined for more than 6,000 years in the mountains of Badakhshan, in what is now Afghanistan. Prized in ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia, it was also ground to make ultramarine, the most expensive pigment of Renaissance painting. In jewellery it appears in ancient beads and amulets, Victorian Egyptian Revival pieces and the crisp blue accents of Art Deco.

LAVA CAMEO

Lava cameos were carved from the solidified lava of Mount Vesuvius, in soft, muted shades of grey, cream, olive and terracotta, and sold to Grand Tour travellers visiting Naples and Pompeii in the 19th century. They are carved in high relief from a single colour of stone, often with classical heads, and were frequently linked into bracelets. Lava is soft, so the high points may show wear.

LAVALIÈRE

A lavalière is a pendant hung from a fine chain, typically with one or more drops dangling below a central motif, fashionable in the Edwardian era. The name honours Louise de La Vallière, mistress of Louis XIV of France.

See also: NÉGLIGÉE.

LIBERTY & CO

Liberty & Co is the London store founded by Arthur Lasenby Liberty on Regent Street in 1875, which became a byword for Aesthetic and Art Nouveau taste; in Italy, Art Nouveau was even called “Stile Liberty”. From 1899 its Cymric range of silver and gold jewellery, much of it designed by the Manx designer Archibald Knox, brought Celtic-inspired interlace, enamel and cabochon stones to a wide public. Pieces are typically marked L&Co.

LION OF SAINT MARK

The Lion of Saint Mark, a winged lion, is the symbol of Mark the Evangelist, traditionally identified as the author of the Gospel of Mark and the founder of the Church of Alexandria.

The winged lion is one of the four living creatures of the tetramorph, which represent the four Evangelists: Matthew (a man), Mark (a lion), Luke (an ox) and John (an eagle). Just like the four Gospels, the creatures of the tetramorph represent four facets of Christ. Mark’s lion is generally attributed to the opening of his Gospel, which describes John the Baptist as “the voice of one crying in the wilderness”, a voice artists pictured as a lion’s roar.

A second link between Mark and the lion comes from Severus ibn al-Muqaffa, a 10th-century Coptic bishop of Hermopolis in Egypt. He tells how a lion and lioness confronted the young John Mark and his father as they travelled through Jordan. While his terrified father urged him to flee, Mark prayed to Christ; the two beasts fell dead, and his father was converted by the miracle.

Saint Mark is also the patron saint of Venice, whose merchants smuggled his relics out of Alexandria in 828, and the winged lion, often resting a paw on an open book, became the emblem of the Venetian Republic. It is a favourite motif of Grand Tour souvenirs and micromosaics.

LION PASSANT

The lion passant, a lion walking with one forepaw raised, is the British hallmark for sterling silver, struck by English assay offices since 1544. Scottish silver traditionally used a thistle or a lion rampant instead. A lion passant on a piece guarantees that it is at least 92.5% silver.

See also: HALLMARK; STERLING SILVER.

LIZARD

Lizards and salamanders scuttled across Victorian jewellery from the 1860s to the 1890s, especially as brooches set with demantoid garnets, turquoise, pearls and diamonds. Their meanings are many: the salamander was believed to live in fire and so stood for passion and endurance, while the lizard, which sheds its skin, stood for regeneration, wisdom and good fortune.

LOCKET

A locket is a small hinged case, worn as a pendant, that opens to hold something precious: a portrait, a photograph or a lock of hair. Georgian and early Victorian lockets often have a glazed compartment on the back, while later Victorian lockets in gold or silver are engraved, chased or set with stones, often with a cartouche for a monogram on the front. A “back and front” locket has thin sheets of gold over a base-metal core, a common and more affordable Victorian construction.

LOUPE

A loupe is a small folding magnifying glass, usually 10x, used by jewellers and collectors to examine stones, hallmarks, solder joins and repairs. It is the single most useful tool for anyone buying antique jewellery: tiny hallmarks, chips, wear and later alterations all reveal themselves under it.

LOVE KNOT

A love knot (or lover’s knot) is a decorative knot of two interlaced loops or ribbons, symbolising the bond between two people. It appears in jewellery of every period, from Renaissance pendants to Victorian rings and Edwardian brooches, often combined with hearts and bows.

See also: HERCULES KNOT.

LOVER’S EYE

A lover’s eye is a miniature painting of a single eye, usually in watercolour on ivory, set into a brooch, ring or locket and often framed with pearls (for tears) or gems. The fashion is said to have begun in 1785, when the Prince of Wales, later George IV, sent his secret love Maria Fitzherbert a painting of his eye, and it flourished from about 1790 to 1820. An eye is anonymous, so only the wearer knew whose it was: the perfect token for a secret or forbidden love, or for mourning. Lover’s eyes are rare and highly collectable.

LUCKENBOOTH

A Luckenbooth brooch is a Scottish love token in the form of a heart, or two entwined hearts, beneath a crown. It takes its name from the “luckenbooths”, locked booths around St Giles’ Cathedral in Edinburgh, where such brooches were sold in the 18th century. Given at betrothal and later pinned to a baby’s shawl, it was believed to protect the wearer from the evil eye.

Back to A–Z ↑

M

MALTESE CROSS

The Maltese cross has four V-shaped arms that narrow towards the centre, giving it eight points, said to represent the eight obligations of the Knights Hospitaller, who ruled Malta from 1530 to 1798. It appears on Victorian and Edwardian crosses and pendants, and is often confused with the cross pattée, whose flared arms end in straight edges.

See also: CROSS PATTÉE; HUGUENOT CROSS.

MARCASITE

In jewellery, “marcasite” means small, faceted pieces of pyrite (iron pyrites, or fool’s gold) pavé-set into silver for a soft, glittering grey sparkle. True marcasite is actually a different, unstable mineral and isn’t used. Marcasite jewellery was popular in the 18th century as an alternative to diamonds and again in the 1920s and ’30s, when it suited the geometric lines of Art Deco.

MARQUISE

A marquise (or navette, French for “little boat”) is a long, pointed oval, used both for individual stones and for whole ring heads. Legend has it that the shape was inspired by the lips of the Marquise de Pompadour, mistress of Louis XV. Victorian and Edwardian marquise rings, set with a navette-shaped cluster of diamonds and coloured stones, are an elegant classic.

MARRIAGE

In the antiques trade, a marriage is a piece put together from parts of two or more different pieces: a pendant from one necklace on the chain of another, or a later clasp on an antique bracelet. Marriages aren’t necessarily a bad thing, but they should always be described as such.

See also: CONVERSION.

MASONIC ORB / BALL / CROSS

These remarkable little oddities take the form of a sphere with four hinged “arms” at the top that hold it all together. When these are released, the cleverly hinged ball opens out into a cross shape, with six pyramids pointing upwards. Each face of the pyramids is engraved (and sometimes enamelled) with a different Masonic symbol: the classic square and compasses, a skull and crossbones, a closed envelope, a brick wall, the Star of David, the Eye of Providence, a pentagram, and a whole host of others. They were made in silver, gold or a combination of the two, usually to hang from a watch chain.

