Floral Earrings with Rose Cut Diamonds in Silver, c. 1850

A new naturalism caused the goldsmith's art to blossom in the truest sense of the word around 1850. However, it is rare to see the naturalistic jewellery of that time executed in diamonds. One reason for this is that diamonds were far rarer and more expensive before the discovery of South African deposits in 1869 than they were in the late 19th century. Secondly, naturalist jewellery tended to be made in more "bourgeois", affordable materials such as garnets, turquoise and thin foam gold, as it was not based on historical forms associated with the old nobility. The present pair of earrings is therefore a rather rare representative of this type, in splendid materiality. Diamonds in two of the oldest cuts - the rose cut and the so-called old single cut - adorn the central blossom, the surrounding leaves and the small buds dotted in between. Together they form the shape of a heart or ivy leaf - a variation on a very typical motif around 1850, which we also encounter in other pieces of jewelry from the period, see for example these earrings (V&A, M.125A&B-1951). (Incidentally, the heart motif probably developed from medieval illuminations in the form of ivy leaves!) The ear hoops of the pair were probably replaced at a later date. This suggests slight material and craftsmanship differences between the showpieces and hoops. As it is only the asymmetrical curve of the hoops that gives the earrings a slightly Rococo character, it is likely that this was done in the late 19th or early 20th century: at that time, antique diamond jewelry was not only collected, but even imitated, with a preference for Rococo jewellery. This stylistic update would therefore have made the pair ultra-modern again. An example of a German parure of naturalism, executed in diamonds, can be found in Daniela Mascetti/Amanda Triossi: Earrings from Antiquity to the Present (London: Rizzoli, 1990), p. 125.

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