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Antique Garnet Serpent Locket Necklace
$22,500
Created in the 1850-1860s, this Victorian snake necklace is formed of 18K gold, almandine garnets and diamonds. It is designed as a serpent with cabochon almandine garnet head highlighted by rose and old mine-cut diamonds and foliate engraved edges, suspending a heart-shaped cabochon garnet, the reverse with locket compartment, completed by a reverse-tapering body of highly-flexible, hollow bombé links and engraved tail. Celebrating an ancient symbol of enduring popularity, this beautifully-made necklace of rich colors and clever design is still stylish, more than 150 years after it was created.
- Product Details
- Curator's Notes
Item #: N-21535
Circa: 1850-1860s
Materials: 2 shaped cabochon almandine garnets; 80 old mine and rose-cut diamonds (approximate total weight 1.25 carats); 18K Gold
Signed: With scratch numbers 1516
After figuring in jewelry throughout the ancient world in Egypt, Greece, and Rome, the serpent all but disappeared from Western jewelry until the late 18th century, when science hand advanced against superstition, and fascinating archaeological discoveries brought the motif to the forefront again. Explorations of the serpent in high French jewelry of the early 19th century were frequent, and occasionally loaded with symbolism that may have carried sociological and political meaning. Though most often associated with English jewelry due to the serpent's significance to Queen Victoria and, later, Queen Alexandra, illustrations from Henri Vever's French Jewellery of the Nineteenth Century demonstrate that French jewelers also favored the motif throughout the period. The serpent appears as a complex and elegant artistic form in design drawings from the Boucheron archives into the 1870s.