A wonderful Victorian ring of carved "star motif" yellow gold with a center "pillow cut" Ceylon sapphire and a pair of matching old "Victorian cut" diamonds. Circa 1880.

ABOUT VICTORIAN JEWELRY

The reign of Queen Victoria was the longest monarchy in history. During her reign jewelry went through various phases. The first phase in Victorian jewelry was "mourning" jewelry or "memorial" jewelry. Women would wear a piece of jewelry to acknowledge a death of a loved one. This would be in the form of a black enamel and gold band for instance with the date of death of a child for instance. Another form of mourning jewelry was "hair jewelry" in which the tresses or locks of hair from a loved one were incorporated in the jewel. This type of jewelry reached a zenith when Queen Victoria's husband, Prince Phillip died. The whole English empire mourned the death of her beloved. The next era of Victorian jewelry was the "romantic or sentimental era". Jewelry became important but subtle symbols of romance and love. This era mimicked the rise of romanticism in literature and poetry. For instance wore different flowers in jewelry signified various emotions or various colored gemstones represented different feelings from friendship to true love. Symbolism was very important. Wonderful examples of this were jewelry used specific gemstones spelling a word such as "DEAREST" (Diamond, Emerald, Amethyst, Ruby, Emerald, Sapphire, Topaz) or "REGARDS" (Ruby, Emerald, Garnet, Amethyst, Ruby, Diamond, Sapphire). Toward the end of her long reign, jewelry styles changed again as newly discovered colored gemstones and larger diamonds became important in jewelry. One key aspect to this new era was revival jewelry. With the discovery of the ruins in Pompeii, jewelers copied the ancient Roman jewels being unearthed. Etruscan revival was the most popular style. When the English empire celebrated Queen Victoria's 50th Jubilee, jewelers also celebrated with bright, effusive, ebullient pieces jewelry and drawing upon the vast natural resources from the far flung empire. Fabulous large diamonds, Burma rubies, Ceylon sapphires, natural pearls were used as symbols of the prosperity of latter part of the Victorian era

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