Their origins are obscure. Some Masonic writers trace the idea back centuries, or link it to the armillary sphere, an astronomical model of the heavens, but most surviving examples date from the late 19th and early 20th centuries, when Masonic orbs were fashionable accessories among Freemasons and a discreet way to recognise one another. The sphere is often read as the universe and the cross as the four cardinal points, while opening the orb stands for the Mason’s journey towards moral and spiritual knowledge.

The symbols vary from orb to orb, but common ones include:

• the square and compasses, emblem of Freemasonry, for virtue and morality;
• the Seal of Solomon (Star of David), for wisdom and divine guidance;
• the skull and crossbones, a reminder of mortality and of living with purpose;
• a sprig of acacia, for immortality and resurrection;
• the twin pillars of Boaz and Jachin from King Solomon’s Temple, for strength and establishment;
• the All-Seeing Eye, for divine providence;
• the square, level and plumb rule, for morality, equality and uprightness.

MEDUSA

Medusa was the most famous of the three Gorgons of Greek myth, a woman with snakes for hair whose gaze turned onlookers to stone, until the hero Perseus beheaded her with the help of a mirrored shield. Her severed head, the gorgoneion, became a powerful protective amulet, carried on Athena’s aegis and on ancient armour, buildings and jewellery to ward off evil. Medusa cameos were especially popular in the 19th century, often showing her as a tragic beauty rather than a monster.

MEMENTO MORI

Memento mori, Latin for “remember that you must die”, describes jewellery that reminds the wearer of mortality and of the importance of living a good life. Skulls, coffins, skeletons and hourglasses appear on 16th- and 17th-century rings and pendants, often with grim little mottoes. The theme gradually gave way to more personal mourning jewellery in the 18th century.

See also: MOURNING JEWELLERY.

MICROMOSAIC

Micromosaic is mosaic made of minute pieces (tesserae) of coloured glass, sometimes thousands to the square inch, set to form pictures of astonishing detail. The technique grew out of the Vatican mosaic workshops in 18th-century Rome, and micromosaic brooches, pendants and bracelets showing classical ruins, birds, dogs and flowers were treasured Grand Tour souvenirs. The finest, made with drawn threads of glass, are almost indistinguishable from paintings.

MILLEGRAIN

Millegrain (French for “a thousand grains”) is a decorative edge of tiny metal beads, raised along the rim of a setting or band with a small wheeled tool. It softens the outline of a setting and makes stones appear larger, and it is a signature of Edwardian and Art Deco platinum jewellery.

MIZPAH

Mizpah is a Hebrew word meaning “watchtower”, taken from Genesis 31:49: “The LORD watch between me and thee, when we are absent one from another.” In Victorian and Edwardian Britain the word was engraved on brooches, rings and lockets exchanged between sweethearts, friends and family separated by distance, and Mizpah jewellery was especially poignant for soldiers and their loved ones during the First World War. In the Bible, ironically, the words seal a wary pact between two men who didn’t quite trust each other.

MONOGRAM

A monogram is a motif made of two or more overlapping or combined letters, usually a person’s initials. Monograms have been engraved on signet rings, lockets, cufflinks and brooches for centuries, and many Victorian lockets have a blank cartouche on the front waiting for one.

See also: CYPHER; HAND ENGRAVING.

MOON, CRESCENT

The crescent is a potent, ancient symbol usually used to represent the moon, but not necessarily a particular lunar phase. When it does denote a phase, heraldry calls the waxing moon “increscent” and the waning moon “decrescent”. The word crescent comes from the Latin crescere, “to grow”. In alchemy the crescent represents silver, on account of the moon’s silvery glow, and its use as the astrological symbol for the moon can be traced back to early classical Greek horoscopes.

Through moon goddesses such as Artemis (the Roman Diana) and Selene, there is a strong and ancient link to the divine feminine, mirrored by the sun representing the male principle, and the crescent is often placed with its two points upwards on the crown of the head, like horns. Viewed from the northern hemisphere, the horns of a waxing crescent point to the left, and those of a waning crescent to the right.

Crescent brooches, often set with diamonds or pearls, were hugely popular in the late Victorian and Edwardian periods, sometimes with a star nestled inside. Add a bee and you have a “honeymoon” brooch (honey plus moon), a favourite wedding gift.

MOONSTONE

Moonstone is a feldspar that glows with a soft, floating blue or white sheen called adularescence, caused by light scattering between microscopic layers in the stone. Cut as a cabochon, it was a favourite of Art Nouveau and Arts and Crafts jewellers, who prized mystery over sparkle, and of late Victorian carvers, who gave moonstones tiny “man in the moon” faces. The finest come from Sri Lanka.

MOTHER-OF-PEARL

Mother-of-pearl, or nacre, is the iridescent inner layer of mollusc shells, the same substance that forms pearls. It has been carved into buttons, beads, inlays and cameos for centuries, and it provides the shimmering background of many Essex crystals and Arts and Crafts jewels.

MOURNING JEWELLERY

Mourning jewellery commemorates the dead. In the 17th and 18th centuries people often left money in their wills for mourning rings to be given out at the funeral, engraved with the name, date of death and age of the deceased; black enamel usually marked a married person, and white enamel someone who died unmarried or young. Georgian pieces often feature urns, weeping willows and grieving figures worked in hair or painted in sepia under glass.

After Prince Albert’s death in 1861, Queen Victoria’s 40 years of mourning made black jewellery (Whitby jet, French jet, vulcanite, bog oak, black enamel and hairwork) a national fashion.

See also: HAIRWORK; JET; MEMENTO MORI.

Back to A–Z ↑

N

NATURAL PEARL

A natural pearl forms without any human help, when an oyster or mussel coats an irritant, or simply a stray cell, in layer upon layer of nacre. Before cultured pearls arrived in the early 20th century every pearl was natural and fabulously rare: in 1917 Cartier famously acquired its Fifth Avenue mansion in New York in exchange for a double strand of natural pearls. Most came from the Persian Gulf, the Gulf of Mannar and, on a small scale, the rivers of Scotland. Only a gem laboratory, using X-rays, can confirm that a pearl is natural.

See also: CULTURED PEARL; SEED PEARL.

NAVETTE

See MARQUISE.

NÉGLIGÉE

A négligée is an Edwardian pendant in which two drops of unequal length hang asymmetrically from a short chain or bar, often finished with pearls, diamonds or tassels. Its casual, “negligent” elegance was very much of its time, around 1900 to 1915.

See also: LAVALIÈRE.

NIELLO

Niello is a black mixture of silver, copper, lead and sulphur that is inlaid into engraved lines on silver or gold and fused with heat, creating crisp black designs against the shining metal. Used since ancient times, it is especially associated with Russian and Thai silverwork, and with Victorian and Art Deco cigarette cases and bangles.

