This earring was bought, as one of a pair, at the International Exhibition in Paris in 1867. Henry Cole, the director of the South Kensington Museum, as the V&A was then known, had just bought a large collection of Italian peasant jewellery, and decided to buy examples of peasant jewellery from other countries for comparative purposes. This piece was described as ‘modern Turkish (Syria)’

Its delicate gold filigree and tiny seed pearl pendants might not be considered typical of Syrian traditional jewellery today, when heavy ethnic silver is much better known. But the jewellery worn in towns, which is often Ottoman or western in style, was often very different from that worn by the nomadic Bedouin. This piece was put on display in Paris in 1867 as an example of high-quality Syrian gold work, and there is no reason to think that it is not typical of what was worn there at the time.