A Precious Purple Piece of Jewellery
This gold, pearl and amethyst brooch features two particularly fine brilliant cut amethysts and nine seed pearls. It is Edwardian and with its Art Nouveau design, was made in the first decade of the twentieth century. It is very likely a brooch made for a suffragette, featuring two of the three universal suffrage colours of white and purple. It was possibly worn against something green as the representation of the final colour. Brooches and other jewellery like this was a subtle way for suffragettes to communicate their allegiance to the movement with one another.
(Private collection)
Edwardian jewellery is renowned for its delicate, beautifully crafted designs. In contrast to Victorian jewellery, many pieces created during the Art Nouveau period were made in a very feminine fashion, using finer smaller stones and very light settings made possible by using platinum.
The theme for “Looking Close on Friday” for the 18th of March is “jewellery (selective colour)”. I decided to select the purple of the amethysts as my selective colour, and accentuated it to draw out some of the blues that were created in the stone created by the black velvet on which the brooch sits. I hope you like my choice of the theme this week, and that it makes you smile.
A Precious Purple Piece of Jewellery
This gold, pearl and amethyst brooch features two particularly fine brilliant cut amethysts and nine seed pearls. It is Edwardian and with its Art Nouveau design, was made in the first decade of the twentieth century. It is very likely a brooch made for a suffragette, featuring two of the three universal suffrage colours of white and purple. It was possibly worn against something green as the representation of the final colour. Brooches and other jewellery like this was a subtle way for suffragettes to communicate their allegiance to the movement with one another.
(Private collection)
Edwardian jewellery is renowned for its delicate, beautifully crafted designs. In contrast to Victorian jewellery, many pieces created during the Art Nouveau period were made in a very feminine fashion, using finer smaller stones and very light settings made possible by using platinum.
The theme for “Looking Close on Friday” for the 18th of March is “jewellery (selective colour)”. I decided to select the purple of the amethysts as my selective colour, and accentuated it to draw out some of the blues that were created in the stone created by the black velvet on which the brooch sits. I hope you like my choice of the theme this week, and that it makes you smile.