Italian women have always loved lavish display. Even for the poorest, a rich show of jewellery was all important. Italian goldsmiths were expert at making a little material go a very long way. The red stones in this earring are pink sapphires, backed with red foil to make them look like rubies. Goldsmiths in the south of Italy also made lavish use of seed pearls, which were abundant in the warm waters of the Mediterranean before the industrial age. They attached the seed pearls with thin gold wires. When these broke, as they frequently did, the pearls were lost.

All Italian women wore gold earrings. Their shapes varied widely in different places. This earring comes from Pozzuoli in Campania, but earrings of this type were made and worn throughout southern Italy. It was bought as part of the Castellani collection of Italian Peasant Jewellery at the International Exhibition, Paris, 1867. At the top of the wire there is a small loop, through which the wearer threaded a ribbon, to help relieve the strain on the ear-lobe.