NIGHT AND DAY (THORVALDSEN)

Night and Day are a pair of marble roundels carved in 1815 by the Danish Neoclassical sculptor Bertel Thorvaldsen, which became some of the most copied images of the 19th century. Night is a winged woman carrying two sleeping infants, Sleep and Death, accompanied by an owl; Day, sometimes called Aurora, scatters flowers as she flies with a torch-bearing child. Both were endlessly reproduced on cameos, brooches and pendants, often as a pair.

Back to A–Z ↑

O

OAK AND ACORN

The oak, king of English trees, stands for strength, endurance and longevity, and the acorn for potential: great oaks from little acorns grow. In Britain the oak also carries royal and patriotic meaning, recalling the Royal Oak in which the future Charles II hid after the Battle of Worcester in 1651, and oak leaves were a Jacobite emblem. Acorn charms and oak-leaf brooches were popular Victorian pieces, and the acorn was traditionally believed to ward off lightning.

OLD EUROPEAN CUT

The old European cut is the round, hand-cut forerunner of the modern brilliant, used from around the 1870s to the 1930s. It has a small table, a tall crown, a deep pavilion and usually an open culet, which together give a chunky, flashy sparkle made for candle- and gaslight. Because each was cut by eye to save as much of the rough diamond as possible, old European cuts vary charmingly in their proportions.

See also: OLD MINE CUT; TRANSITIONAL CUT.

OLD MINE CUT

The old mine cut is an early form of brilliant with a cushion-shaped outline, a small table, a high crown, a deep pavilion and a large culet. It was the dominant diamond cut of the 18th and much of the 19th century, and its name recalls the “old mines” of India and Brazil, the sources of diamonds before South Africa. Its soft, broken-up flashes of light are best seen by candlelight, for which it was designed.

ONYX

Onyx is a chalcedony with straight, parallel bands, classically black and white; sardonyx has bands of brown or red and white. Layered onyx and sardonyx are ideal for cameos and intaglios, the carver cutting through a pale layer to reveal the darker one beneath. Most “black onyx” in jewellery is actually chalcedony dyed solid black, a practice dating back to ancient Rome, and it was a key ingredient of Victorian mourning and Art Deco jewellery.

OPAL

Opal is hydrated silica whose microscopic spheres diffract light into flashes of colour that shift as it moves, known as play of colour. Victorian opals mostly came from Hungary until the great Australian fields were discovered in the 1870s and ’80s. Walter Scott’s novel Anne of Geierstein (1829), in which an opal seems to seal a woman’s fate, helped make opals “unlucky” in the popular imagination, but Queen Victoria loved them and did much to restore their fortunes. Opals contain water and are soft, so protect them from knocks, heat and sudden changes of temperature.

OUROBOROS

The ouroboros (literally “tail-devourer”) is an ancient symbol depicting a serpent (or dragon) forming a circle and eating its own tail. It crops up in many cultures across many civilisations, and has meant different things to different peoples:

Infinity and wholeness: the circular shape represents eternity, continuity and the cyclical nature of life, and the unity of opposites: creation and destruction, beginning and end, life and death.

Self-reflection and introspection, encouraging us to look inwards and reflect on our beliefs, our actions and, ultimately, ourselves.

Rebirth and renewal through transformation and growth.

Alchemy and spirituality: the ouroboros is closely associated with alchemical practice, where it can represent the union of opposing forces and the attainment of something greater than the sum of its parts, be that gold or another precious substance, or a higher consciousness and spiritual enlightenment.

My end is my beginning. All is one. The ouroboros feeds on itself, mates with itself, gives birth to itself and destroys itself, in an endless cycle rather than a straight line. It holds the world together and keeps it turning, threading death into life and life into death, which is why it stands for immortality and eternity in funerary art. It seems still, yet it is perpetual motion, forever turning back on itself: the alpha and the omega. For the alchemists it was the untamed power of nature; for the Greeks, the idea that all is one; for the Egyptians, the path of the sun god; and it has been likened to the Buddhist wheel of samsara. It encircles the cosmic egg and measures the lifespan of the universe: totality, primordial unity and self-sufficiency, cyclical time and infinite space, the darkness and the waters before creation, all potential before it becomes real. My end is my beginning.

In Victorian jewellery the serpent swallowing its tail was a favourite emblem of eternal love, worn on rings, bangles and mourning jewellery alike.

See also: SNAKE.

OWL

The owl has been a symbol of wisdom since ancient Athens, where the little owl was sacred to Athena, goddess of wisdom, and appeared on the city’s silver coins, nicknamed “owls”. It can be an omen too: a bird of the night, linked with death and the underworld in Roman and later folklore. The Victorians loved owls for brooches, stickpins and charms, often with glittering gem eyes, and the owl’s watchful wisdom made it a natural emblem for scholars. It is also, of course, our namesake.

See also: ATHENA (MINERVA); NIGHT AND DAY (THORVALDSEN).

Back to A–Z ↑

P

PAN

The Great God Pan; the Piper at the Gates of Dawn…

• Ancient Greek god of the wild
• Half-man, half-goat
• Son of Hermes and a daughter of Dryops*; rejected by his mother for being half goat
• Adored by all of the Olympian gods (but particularly Dionysus)
• Considerable sexual energy
• Challenged Apollo to a musical duel (and lost)
• Known to create panic among humans
• Could be multiplied into a swarm of Pans
• The only Greek god said to have died

Pan is the ancient Greek god of shepherds and hunters, of the meadows, forests and mountain wildernesses, of the rustic and the pastoral, and of all the wildness of nature. The son of Hermes and a daughter of Dryops*, this pastoral deity is half-human, half-goat, with curled horns and pointed ears. He remains immortalised to this day in our word panic (literally, “pertaining to Pan”), because he was thought to fill lonely places with eerie, unexplained sounds and to spread sudden, groundless terror through flocks and crowds… fear that may, of course, lead to pandemonium. The Greek word pan means “all” or “every”: when Hermes presented his son to the other Olympians, the delight was shared by each and every one. They loved the little goat-hoofed creature.

Interest in Pan revived among liberal scholars of the late 1700s. Richard Payne Knight’s Discourse on the Worship of Priapus (1786) presented him as a representation of creation expressed through sexuality:

“Pan is represented pouring water upon the organ of generation; that is, invigorating the active creative power by the prolific element.”

In the Romantic era Pan became a poet’s god. John Keats’s Endymion (1818) opens with a hymn in his praise, in which, as the scholar Douglas Bush put it, Pan becomes “the symbol of the romantic imagination”. Pan and his pipes remain a favourite subject of cameos and intaglios, ancient and Victorian alike.

*The sources don’t agree on his parentage: Herodotus says Penelope was his mother, and some make Pan a son of Zeus.

PANSY

The pansy takes its name from the French pensée, “thought”, and in the language of flowers it means “think of me” or “you occupy my thoughts”. Enamelled pansies in rich purples and yellows, often with a tiny diamond at the centre, were a favourite motif of late Victorian and Art Nouveau brooches and pendants.

