Antique ‘En Tremblent’ Gold Brooch

At Richard Ogden Gold Bird Brooch ‘En Tremblent’ with turquoise stones and rubies

Oh I just had to share this brooch with you fine folks, as it is just such a sweet and beautifully made piece of jewellery, circa 1880, so a late Victorian piece.  The style is referred to as En Tremblent, which obviously is French and means to tremble.  The name comes from the gemstones and sections of the piece being set so that they have some beautiful movement to them.  As an example, in this brooch the bird is set on a gold spring, which makes it tremble when it is moved around.  The ruby in its beak is only fastened with a small bit of gold, so it gives an extra dimension of movement to the piece.  It is so well made, which was also pointed out by one of the most skilled antique style jewellery craftsmen that I know here in London – he if anyone would know what quality when it comes to antique pieces!

The back of the brooch, which is just about as beautiful as the front!

They started creating en tremblent jewellery in the late 18th century, as the movement of the gemstones so cleverly caught the light and attracted the eye.  They would mainly create floral sprays with the main flower en tremblent, to make it look like it was swaying in the wind.  We already know that these old cut diamonds were especially stunning in candle light, as the light would be reflected across the room in the most soft and romantic manner.

Richard Ogden Gold Bird Brooch En Tremblent with turquoise and rubies

So how would you style it, since brooches are making such a wonderful comeback?

The Victorian Carved Half Hoop Ring

An extraordinary original Victorian half hoop ring with sapphires and diamonds, this one is from Richard Ogden

Good morning dearest, I hope you had a lovely weekend in the sunshine!  Gosh this spring is really taking its time, and it has more than once made me think of a poem by the Swedish author Karin Boye:

Ja visst gör det ont när knoppar brister.
Varför skulle annars våren tveka?
Varför skulle all vår heta längtan
bindas i det frusna bitterbleka?
Höljet var ju knoppen hela vintern.
Vad är det för nytt, som tär och spränger?
Ja visst gör det ont när knoppar brister,
ont för det som växer
och det som stänger.

– Karin Boye

 Yes, of course it hurts when buds are breaking.
Why else would the springtime falter?
Why would all our ardent longing
bind itself in frozen, bitter pallor?
After all, the bud was covered all the winter.
What new thing is it that bursts and wears?
Yes, of course it hurts when buds are breaking,
hurts for that which grows
and that which bars.

 

And now it is time to move over to jewellery!  I have been showing my clients quite a few carved Victorian half hoop rings lately and thought that we should take a closer look today:

Victorian three stone half hoop ring in yellow gold at Richard Ogden

A side-view of the ring, with the carvings clearly visible   

A collection of three stone half hoop rings at Richard Ogden – you can see how the designs vary, in everything from the cut or shape of the diamonds, to the width and design of the mounts 

Victorian craftsmen started designing carved half hoop rings in the 1880s and they would either be worn as engagement rings or presented as gifts at the birth of a baby.  The rings came with three, five or seven stones, and featured either all diamonds, or all rubies/sapphires/emeralds, or alternating diamonds and these coloured precious stones.  Women would build up a nice collection of the rings, often with one in each colour: red, blue, green and white.

A beautiful sapphire and diamond ring, with little rose diamond points in between the larger gemstones

And a side view of the Victorian sapphire and diamond half hoop ring 

Mr Alastair Norman from Harvey & Gore mentioned that today Victorian half hoop rings would make excellent engagement rings, as they sit perfectly next to a wedding ring.  He also emphasised what wonderful quality coloured stones you can find in the early Victorian half hoop rings, the exquisite blue sapphire above here being the perfect example.

The rings would also feature little rose diamond points (in other words tiny diamonds in a rose cut) in between the bigger stones – you can see them in the photo above: tiny little fractions of a diamond at the foot of the sapphire and the diamond.

A Victorian-style half hoop ring with seven diamonds

The ring above belongs to one of my colleagues, Mrs C, who was kind enough to share it and its history with us today.  It is a seven diamond Victorian-style carved half hoop ring (that is a mouthful!) that was given to her grandmother as an engagement ring circa 1918.  It is quite rare to see a seven stone ring, and when her grandmother received it she was told by her fiancée that it represented Seven Days of Joy – how wonderful indeed!

Mrs C’s grandfather was a Master Baker on one of the merchant ships during the First World War.  After the war he became a baker and quite a successful one, because at one point he was running three bakeries!  Mrs C told me that the family lived in the bakery, and at one point the engagement ring went missing “as one of the members of staff had pinched it!”  They managed to get it back though, and it was eventually passed down through generations, always to the youngest daughter in the family, which is why it now belongs to her.

And just for our curiosity: the single diamond ring that Mrs C is wearing in the photo above was her mother’s engagement ring, who got married in 1960.  According to her mother and father the ring was brand new at that point, but we are both convinced that it is an older ring, because it features a beautiful old cut diamond in a 1920/30s setting.

I would love to hear your thoughts on this Victorian design; could you imagine wearing one of these as an engagement ring?  What attracts you to it, and what doesn’t?

This past week at Richard Ogden

Hello sweetheart!  So I love looking through the photos on my phone and seeing what lovely jewellery has crossed my path in the past week, and today is no exception!  We will start with this beautiful turquoise, pearl and gold necklace from the 1880/90s that one of our dealers showed me the other day:

Stunning necklace ca 1880/1890s

 

Gold, pearl and turquoise necklace ca 1880/1890s – sorry about the shaky picture, I must have been so overwhelmed by the beautiful design that I just couldn’t keep my hand steady! 

