The Beautiful World of Emeralds

Good afternoon my dear, I hope that you have had a lovely one so far.  I find that a New Year always motivates me to sort things out and start afresh, and this January is no exception!  Today for example I have been transferring a lot of jewellery photos onto an external hard drive, to hopefully free up a bit of space on my laptop – and I kept running into all these interesting pictures of emeralds, that I wanted to share with you:

Emerald and Diamond ring from Richard Ogden, in the Burlington Arcade

The ring above features an emerald and two diamonds and it landed in my hands at work, as the stone weight needed to be measured.  Now I have learnt to calculate the weight of a gemstone the old school way too, but in this case I played around with an amazing app on my phone, where the following result came up:

My measurement of an emerald in the Gem Weight App

As per usual I was a few digits away from my boss’ result, but not too far, so I was quite pleased!  Often when you buy an antique or vintage diamond ring, the diamond hasn’t been taken out of its setting to be measured and certificated, as it could damage the beautiful old settings, so the antique dealers have to be very good at calculating weights etc from difficult angles.  I always find it such fun to try to master a diamond gauge – they look like this (top right corner of the photo):

A diamond gauge at the top right of the picture, used to calculate the weight of gemstones

And emeralds are just such divine little gemstones!  Sometimes people come by to look at an emerald ring for an engagement ring, but I tend to advise them to either choose a diamond, a sapphire or a ruby – only because emeralds are not the hardest stones around…

Emerald and Diamond Ring Art Deco style from Moira Fine Jewels

… and the last thing you want to do when you wear your engagement ring every day, is having to worry about cracking or denting it, so a more robust gemstone is usually a better idea.  However – I know one lady who has worn an aquamarine, which is an ever softer stone than an emerald, as her engagement ring for thirty years, and it is in perfect shape!  So it obviously also comes down to what kind of a person you are – I for one could never wear anything even remotely fragile, as I would damage it in no time.  Unfortunately!

Emerald and Diamond Ring from Moira Fine Jewels at Richard Ogden, Burlington Arcade

And here is another lovely emerald and diamond ring – this one is from Moira Fine Jewels and you can pop by Richard Ogden in the Burlington Arcade to view it closer, if it takes your fancy.

Acrostic Jewellery – the Secret Language of Gemstones

Good morning my dear!  Today I am posting on a Saturday because of various IT challenges yesterday, but I am hoping that we should be all up and running now – thank you for your patience!

So yesterday I had a look at the most romantic style of jewellery in the antique shop: Acrostic Jewellery.  We have to jump back over a hundred years in time to understand this style of jewellery, so imagine that you are living in the Victorian times:

A gentleman wants to woo a woman, but the rules are very strict as to how the couple is allowed to spend time together.  Her parents must grant him permission to visit and the parents will of course be present when he sees their daughter.  People are able to express their feelings in letters, but there is always the risk of someone intercepting the correspondence, so you might not want to be too open writing down your feelings and innermost thoughts..!  The couple can attend dinner and parties and dance with each other, but only under the watchful eye of her parents – and eventually the two are able to spend some time together, but always in the company of a chaperone.  So these clever Victorians became experts in expressing their hearts’ desires using symbolic gestures, which is where Acrostic Jewellery comes in.

Dearest and Regards Jewellery from Moira Jewels at Richard Ogden

In Acrostic Jewellery gemstones were used to spell out words that expressed one’s feelings, often in rings, brooches and lockets.  The first letter of each gemstone would spell out a words, so in the photo above you can see two different words in the two lockets.

The locket to the left contains the following gemstones: Diamond, Emerald, Amethyst, Ruby, Emerald, Sapphire and Topaz – forming the word DEAREST.

The locket to the right contains: Ruby, Emerald, Garnet, Amethyst, Ruby, Diamond.  The word REGARD may not seem super romantic to us today, but it was often used in the sentences: “with my regards” or “I highly regard you”, and was a lovely word expressing a person’s feelings.

A few other words would be spelled out with the following gemstones:

Fluorite, Ruby, Indicolite, Emerald, Nephrite and Diamond

Amethyst, Diamond, Opal, Ruby, Emerald

Acrostic jewellery is believed to have its origins in France in the 18th century, where it is thought to have been invented by Empress Josephine and Marie Antoinette’s jeweller Jean-Baptiste Mellerio.  Popular French words would be Souvenir (remembrance) and Amitié (friendship). (1)

I absolutely love the idea of having a piece of jewellery that spells out a secret message like this and I suppose that my name would call for Indicolite, Iolite, Diamond and Amethyst.  Do you have a name that could be spelled out like this using gemstones?