See also: LANGUAGE OF FLOWERS.

PARURE

A parure is a matching set of jewellery, typically a necklace, earrings, brooch and bracelet, and often a tiara or comb; a smaller set of two or three pieces is a demi-parure. Parures were the height of fashion at the Napoleonic court in the early 19th century. Many surviving sets were later split up, so a complete parure in its original fitted case is a rare survivor.

PASTE GEMSTONES

Paste is a type of high-lead glass, also known as flint glass, which, with the addition of metal salts for colour, can be used to replicate virtually any gemstone.

The somewhat odd name, paste, comes from the way these gems are made: the leaded glass is crushed and ground down to a powder, mixed with the relevant colouring salts, then formed into a “wet” paste to ensure an even distribution of colour through the stone. This paste is then placed into a mould and fired at high temperature to create the final gem, which can be faceted, domed like a cabochon or bead, or even made into an intaglio or cameo. The finest Georgian paste was cut and polished by hand, just like a precious stone; the 18th-century Parisian jeweller Georges Frédéric Strass was so celebrated for it that “strass” became the French word for paste.

But there’s a little more to paste than simply imitating natural jewels: some paste stones have properties unlike anything else around, natural or otherwise… read our blog for the full story.

PAVÉ

Pavé (French for “paved”) is a setting in which many small stones are set close together and held by tiny raised beads of metal, so that the surface looks paved with gems. Victorian jewellers pavé-set turquoise, garnets and seed pearls; Art Deco and later jewellers covered whole surfaces in diamonds.

PERIDOT

Peridot is the gem variety of olivine, a vivid, slightly oily lime to olive green. The ancient Egyptians mined it on Zabargad (St John’s Island) in the Red Sea, and it was hugely fashionable in Edwardian jewellery, set with seed pearls and diamonds in delicate gold or platinum. It is the birthstone for August.

PIETRA DURA

Pietra dura (Italian for “hard stone”) is a mosaic of precisely cut and fitted pieces of coloured hardstone, such as lapis, malachite, agate and jasper, forming pictures, typically flowers, birds and butterflies against a black background. Perfected in Florence, where the Medici founded the grand-ducal workshops in 1588, it was a favourite Grand Tour souvenir, set into brooches, pendants and bracelets.

PINCHBECK

Pinchbeck is an alloy of copper and zinc that closely imitates gold, invented in the early 18th century by the London clockmaker Christopher Pinchbeck. It was widely used for Georgian chains, watch cases, seals and buckles, and good Georgian pinchbeck, with its warm, convincing colour, is collectable in its own right. Unfairly, the word later came to mean anything cheap or counterfeit.

PIQUÉ

Piqué is tortoiseshell (or sometimes horn or ivory) inlaid with tiny pins and patterns of gold or silver, set while the shell was softened by heat so that it gripped the metal as it cooled. Perfected in 17th-century France, it was made in Birmingham on a large scale for Victorian earrings, brooches and pendants, often in delicate star or floral designs. Tortoiseshell comes from the endangered hawksbill turtle and is subject to strict trade controls, so check the rules before buying or shipping.

PLATINUM

Platinum is a dense, white, rare and extremely strong precious metal. Its very high melting point made it hard to work until hotter torches arrived at the end of the 19th century, after which it transformed jewellery: strong enough to hold diamonds in fine, lacy settings, it defined the Edwardian garland style and Art Deco. Platinum has only been hallmarked in Britain since 1975, so older pieces are often stamped PLAT or unmarked. Its use in jewellery was restricted during the Second World War, when it was needed for the war effort.

PLIQUE-À-JOUR

Plique-à-jour (French for “letting in daylight”) is the most difficult of enamelling techniques: translucent enamel is suspended in an openwork metal frame with no backing, so that light shines through it like a stained-glass window. Fragile and demanding, it was the showpiece of Art Nouveau jewellers, above all René Lalique, for dragonfly wings, leaves and petals.

POISON RING

A “poison ring” is a ring with a hinged compartment beneath the bezel. Tales of poisoners such as the Borgias have made them irresistible, but most were made to hold something far more innocent: a lock of hair, a relic, perfume or a keepsake. Mourning rings and Victorian locket rings belong to the same family.

PORTRAIT MINIATURE

A portrait miniature is a tiny painted portrait, usually in watercolour on ivory or vellum, or in enamel, set into a locket, brooch or ring. Miniatures were the photographs of their day, carried as reminders of loved ones from Tudor times until photography took over in the mid-19th century. Under the UK’s Ivory Act, miniatures painted on ivory must be registered before they can be sold.

See also: IVORY; LOVER’S EYE.

POSY RINGS

Posy rings, or “love rings”, are perhaps the most personal rings of all, being closely associated with love and marriage. They carry a secret message from giver to receiver, hidden inside the band and worn against the skin, which makes the message even more poignant. Most popular from the 16th to the 18th centuries, they were exchanged as love tokens and as betrothal or wedding rings, and they are often cited as the inspiration for the modern wedding band. The word posy is late Middle English, a contraction of poesy, with roots in Old French and ultimately ancient Greek. It means, simply, a poem or poetic verse. Typical posies are short and sweet: Love me and leave me not, In thee my choice I do rejoice, Let love abide till death divide.

Shakespeare was certainly familiar with posy rings. In The Merchant of Venice, Nerissa angrily reminds Gratiano that he had sworn to keep the ring she gave him until his dying day, yet has parted with it, while he dismisses its posy as no better than the verses cutlers engrave on knives: “Love me, and leave me not.” And in Hamlet, when the players’ Prologue delivers a mere three lines before their play, Hamlet asks: “Is this a prologue, or the posy of a ring?”

Our Modern Posy Rings continue the tradition, with your own words hand-engraved.

PROVENANCE

Provenance is the documented history of an object: who made it, who owned it, and how it passed from hand to hand. A good provenance, whether a royal owner, a famous collection, an exhibition or simply an original receipt, can add enormously to a piece’s interest and value, and it should be supported by evidence wherever possible.

PSYCHE

Psyche was a mortal princess whose beauty made Venus jealous. Cupid, sent to make her fall in love with a monster, fell in love with her himself, and after many trials she was made immortal and became his wife. Her name means “soul” (and “butterfly”) in Greek, so she is often shown with butterfly wings, and the story of Cupid and Psyche, the union of love and the soul, made her a favourite of Neoclassical cameos and Victorian jewellery.

See also: BUTTERFLY.

Back to A–Z ↑

Q

QUANDONG

The desert quandong (also known as urti in parts of South Australia and bidjigal in parts of Victoria) is an evergreen tree in the sandalwood family, native to the arid deserts of central and southern Australia. Its glossy fruit ranges in colour from bright pink to deep ruby red and is, by all accounts, delicious. It can be stewed, pickled, made into jam or juiced, and thanks to its high vitamin C content and its ability to grow in arid, drought-prone conditions, it has long been an important bush food. The kernel inside the tough seed case can be ground into a paste and used to ease toothache and gum pain.

