Antique Victorian French Multi Gold Plated Garnet Flower Quatrefoil Pendant

Fresh looking, soft wear is noticeable only on close inspection. Gold setting has a bright patina with minor surface wear, no dents. Garnet has fresh sheen with no chips and light surface wear.

Bale is secure and original. Is a French term for gold plated showing this antique pendant was made in France. A quatrefoil shape frames a detailed floral design executed in slightly different hues of gold. Tiny and delicate leaves have carefully rendered veins and serrated edges. Symbolism in antique and vintage jewelry is common, yet it can be hard to spot if you don't know what you're looking for.

Often, specific natural gemstones, flowers, birds, and motifs like stars and anchors were imbued with meanings that have fallen out of present-day society's collective memory. To appreciate the power of symbols in antique jewelry is to imagine what it would have been like to wear the piece and step back into history. A young Queen Victoria assumed her role in 1837 and her taste in jewelry quickly became culturally influential, within England and beyond. Her relationship to jewelry was enmeshed with her husband, Prince Albert, who gifted the Queen for their engagement, a snake ring, embedded with an emerald (her birthstone) in its head.

Continuing from the Georgian era and intensified by Queen Victoria. Taste, sentimental and figural jewelry was a major trend throughout the Victorian era. When certain ideas and words were deemed too forward or improper to be spoken, jewelry and symbolic meaning was used to communicate what was left unsaid.

_gsrx_vers_1326 GS 8.4.1 (1326).

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