Earring
1815-1867 (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. The green stones in the centre of this earring are pastes. 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. The pendant at the base of this earring is probably a replacement for a much larger original, which was damaged or lost.
All Italian women wore gold earrings. The shapes varied widely in different places. This earring comes from Santa Lucia, outside Naples, but similar pendant earrings were common throughout Italy.
It was bought as part of the Castellani collection of Italian Peasant Jewellery at the International Exhibition, Paris, 1867.
All Italian women wore gold earrings. The shapes varied widely in different places. This earring comes from Santa Lucia, outside Naples, but similar pendant earrings were common throughout 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 set with pastes and seed pearls, with pendant of silver and diamonds |
| Brief description | Gold earring with seed pearls and pastes, Santa Lucia (Italy), 1815-1867. |
| Physical description | Three-part earring, consisting of a disc on a hinged wire, with a w-shaped pendant hanging from it, and a drop hanging at the bottom. The disc has a green paste in the centre, set in a conical mount surrounded by two circles of seed pearls. The pearls in the outer ring are fastened individually by vertical wires, and the inner ring is made of a string of threaded pearls. The W-shaped pendant is decorated in a similar way. The lowest part of the earring is quite different, and has probably been replaced. It consists of a ring of diamond chips set in silver, on a base metal backing, with a pearl in the centre space. There is a tab at the top of the disc, for the gold mark, and a loop at the top of the wire. |
| Dimensions |
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| Marks and inscriptions | woman's head between the characters 'N' and '6' in a rectangular frame (Marked three times: on the wire; on the tab at the top of the disc; and on the suspension loop at the base of the central pendant.)
|
| 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. The green stones in the centre of this earring are pastes. 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. The pendant at the base of this earring is probably a replacement for a much larger original, which was damaged or lost. All Italian women wore gold earrings. The shapes varied widely in different places. This earring comes from Santa Lucia, outside Naples, but similar pendant earrings were common throughout 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 | 246-1868 |
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| Record created | April 24, 2009 |
| Record URL |
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