The seed case itself, round, hard and deeply pitted like a tiny golf ball, makes a natural bead, and in the late 19th century Australian colonial jewellers such as Thomas Gaunt of Melbourne mounted polished quandong seeds in gold as brooches and pendants.

QUARTZ

Quartz is one of the most common minerals on Earth and one of the most important in jewellery. Its transparent, crystalline varieties include rock crystal (colourless), amethyst (purple), citrine (yellow), smoky quartz or cairngorm (brown) and rose quartz (pink); its microcrystalline varieties are the chalcedonies, from agate and onyx to carnelian and bloodstone. Rock crystal was carved in antiquity, set over hair and miniatures in Stuart and Georgian jewellery, and frosted for Art Deco designs.

See also: CHALCEDONY; STUART CRYSTAL.

Back to A–Z ↑

R

RE-TIPPING

Re-tipping is the repair of worn claws (prongs) by adding fresh metal to their tips, so that they grip the stone securely again. Claws wear down after years of daily use, and re-tipping is a normal, sensible part of caring for an antique ring rather than a defect.

See also: CLAW SETTING.

REGARD RING

A regard ring spells out the word REGARD in gemstones: ruby, emerald, garnet, amethyst, ruby, diamond. See ACROSTIC JEWELLERY.

REGENCY

The Regency was the period from 1811 to 1820 when the future George IV ruled as Prince Regent during his father’s illness, though “Regency style” is often used more loosely for c.1795–1837. Its jewellery reflects the slim, high-waisted Neoclassical fashions of the day: cameos and intaglios, delicate chains, cannetille goldwork, foiled coloured stones and sentimental pieces such as lover’s eyes.

See also: GEORGIAN.

RENAISSANCE REVIVAL

Renaissance Revival jewellery (c.1840s–1890s) drew on the jewels of the 16th century: enamelled gold pendants with figures and scrolling strapwork, baroque pearls, and table- and rose-cut stones. Carlo Giuliano was its finest exponent in London, and the related Holbeinesque style was hugely popular.

See also: HOLBEINESQUE.

REPOUSSÉ

Repoussé (French for “pushed back”) is the technique of shaping metal into relief by hammering it from the reverse, so that the design rises on the front. It is usually finished with chasing on the front to sharpen the detail. Victorian lockets, bangles and brooches with high-relief flowers and scrolls are often repoussé work.

See also: CHASING.

RESIZING

Most antique rings can be resized by a skilled jeweller, by cutting the shank and adding or removing a small piece of metal. Some designs are difficult or impossible to resize without harming them, such as full eternity rings, rings engraved or enamelled all the way round, and some gypsy and keeper rings. A well-made resize is invisible and keeps a ring’s character, and a hallmark on the shank should always be preserved. See our Resizing & Condition page for how we approach it.

See also: RING SIZES.

RETRO

Retro jewellery (c.1935–1950) is the bold, glamorous style of the late 1930s and 1940s: big, sculptural designs in rose and yellow gold, often combining the two, set with large semi-precious or synthetic stones such as citrine, aquamarine and synthetic ruby. Platinum was scarce during the war, so gold dominated, and favourite motifs included bows, ribbons, scrolls, flowers, tank-track bracelets and cocktail rings.

Browse our Modern collection.

RING SIZES

Ring sizes are measured differently around the world. The UK uses letters (A to Z, with half sizes), the US and Canada use numbers (with quarter and half sizes), and much of Europe uses the inside circumference in millimetres. As a rough guide, a UK L½ is about a US 6, a UK N½ about a US 7 and a UK P½ about a US 8, but always check a full conversion chart or have your finger measured by a jeweller. See our Resizing & Condition page for help.

RIVIÈRE

A rivière (French for “river”) is a necklace of individually set, matching or graduated stones, usually diamonds, flowing around the neck in a single line with no other decoration. Each stone sits in its own collet or claw setting. Rivières were fashionable from the 18th century onwards, and a Georgian or Victorian paste rivière is a classic.

ROLLED GOLD

Rolled gold is a layer of gold bonded under heat and pressure to a base metal (usually brass) and rolled out into sheet or wire, giving far more gold than plating. Widely used from the 19th century for chains, lockets and bangles, it is often stamped R.G. or “Rolled Gold”; the American equivalent, with a legal minimum gold content, is gold-filled (G.F.). Rolled gold wears well but can eventually show the base metal at its edges and high points.

ROSE

The rose has been a symbol of love since antiquity, sacred to Aphrodite (Venus), and in the language of flowers its meaning shifts with its colour: red for passionate love, white for innocence, yellow for friendship (or, less happily, jealousy). A rose carved above a meeting once signalled secrecy, hence sub rosa, “under the rose”. In Britain it is also a national emblem, the Tudor rose of England, and the white rose was the badge of the Jacobites. Roses bloom across Georgian, Victorian and Art Nouveau jewellery in gold, enamel and carved stone.

ROSE CUT

The rose cut is an early diamond cut with a flat base and a domed top covered in triangular facets that rise to a point, like a rosebud. Developed in the 16th century, it was used for diamonds until the late 19th century and is especially characteristic of Georgian and early Victorian jewellery, where rose cuts shimmer softly in closed-back silver settings. Rose cuts have no table and spread wide, so they look larger than a brilliant of the same weight, and their gentle, glassy sparkle has made them fashionable again today.

RUBY

Ruby is the red variety of corundum, the mineral that also gives us sapphire, coloured by chromium. For centuries the finest came from the Mogok valley in Burma (Myanmar), prized for its glowing “pigeon’s blood” red. Many historic “rubies” are actually spinels or garnets, including the Black Prince’s Ruby in Britain’s Imperial State Crown. Synthetic rubies were first made commercially in the early 1900s by Auguste Verneuil’s flame-fusion process, so Edwardian and later jewellery may contain them.

Back to A–Z ↑

S

SAINT CHRISTOPHER

St Christopher is one of the most popular saints: in England, there are more medieval wall paintings of him than of any saint other than the Virgin Mary. For centuries he has served as the patron saint of travellers, in both a literal and a metaphorical sense, guiding and protecting those journeying across land and sea, and through life. His name, from the Greek Christophoros, means “Christ-bearer”.

There are conflicting accounts of the saint’s origins, but they all centre on the same story. He was a giant of a man, said to be over seven feet tall, who used his height to help travellers safely cross a dangerous river. One day a child asked to be carried to the other side, but as Christopher waded through the water, the child grew heavier and heavier. It became almost too much to bear, but he eventually made it across, and when he set the child down he exclaimed that he felt as if he had carried the weight of the world on his shoulders. The child replied that he was the Son of God, and that Christopher had indeed carried mankind safely from one side of the river to the other.

Most artwork depicts him as a large man with a staff, carrying a small child on his shoulder, as do the St Christopher medals and pendants still given to travellers today. His feast day was dropped from the universal Roman Catholic calendar in 1969, but contrary to popular belief he was never “de-sainted”.

