Earring thumbnail 1
Not currently on display at the V&A

Earring

1830-1867 (made)
Artist/Maker
Place of origin

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. Goldsmiths in the south of Italy 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 Ariano 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.


Object details

Categories
Object type
Materials and techniques
Gold covered with seed pearls
Brief description
Gold pendant earring covered with seed pearls, Ariano (Italy), 1830-1867.
Physical description
Earring with domed front decorated with concentric circles of seed pearls. A pear-shaped hollow pendant hangs from the wire, made from strips of gold wire covered with strings of seed pearls, with a single pendant pearl hanging from the bottom. Hinged wire at back.
Dimensions
  • Length: 8.2cm
  • Width: 2.0cm
  • Depth: 1.7cm
Marks and inscriptions
  • woman's head between the characters 'N' and '6' in a rectangular frame (On the side of the wire and on the suspension ring of the pendant.)
    Translation
    Mark used for gold, Kingdom of the Two Sicilies (southern Italy) 1832-1872
  • illegible mark (On the wire.)
    Translation
    Mark of unidentified maker
Production
Worn in Ariano
Summary
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. Goldsmiths in the south of Italy 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 Ariano 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.
Bibliographic reference
'Italian Jewellery as worn by the Peasants of Italy', Arundel Society, London, 1868, Plate 10
Collection
Accession number
250-1868

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Record createdFebruary 6, 2009
Record URL
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