It is a typical English design with a nature motif, which was so very popular toward to the turn of the last century, which is when this necklace is from.  I had a chat to one of the dealers about whether it was an Art Nouveau piece or not, and he didn’t think so as it doesn’t quite carry the specific design of Art Nouveau, but he did say that there are some very pretty scroll work in the piece.

I obviously adore it especially because my grandmother loves the combination of gold and turquoise – and with the pearls it just becomes so delicate and romantic.  I would love to wear it with a nice and light summer dress, oh and speaking of which: I can’t WAIT for summer to come around, I am sure you feel the same way!!!

Gold bracelets from Richard Ogden, BADA Antiques & Fine Art Fair

And I spent this morning looking through our stock from the BADA fair and got stuck dreaming away on these chunky gold bracelets from Harvey & Gore.  They have some pretty exquisite jewellery, so if you are ever walking down the Burlington Arcade, do take a look in our windows, and you will see the Harvey & Gore collection in our last window down towards Piccadilly.  Everything is obviously beautiful, but these guys have some exquisite period pieces that are so much fun to look at!

So there we are dearest, I should be back again on Tuesday next week, as I am bit tied up on Monday.  I hope that you have a wonderful weekend and I can’t wait to bring you some more beautiful pieces next week!

Antique Pearl Necklace Clasps vs Centre Motifs

 

Rows of antique pearl necklaces at Richard Ogden, in the Burlington Arcade

So I was working in the antique shop the other day – namely counting diamonds on a brooch – and having lost count a million or so times, I decided to take a little break and started aimlessly wandering around the shop instead.  I ended up – like so many times – by the pearl necklaces…  ahh sigh of happiness, they are just so beautiful!  The middle one in the photo above we have already familiarised ourselves with in the previous post Victorian Pearl Necklace with a Diamond Clasp, but I loved them all and started looking closer at them:

Pearl necklace with a diamond brooch clasp

This little beauty above is another example of a pearl necklace with a diamond brooch as the clasp; in other words it also has a very clever mechanism at the back which turns it into a brooch that you can wear separately.

The centre motif features a beautiful sapphire surrounded by eight diamonds

… and then there was this necklace with two rows of pearls and a centre motif featuring a sapphire.

This necklace is from around the 1920’s and I am obviously learning all these ways of determining the age of the pieces, and something that is very helpful is determining what metal has been used in the design – this one is set in platinum.  Platinum gained popularity in jewellery making in the beginning of the 20th century as it was such a beautiful and strong metal.  The use of platinum in anything other than military applications was however prohibited during the second World War, as it was declared a strategic material.  After the war it gained popularity again because of its properties: its strength allowed jewellery makers to create very fine yet durable designs.

A closer look at this beautiful antique pearls necklace with a centre motif featuring a sapphire and eight diamonds

The difference between this necklace and the first one in the post, is that the part with the sapphire and diamonds in this necklace is not used as a clasp – it is purely there for decorative reasons.  As a result it is referred to as the centre motif, and it looks a little something like this when worn:

Oh go on then, I will model the necklace to show you what it looks like on!  (yep, without doubt the best part about working in an antique jewellery shop!!)  

So there we have it – the difference between a clasp and a centre motif in antique jewellery (and of course also in modern jewellery, but I haven’t seen too many of these designs around in contemporary pieces – but if you have then please feel free to share with us below!)  Have a lovely weekend my dear!

All of the necklaces above can be found at Richard Ogden in the Burlington Arcade.

Victorian Pearl Necklace with a Diamond Clasp

“You can’t ever go wrong with pearls. Perhaps pearls are a girl’s best friend after all.” 

– Ki Hackney

Mid-Victorian pearl necklace with a diamond brooch as a clasp at Richard Ogden

Oh dear oh dear, yesterday was such a dream-day in the antique shop!  I was able to look closer at this Mid-Victorian pearl necklaces with a diamond clasp, and some of you will recognise the photo above from Instagram yesterday.

Mid-Victorian pearl necklace with a diamond brooch as a clasp

What I just love about Victorian jewellery is that the pieces are so often two-in-one, with the most clever little functions that you never would have expected.  With this necklace the secret is that the diamond clasp, which the ladies would wear so beautifully to the side, is detachable!  Since mass-productions hadn’t been invented yet, everything was handmade and very well thought through, and people didn’t own hundreds and hundreds of pieces of jewellery, so if a piece could double as two it would have been a very welcome addition to someone’s jewellery collection.

A close up of the diamond brooch which also functions as the clasp here

This pearl necklace is circa 1870 and again I am just so taken by the amazing condition of it, even after 150 years!  The pearls are so beautiful and the clasp is intact.  If you look a little closer at the centre diamond in the photo above, you will see that it is an old diamond because there is a teeny tiny “hole” in the middle of the stone.  It looks like a round dot, can you see it?  This is such a typical characteristic of an old diamond which I just love, as it brings an air of history and romance.

This “dot” in the middle of the diamond is there because the bottom point of the diamond has been polished flat, instead of pointy – (you get pointy in modern diamonds).  Hundreds of years ago the diamond cutters didn’t have the same advanced technology as we do today when it came to polishing diamonds, so instead of risk losing a piece of the diamond by trying to make a pointy culet, they reverted to making them flat.  So when you look into the stone from above the flat culet at the bottom will look like a little dot in the middle of the stone!

The design at the back of the brooch

Here is the back of the clasp, which you can see is very well designed with all diamonds in place and a complicated mechanism to detach it from the necklace.

The clasp can be turned into a brooch thanks to the mechanics on the back

We are going to look at the difference in Clasps and Brooch Centre Motifs in the next post, because I thought that they were the same thing, but this beautiful sapphire and pearl necklace decided to prove me wrong:

Pearl necklace with a diamond and sapphire centre motif