SAPPHIRE

Sapphire is corundum, the same mineral as ruby, in every colour except red, though “sapphire” alone means blue. The finest blues historically came from Kashmir, Burma and Sri Lanka (Ceylon), each with its own character, and Montana produced steely blue sapphires from the 1890s. Hard and durable, sapphires are perfect for everyday rings, and the classic Victorian and Edwardian engagement ring pairs them with diamonds in clusters and half-hoops. Synthetic sapphires, made since the early 1900s, are common in later jewellery.

SATURNALIA

Described by the Roman poet Catullus as “the best of days”, the festival of Saturnalia was held each December to honour Saturn, the Roman god of agriculture, wealth, plenty and liberation (later conflated with Father Time). Saturn was believed to have ruled over a simpler and more peaceful time in the distant past, known as the Golden Age, and Saturnalia was celebrated in this spirit. Beginning on 17 December, it grew over time into a week-long holiday.

A particularly interesting part of the fun was the way in which social norms and hierarchies were temporarily turned on their heads: enslaved people feasted like their masters and could speak freely without fear of punishment. Citizens and slaves alike revelled in this opportunity to run wild, and used the time to speak, dress, drink and gamble without restraint. Friends exchanged small gifts, including candles and little pottery figurines called sigillaria, and many see in Saturnalia an ancestor of some of our own midwinter customs.

SCARAB

The scarab is the dung beetle of ancient Egypt, sacred because it rolls its ball of dung as the god Khepri was thought to roll the sun across the sky, which made it a symbol of rebirth and renewal. Egyptians wore scarab amulets of faience, stone and glass, often inscribed on the flat underside, and also used them as seals. Scarabs were a key motif of Egyptian Revival jewellery, from Victorian bracelets to 1920s Tutankhamun-inspired pieces, and many revival jewels set genuine ancient scarabs.

SCOTTISH PEBBLE JEWELLERY

Scottish pebble jewellery is silver (occasionally gold) jewellery inlaid with polished Scottish agates, jaspers, bloodstone and other “pebbles”, cut and fitted together like a mosaic, often around a cairngorm centrepiece. It became a craze after Queen Victoria fell in love with the Highlands and bought Balmoral in 1852. Typical designs include plaid brooches, dirks, shields, Celtic knots, thistles and garter buckles; much was made in Edinburgh, but Birmingham produced it in quantity too.

SEAL

A seal is an engraved device for pressing a design into wax to close and authenticate a letter or document. Fob seals, hung from a watch chain, were indispensable to Georgian and Victorian gentlemen; desk seals had longer handles; and seal rings, or signets, were worn on the finger. The engraved stone or metal, often carnelian, bloodstone or citrine, carries a crest, monogram, motto or image cut in reverse, so that the impression reads correctly.

See also: INTAGLIO; SIGNET RING.

SEED PEARL

Seed pearls are tiny pearls, typically under 2mm across. In the late 18th and 19th centuries they were drilled and threaded with horsehair or silk onto mother-of-pearl frames to make delicate necklaces, brooches and whole parures, and they outline countless Victorian and Edwardian brooches, rings and pendants. In antique jewellery, pearls this small are almost always natural.

SÉVIGNÉ

A Sévigné is a bow-shaped brooch or ornament, usually gem-set, named after the Marquise de Sévigné (1626–1696), the celebrated French letter-writer, although she probably never wore one. Bows have been a favourite motif since the 17th century and enjoyed a great revival in Edwardian jewellery.

SHELL CAMEO

Shell cameos are carved from the layers of large seashells, most often the helmet shell (white over brown or orange) and the queen conch (white over pink). Shell is softer and easier to carve than hardstone, so shell cameos could be made in great numbers, and from the early 19th century Torre del Greco, near Naples, became the world centre of the craft. Hold a shell cameo up to the light and it is usually translucent, with a gently curved back that follows the shell.

See also: CAMEO.

SIGNET RING

A signet ring has a flat bezel engraved with a crest, monogram, coat of arms or other device, traditionally cut in reverse so that it could be pressed into sealing wax to sign and seal documents. Signets have been worn for thousands of years, from Egyptian scarab rings and Roman intaglio rings to the family crests of the British gentry, traditionally worn on the little finger of the left hand. Classic shapes include the oval, cushion, rectangle and shield, in plain gold or set with a hardstone such as bloodstone or carnelian. Our Spells & Sigils service hand-engraves vintage and antique signet rings with your own crest, initials or sigil.

See also: HERALDRY; SEAL.

SNAKE

The snake is one of jewellery’s oldest and richest symbols: eternity, wisdom, healing, rebirth (because it sheds its skin) and, when it swallows its own tail, endless love. Queen Victoria’s engagement ring from Prince Albert in 1839 was a gold snake set with an emerald, her birthstone, and snake rings, bangles and necklaces with gem-set heads became one of the defining motifs of the Victorian era.

See also: OUROBOROS.

SOVEREIGN

The sovereign is a British coin of 22ct gold, worth one pound, reintroduced in 1817 with Benedetto Pistrucci’s famous design of St George slaying the dragon on the reverse. Sovereigns and half sovereigns, often mounted in gold as pendants, brooches, cufflinks or charms, are a classic of British jewellery, and their dates make them easy to place. A full sovereign weighs just under 8 grams.

SPARTA

By the time Rome became the dominant force in the ancient Mediterranean, Sparta, the once-powerful Greek city-state, had faded into irrelevance through a combination of factors: a deep social conservatism that left it unable to change in any significant way, politically or culturally; a reputation for barbarity that made it widely hated in the rest of Greece; the mobilisation of practically its entire male citizen population in times of war; repeated revolts by the helots, its enslaved underclass; and more.

But the Romans loved Sparta, essentially turning it into a tourist destination: an ancient theme park commemorating Sparta’s glory days centuries before. Visitors could even watch the ritual whipping of Spartan youths at the sanctuary of Artemis Orthia, where a theatre was built for spectators in the 3rd century CE. After all, the legendary, militaristic Spartan values of bravery, strength and discipline resonated deeply with Rome’s own. Is there an interesting parallel here between this Roman “Sparta Land” and Rome itself today, where tourists flock to the sites and monuments of an ancient civilisation?

SPINEL

Spinel is a gemstone that has spent most of history being mistaken for something else, usually ruby: the Black Prince’s Ruby and the Timur Ruby in the British royal collection are both spinels. It comes in reds, pinks, purples and blues, and is now prized in its own right. Synthetic spinel, made since the early 20th century, was widely used to imitate aquamarine, blue zircon and other gems.

SPRINGBOK

The springbok is an antelope found only in southern Africa, and it takes its name from the Afrikaans words spring, meaning “jump”, and bok, meaning “antelope” or “buck”. The apt name refers to its distinctive “pronking”, in which it bounds high into the air on stiff, straight legs, back arched. According to some, these leaps represent the soul taking flight from earthly possessions and finding happiness in one’s own individuality.

