Antique Necklace With Peridots & Pearls in Gold, Great Britain c. 1900

Spring Dance

Antique Necklace With Peridots & Pearls in Gold, Great Britain c. 1900

€ 3,290.00 ^*

Content 1 piece

Incl. VAT, Shipping

Description

This description was automatically translated from German. If you have any questions about this piece of jewellery, we will be happy to help!

Hardly any other gemstone fascinated the British at the turn of the century as much as the peridot: it was only at the end of the 19th century that new sites for this legendary gemstone, which had already been mined by the pharaohs, were discovered. The gemstone even found its way into one of the most famous and scandalous novels of the late Victorian era: in the eleventh chapter of Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray, in which the eponymous main character devotes himself to the study of particularly beautiful and unusual jewels, he also admires the "pistachio-green peridot". Five of these green gemstones are set in this necklace - in a simple and therefore particularly effective way. They are arranged in a slightly graduated size gradient. Each of the stones is held by restrained prongs and swings on a fine gold bar under a simple chain, each accompanied by a pearl. This allows the fresh, green colour of the peridots to take center stage and fully unfold, The necklace was created in Great Britain around 1900. We discovered it in London.

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Few stones were once as rare as the peridot - a clear and brilliant gemstone characterized by its spring green colour. It was mined in ancient times by order of the pharaohs on the Egyptian island of St. John in the Red Sea: Dreadful guards are said to have killed anyone who dared to go near them, wrote the Greek historian Diodorus. However, this source was then forgotten. It was therefore probably the peridots mined in antiquity that came to Europe in the Middle Ages through crusades and were set in the jewellery of the clergy, because for centuries the source of the peridot was unknown and the stone was therefore correspondingly rare. For a long time, peridots had to be extracted from old pieces of jewellery in order to reuse them. It was not until the late 19th century that the mines on the legendary island were rediscovered. However, as the gemologist George Kunz wrote in 1916, another source of peridots was already known at the time, which seemed even more mysterious than the legendary island: meteorites. In 1884, pallasites, stony-iron meteorites consisting of olivine - the mineral group of which peridot is a particularly pure representative - were found in the mountains of New Mexico. It is therefore not surprising that in the wake of the peridot discoveries of the late 19th century, numerous pieces of jewellery were suddenly created, celebrating the sudden exuberance of this beautiful gemstone after centuries of scarcity.

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Size & Details

Spring Dance

€ 3,290.00 ^*

Content 1 piece

Incl. VAT, Shipping

Our Promise

We want you to be 100% satisfied! For that reason, we examine, describe and photograph all of our jewellery with the utmost care.

You can rely on our years of experience in the trade and our expertise as a professional art historians for reviews of the antique jewellery. As a member of various trade organisations and the British Society of Jewellery Historians, we remain committed to the highest possible degree of accuracy. In our descriptions, we always also indicate any signs of age and defects and never hide them in our photos – this saves you from any unpleasant surprises when your package arrives.

Should you for some reason not be satisfied, please don’t hesitate to contact us so that we can find a solution together. In any case, you can return any article within one month and we will refund the full purchase price.

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