Victorian Jewellery

Victorian jewellery covers the 63-year reign of Queen Victoria (1837-1901), a period long enough - and full enough of technical, economic and social change - that its jewellery shifted dramatically from start to finish. It’s more useful to think of “Victorian” as three overlapping phases than as one style: the sentimental, naturalistic Romantic period; the heavier, historically minded Grand period; and the lighter, more playful Aesthetic or late Victorian period.

Overview

Three forces shaped Victorian jewellery more than any single designer.

• Industrialisation. Birmingham’s Jewellery Quarter mechanised stamping, die-striking and chain-making, and Elkington’s electroplating patents of 1840 made gilt and plated jewellery cheap. For the first time, a large middle-class market could buy fashionable jewellery.
• New supplies of materials. Gold rushes in California (1848) and Australia (1851) increased gold supply. Lower legal gold standards of 15, 12 and 9 carats followed in 1854 (see What Does 9ct Mean?). The discovery of diamonds in South Africa in 1867 transformed diamond supply by the 1870s.
• The queen herself. Victoria’s tastes - sentimental jewellery in her youth, Scottish jewellery from the 1850s, and decades of mourning after 1861 - were widely followed in Britain and noticed abroad.

Early Victorian: The Romantic Period (1837-c.1860)

The early period continued late Georgian sentimentality with greater naturalism. Flowers, leaves, bunches of grapes, birds, bows and clasped hands were rendered in coloured gold, often with cannetille and repoussé work, and in pinchbeck and gilt metal for cheaper pieces. Seed pearls, turquoise, coral and garnet were favourites.

Sentiment was everywhere: acrostic jewellery spelling REGARD or DEAREST, lockets and brooches containing hair, forget-me-nots in turquoise, and messages in the language of flowers. Victoria’s engagement ring from Prince Albert in 1839 was a gold snake set with an emerald, and the serpent became one of the most popular motifs of the century.

Gothic revival jewellery, championed by A.W.N. Pugin, brought medieval forms and enamelled quatrefoils into fashion; Pugin’s jewellery was shown in the Medieval Court at the Great Exhibition of 1851.

Scottish jewellery became fashionable after the royal family took Balmoral in the late 1840s, buying the estate in 1852. Brooches of agate and cairngorm set in silver - dirks, shields, thistles and plaid brooches - sold in huge numbers to tourists and to people who had never been to Scotland. See Scottish Agate Jewellery.

The Great Exhibition, 1851

The Great Exhibition at the Crystal Palace was a showcase for British and foreign jewellers alike, and it put the Koh-i-Noor diamond, recently acquired by the Crown, on public display. The stone’s disappointing appearance in its old Indian cut led to its recutting in 1852 - a sign of how far taste had moved towards brilliance. The exhibition also helped spread naturalistic and historical-revival design across Europe and America.

Mid-Victorian: The Grand Period (c.1860-1885)

Prince Albert died in December 1861. Queen Victoria wore mourning for the rest of her life and expected the court to observe long periods of mourning. Society followed to varying degrees, and black jewellery became a major industry. Whitby jet was the finest material, carved on the Yorkshire coast; cheaper alternatives included French jet (black glass), vulcanite, bog oak and gutta-percha. Hair jewellery, by then partly commercialised, reached its peak. See What Is Mourning Jewellery? and What Is Hair Jewellery?.

At the same time, the Grand period was a time of heavy, confident jewellery for those not in mourning:

• Archaeological revival. The Castellani family in Rome studied Etruscan and Greek gold excavated in Italy and revived granulation and fine wirework. Carlo Giuliano, trained in Naples, set up in London around 1860 and became the leading exponent there, alongside John Brogden and Robert Phillips. See also Filigree.
• Egyptian revival, encouraged by archaeology and the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869.
• Renaissance revival, including “Holbeinesque” pendants: enamelled gold with a central coloured stone, inspired by the jewellery in Hans Holbein’s portraits.
• Cameos and micromosaics brought back from Italy, and shell cameos carved in Britain and France.
• Bloomed gold - gold given a matt, textured surface by acid treatment - and large, hollow gold bangles, lockets and brooches made from thin stamped sheet.
• Bohemian garnet jewellery, densely set with small rose-cut pyrope garnets, and coral from Naples, fashionable for young women and children.

Late Victorian: The Aesthetic Period (c.1885-1901)

Jewellery lightened and became wittier. The Aesthetic movement and Japonisme brought insects, birds, fans and asymmetry; women’s dress with high collars and tailored bodices suited small brooches, bar brooches and stickpins rather than large ornaments.

South African diamonds were now plentiful, and diamonds set in silver-topped gold were made into stars, crescents, sprays and insects, often designed to be worn in the hair or converted into pendants. Novelty and sporting motifs - horseshoes, whips, foxes, golf clubs and bicycles - reflected new leisure pursuits. Inexpensive 9ct gold bar brooches, gate bracelets and Mizpah brooches poured out of Birmingham. Australian opal, newly available, became fashionable.

Queen Victoria’s Golden and Diamond Jubilees, in 1887 and 1897, produced commemorative brooches and pendants at every price. At the very end of the reign, the Arts and Crafts movement and Liberty & Co.'s “Cymric” range, launched in 1899, pointed towards the next century; see Arts and Crafts Jewellery.

Day and Evening Jewellery

Etiquette writers drew a clear line between day and evening. Daytime jewellery was modest: gold, cameos, a brooch at the collar, a watch on a chain, perhaps bracelets. Diamonds and large coloured gems were for the evening, along with tiaras, rivières and full parures. Young unmarried women were advised to wear simple jewellery - pearls, coral, turquoise - with diamonds reserved for married women. Mourning imposed its own rules, with only jet or dull black jewellery permitted in the first stage of deep mourning.

Men’s Jewellery

Victorian men wore little jewellery, but what they wore was standard: a watch chain (the Albert chain) with a fob seal or charm, a signet ring, cufflinks and shirt studs for evening dress, and a stickpin in the cravat. Mourning rings and hair-work watch chains were the main sentimental forms. See Men’s Jewellery: A Historical Overview.

How to Recognise Victorian Jewellery

• Early (1837-c.1860): naturalistic coloured gold, cannetille and repoussé, seed pearls and turquoise, sentimental devices, closed-back or foiled settings still common, C-catches on brooches.
• Mid (c.1860-1885): black mourning materials; archaeological granulation and wirework; bloomed and hollow stamped gold; large cameos; Holbeinesque enamels; “15”, “.625” or “9” marks after 1854.
• Late (c.1885-1901): small diamond-set stars, crescents and insects in silver-topped gold; bar brooches; novelty and sporting motifs; 9ct gold from Birmingham; early locking catches such as the trombone catch.

Throughout, look at construction as well as style. Brooch catches and pin lengths (How to Date an Antique Brooch by Its Clasp), hallmarks (How to Use Hallmarks to Date Jewellery) and settings (Stone Setting Styles) can narrow a date far more precisely than motifs, which were often repeated for decades.

Transition to Edwardian Jewellery

By the 1890s, diamond-led designs in light, open settings were already anticipating the platinum-and-diamond garland style of the Edwardian era, which took hold after Victoria’s death in 1901. See Victorian vs Edwardian Jewellery for the differences in detail.