The springbok has been a national emblem of South Africa since the early 20th century and has been adopted as a nickname by several South African sports teams, most famously the national rugby union team. To them it represents national pride, resilience and unity, as well as hope, opportunity and hard work. It also leaps across the reverse of the Krugerrand, the South African gold coin first struck in 1967, which is often mounted as a pendant.

SPUTNIK

Sputnik 1 was the first artificial Earth satellite, launched into orbit by the Soviet Union on 4 October 1957. Its orbital inclination of about 65° carried it over most of the inhabited world, broadcasting a distinctive radio signal and throwing the USA into the “Sputnik crisis”, essentially triggering the Space Race that culminated in the Apollo programme and the first crewed Moon landing in 1969.

The satellite’s spiky silhouette, a polished sphere trailing four long antennae, inspired a wave of “Sputnik” designs in late-1950s and 1960s jewellery: brooches, earrings and pendants with starbursts of radiating spokes, often tipped with pearls, rhinestones or gems.

STERLING SILVER

Sterling silver is an alloy of 92.5% pure silver and 7.5% other metals, usually copper, and has been the standard for British silver since the Middle Ages. It is hallmarked with the lion passant in England and, today, with the number 925. Pure silver is too soft for most uses; the copper makes sterling strong enough for jewellery and tableware. Sterling tarnishes over time, but a silver cloth soon brings back the shine.

See also: 925; BRITANNIA STANDARD; LION PASSANT.

STICKPIN

A stickpin (also tie pin or cravat pin) is a long pin with a decorative head, worn to hold a cravat or tie in place. Victorian and Edwardian gentlemen wore them in endless variety: horseshoes, foxes, jockey caps, insects, skulls, devils, cameos, Essex crystals and single gemstones. Stickpin heads are often converted into rings, earrings or pendants today.

STUART CRYSTAL

Stuart crystal is a style of 17th-century jewellery in which tiny designs, such as gold-wire initials, skulls, cherubs or locks of hair, are set beneath a faceted piece of rock crystal, usually in a gold ring, locket or slide. Many were made to commemorate the execution of King Charles I in 1649 and were worn by royalists in secret mourning; others were love tokens. The style was copied in the 18th and 19th centuries.

SWALLOW (BIRD)

Hirundo rustica, the barn swallow, is the most widespread species in the swallow family (Hirundinidae). It has been recorded on every continent on Earth, including, as a vagrant, Antarctica, and has one of the largest natural distributions of any songbird. Its broad dispersal is partly a consequence of human expansion, as swallows have nested in man-made structures since time immemorial, and their close proximity to humans has made them a mainstay symbol in theology, mythology and folklore across cultures and time.

Its beautiful voice, graceful flight and seasonal migration mean the swallow is often used to symbolise renewal and protection. In the Greek myth of Procne and Philomela, two sisters are transformed into birds after Procne’s husband, Tereus, rapes Philomela and cuts out her tongue to silence her; in many versions one of them becomes a swallow, a bird that can only twitter. The Latin poem The Vigil of Venus (Pervigilium Veneris), probably of the 4th century, ends with the poet longing to become like the swallow and cease to be silent, the swallow’s return marking the return of spring, and thus the return of love.

For sailors, swallows became a talisman of safety and hope: after long periods at sea, the sight of a swallow meant land was near, and so marked the end of a safe journey. Wearing swallow jewellery, and having swallow tattoos, allowed sailors to carry this symbol of a successful voyage close to their hearts. The swallow was also a favourite Victorian sweetheart motif, since it always comes home.

SWEETHEART JEWELLERY

Sweetheart jewellery was given by servicemen to wives, mothers and girlfriends, especially during the First and Second World Wars. Usually brooches, these pieces combine a regimental, naval or air force badge with hearts, wings or initials, in gold, silver, enamel, Bakelite or base metal. Simple or precious, they are among the most poignant pieces of 20th-century jewellery.

See also: MIZPAH.

Back to A–Z ↑

T

TABLE CUT

The table cut is one of the earliest gem cuts, made by grinding down the top of an octahedral diamond crystal to leave a flat, square “table” with a few bevelled sides. Used from the 14th to the 17th century, table-cut diamonds look dark and mirror-like rather than sparkling, and are characteristic of Renaissance and early Stuart jewellery.

TAILLE D’ÉPARGNE

Taille d’épargne (French for “saved cutting”) is a technique in which designs are engraved into gold and filled with black (or sometimes blue) enamel, so that the gold “saved” between the lines stands out. It was used to stunning effect on mid-Victorian mourning jewellery, especially lockets, brooches and bracelets of the 1850s to 1870s.

TASSIE

James Tassie (1735–1799) was a Glasgow-born modeller who perfected a hard white glass “paste” for casting exact copies of ancient and modern engraved gems, as well as portrait medallions. Working in London from 1766, he produced many thousands of casts, including a vast set for Catherine the Great of Russia, allowing collectors and Grand Tourists to own the great gems of antiquity in miniature. Many were set in rings and seals.

See also: INTAGLIO.

TIARA

A tiara is a jewelled ornament worn on the head, usually a semicircular band rising to a point at the front. Its golden age ran from the Napoleonic era to the 1930s, when tiaras were worn by married women on formal occasions, and many were designed to convert into necklaces or brooches. A bandeau is a narrower band worn low across the forehead, fashionable in the 1920s.

TOI ET MOI RING

A toi et moi (“you and me”) ring sets two principal stones side by side or in a crossover design, symbolising two beings meeting as one. It is a popular style of engagement ring that became famous in 1796, when Napoleon Bonaparte proposed to his beloved Joséphine with one, set with a sapphire and a diamond, and it has been a romantic choice ever since, with notable recipients including Jacqueline Kennedy.

TOPAZ

Topaz is a hard, brilliant gemstone found in a range of colours. In antique jewellery the most prized is “Imperial” or precious topaz from around Ouro Preto in Brazil, in golden sherry, peach and pink shades, set in Georgian jewellery and often foiled; pink topaz was usually produced by gently heating golden stones. The ubiquitous blue topaz of modern jewellery is almost always colourless topaz that has been irradiated and heated, a treatment of the late 20th century. Topaz is the birthstone for November.

TOURMALINE

Tourmaline comes in more colours than almost any other gem, including pink, green, blue, red and bicoloured “watermelon” stones, pink at the heart and green at the rim. Pink and green tourmalines were favourites of Arts and Crafts and Art Nouveau jewellers, and the Dowager Empress Cixi of China famously adored pink tourmaline from California.

TOWN MARK

The town mark is the part of a British hallmark that identifies the assay office that tested the piece: a leopard’s head for London, an anchor for Birmingham, a crown (and since 1975 a rose) for Sheffield, and a castle for Edinburgh. Closed offices had their own marks, such as Chester’s three wheatsheaves and a sword, Glasgow’s tree, bird, bell and fish, and Exeter’s three-towered castle.

See also: ASSAY OFFICE; HALLMARK.