Sources:

Jewellery Making Daily

Emerald birthstone for the May-beauties

 

Art Nouveau Emerald brooch on Portobello Market

The birthstone for May is the Emerald, all you lucky May-children!  It is one of my absolute favourite gemstones, with colours that span all kinds of glorious shades of green.  The emerald is thought to be a symbol of rebirth and it is also said to give its owner foresight, good fortune and youth. (1)  The largest and highest quality emeralds today are mined in Columbia, but they can also be found in Brazil, Afghanistan, Norway, Austria, Australia, Madagascar and Zambia, and a few more places around the world.

Antique emerald and diamond earrings from Portobello Market

The adoration of emeralds date go far back in time, as tools dating back to 1300 B.C, have been found in emerald mines in Egypt.  This was during the reign of Ramesses II, the third Egyptian pharaoh, who is often regarded as the greatest and most celebrated pharaoh of the Egyptian Empire. (2)  Given the beauty of the emerald, I wasn’t surprised to hear that a famous historical artefact was made of emeralds: the Crown of the Andes which was allegedly created by the last Inca king of Peru, Atahualpa.  I would love to see this crown, which is set with ca. 450 emeralds with a total weight of 1523 carats – if you are having a hard time picturing how much this is, imagine that a regular diamond ring is often around 1 carat, so 1523 times that! (3)

Emeralds were rather popular among the royals in both Babylon and Egypt, and in the latter royals were buried wearing these precious gemstones.  Queen Cleopatra’s emeralds are thought to have originated from mines in Southern Egypt, close to the Red Sea, and she loved them so much that she claimed the Egyptian emerald mines as her own (yup, if I had the power to do that I probably would have done it too!)

Antique Gold Leopard at Grays Antique Market in Mayfair

And over to my favourite part; the many myths surrounding the emerald.  The emerald has been thought to prevent epilepsy, stop bleeding, cure fever and protect the wearer from panic.  The ancient Romans dedicated emeralds to the goddess Venus, as the green gemstone symbolised the reproductive forces of nature.  In the Middle Ages people believed that emeralds held the power to tell the future.

Antique Emerald and Sapphire rings on Portobello Market

Emeralds are so beautiful that I can completely understand the temptation to choose an emerald for your engagement ring!  However, do keep in mind that they are relatively brittle stones and therefore easily damaged, so if you intend to wear your ring every day an emerald might be too soft a choice.  I would therefore recommend that you choose a diamond for your engagement ring, which can withstand the hardships of everyday wear and tear and go for a glorious emerald cocktail ring that you can wear on special occasions and keep safely tucked away in the meantime!

 Sources:

(1) American Gem Society

(2) Wikipeda – Ramesses II

(3) Earthsky.org

The dazzling gemstone Peridot

 

I was having dinner with two of my lovely ladies earlier this week, and our Indian Princess brought out this beautiful vintage peridot bracelet.  You can see Miss M modelling the sparkling green bracelet here, with a matching glass of cucumber water!  (by the way, I have recently discovered what wonderful health benefits cucumber and lemon water has – Google it if you are curious!)

Vintage Peridot bracelet

Peridot dates way back in time; in fact we are once again revisiting our our old friends the Ancient Egyptians, who mined this gemstone, which was formed deep inside the earth and delivered to the surface by volcanoes.  They associated peridots with light and referred to it as the Gem of the Sun, because it stayed bright under all lighting conditions.  Later on the Greeks and the Romans continued praising this beautiful gemstone – and the Romans would call it the Evening Emerald.

Vintage Peridot bracelet

I read this fascinating story on the GIA website:

“Early records indicate that the ancient Egyptians mined a beautiful green gem on an island in the Red Sea called Topazios, now known as St. John’s Island or Zabargad. Legend has it that the island was infested with snakes, making mining unpleasant until an enterprising pharaoh drove them into the sea. From the earliest times, people confused this stone—now known to be peridot—with other gems. It was one of many labeled as “topaz.””   Peridot History and Lore (1)

So Peridot was easily confused with other green gemstones and rumour has it that Cleopatra’s legendary emerald collection was in fact peridot!  The same goes for the 200 carat gemstones adorning the shrine of the Three Holy Kings in Germany’s Cologne Cathedral – for centuries people thought that they were emeralds, but they are in fact peridots.

I was also fascinated to read that some Peridots have travelled to earth in meteorites called Pallasites!  Some versions of these space gems are of quite bad quality and will rust and crumble, but some are just fabulous and have been turned into jewellery. (2)

I will write a post on Wedding Anniversary Jewellery, which might especially come in handy for the gents who are struggling with anniversary presents for the lovely wives, and of course the other way around – but I wanted to give you a sneak peek today: Peridot is the 16th wedding anniversary gemstone. (3)

Peridot is also the birthstone for August, and is associated with love, truth, faithfulness and loyalty.

Sources:

(1) GIA Education

 (2) Space Gems

(3) Wedding Anniversary Jewellery