TRANSITIONAL CUT

A transitional cut is a round diamond cut of roughly the 1930s to 1950s that bridges the old European cut and the modern round brilliant: rounder and more precise than its predecessor, with a larger table and a smaller culet, but still with some old-cut character.

See also: OLD EUROPEAN CUT.

TRILOGY RING

A trilogy, or three-stone, ring has three stones set side by side, usually with the largest in the centre. Trilogy rings are said to have originated in ancient Egypt, where they were thought to represent the three phases of the sun (rising, high noon and setting) or the three stages of life (birth, life and death), and the Greeks and Romans are said to have used three-stone rings to symbolise the past, present and future. They have been popular as engagement rings since the Victorian era, and a De Beers advertising campaign around the turn of the millennium cemented the idea that the three stones stand for the past, present and future of a relationship. The romantic style has endured as a favourite to this day.

TURQUOISE

Turquoise is an opaque, sky-blue to green mineral that has been prized for thousands of years, from ancient Egypt and Persia to the Americas. Its name comes from the French for “Turkish”, since it reached Europe along Turkish trade routes from Persia. The Victorians adored its forget-me-not blue, pavé-setting it into brooches, lockets and bangles as a symbol of true love and remembrance. Turquoise is porous, so keep it away from oils, perfumes and water.

Back to A–Z ↑

U

UNMARKED

Many genuine antique gold pieces carry no hallmark at all, which surprises buyers used to modern rules. Before the Hallmarking Act 1973 came into force in 1975, much gold jewellery in Britain, including most rings other than wedding rings, was exempt from compulsory hallmarking, and a great deal was never sent for assay. Pieces may also be “part-marked” with just a carat stamp such as 9ct or 15ct, or a maker’s mark. A reputable dealer will test unmarked gold (by acid test or XRF analysis) and describe it accordingly, for example “tests as 15ct gold”.

See also: HALLMARK; X-RAY FLUORESCENCE (XRF).

URN

The urn, the classical vessel for the ashes of the dead, is the quintessential motif of Georgian mourning jewellery, especially in the Neoclassical decades of the late 18th century. Painted in sepia, worked in hair or engraved on gold, urns often appear with weeping willows, mourning women and inscriptions such as “Not lost but gone before”.

See also: MOURNING JEWELLERY.

Back to A–Z ↑

V

VERMEIL

Vermeil is sterling silver gilded with gold, giving the look of gold with the substance of silver. Historically made by mercury fire-gilding, it was used for fine silverware and jewellery from the Renaissance onwards. In the US, “vermeil” has a legal definition: sterling silver with a gold layer of a minimum thickness and fineness.

See also: GILDING.

VICTORIAN

Victorian jewellery was made during the long reign of Queen Victoria (1837–1901), a period of enormous change usually divided into three phases. The Romantic period (1837 to about 1860) was full of sentiment, nature and love tokens: snakes, hearts, hands, flowers and hair. The Grand period (about 1861 to 1885), darkened by Prince Albert’s death, brought heavy gold, mourning jet, the Archaeological Revival and bold gems. The Aesthetic or late Victorian period (about 1885 to 1901) favoured lighter, daintier pieces: stars and crescents, insects, bar brooches, and diamonds from the new South African mines.

Browse our Victorian collection.

VICTORIAN ECLECTICISM

Victorian eclecticism was a broad movement of the age, marked by a revival of historical styles. It was driven both by an exotic fascination with the history and culture of newly colonised lands and by a reaction against the bleakness of industrialisation and austerity. Many artistic currents fed into it, including Romanticism and the Gothic Revival, drawing inspiration from an idealised vision of the seemingly liberating drama and emotion of the medieval, Renaissance and Baroque eras: a rebuttal of the repressive and austere expectations and mores of the time.

VINTAGE

Vintage generally describes jewellery at least 20 years old but less than 100, the age at which it becomes antique. In practice the word is most often used for pieces made between the 1920s and the 1980s.

See also: ANTIQUE; ESTATE JEWELLERY.

VULCANITE

Vulcanite (also called ebonite) is hard rubber, made by heating natural rubber with sulphur, a process developed in the 1840s. Black, light and easily moulded, it was used as a cheaper substitute for jet in Victorian mourning jewellery. Vulcanite often fades to a brownish or greenish black with age and light, and when rubbed it may give off a faint smell of sulphur: both useful clues for telling it from jet.

See also: JET.

Back to A–Z ↑

W

WEDGWOOD

Josiah Wedgwood’s jasperware, an unglazed stoneware developed in the 1770s, is best known in pale blue with white relief, though it was also made in sage green, lilac, black and other colours. Wedgwood produced small jasperware cameos and medallions for jewellery, many of them mounted in cut steel by Matthew Boulton in Birmingham, as well as the famous anti-slavery medallion of 1787. Wedgwood cameos have been set in brooches, pendants and bracelets ever since.

WHITBY JET

See JET.

WHITE GOLD

See GOLD COLOURS.

WISHBONE

The wishbone, the forked collarbone of a bird that two people pull apart to see who gets their wish, became a popular good-luck motif in late Victorian and Edwardian jewellery, especially on brooches and rings, often set with pearls or diamonds.

Back to A–Z ↑

X

X-RAY FLUORESCENCE (XRF)

X-ray fluorescence (XRF) is a non-destructive way of measuring the metals in a piece of jewellery. A beam of X-rays makes the atoms in the metal give off their own characteristic radiation, revealing the alloy’s composition (whether an unmarked ring is 15ct or 18ct gold, say) without scratching it, as the traditional acid test does. Assay offices and many dealers now use it routinely, though because it reads the surface, plated pieces still need care.

Back to A–Z ↑

Y

YELLOW GOLD

Yellow gold is gold alloyed with a balance of silver and copper that keeps its classic warm colour; the higher the carat, the richer the yellow. See GOLD COLOURS.

Back to A–Z ↑

Z

ZEUS (JUPITER)

Zeus, king of the Greek gods (the Roman Jupiter), is identified on cameos and intaglios by his beard, thunderbolt, sceptre and eagle. Many of his transformations became favourite subjects for cameo carvers: Leda and the swan, Ganymede carried off by an eagle, and Europa abducted by a bull. Hebe feeding the eagle of Zeus is another classic Victorian cameo subject.

ZIRCON

Zircon is a natural gemstone, not to be confused with cubic zirconia, a modern synthetic. Among the oldest minerals on Earth, it has a brilliance and fire close to diamond’s, and colourless zircon was widely used as a diamond substitute in the early 20th century. Heat-treated blue zircon, an electric, slightly greenish blue, was hugely popular in the 1920s and ’30s. Zircon is brittle and its facet edges chip easily, a useful clue to its identity.

ZODIAC

The twelve signs of the zodiac have decorated jewellery since antiquity, when astrological signs were carved on Roman intaglios. Zodiac charms, pendants and medallions enjoyed great popularity in the 1920s and ’30s and again in the 1960s and ’70s, when “What’s your sign?” became a famous opening line.

Back to A–Z ↑