Queen Victoria Remembered

On this day in 1901, Queen Victoria passed away after 63 eventful years as monarch of the British Empire. At Gray & Davis, one of our areas of expertise is the eclectic jewelry made during Victoria’s reign.  Characterized by rich gold and silver, exotic gems and inventive design, here’s a few pieces from our collection that we think Victoria would be proud to lend her name to:

From top to bottom:

- Aesthetic style fan watch pendant with rose cut diamonds and black enamel, c. 1890

- Silver bangle with Scottish agate inlay, c. 1860

- 18k gold, sapphire & diamond double serpent band. London marks, 1896. 

- Buckle locket ring with hair, 2nd half of 19th century

- Natural pearl with rose cut diamond surround, c. 1880

- Two gold and old European cut diamond rings, late 19th century

- Stunning gold brooch with applied gold beads, c. mid 19th century

- Victorian woven link chain with applied wirework clasp

- Impressive fringe earrings with twisted rope detail, c. 1870

All pieces currently available at Gray & Davis. 

All About Scottish Agate

Antique Scottish agate, or “pebble” jewelry is bold, sentimental and a tad bit kitschy: a perfect embodiment of the Victorian era. 

Victorian Scottish agate luckenbooth brooch, c. mid-nineteenth century.  Currently available at Gray & Davis. 

The same way Woody Allen’s Gil Pender ached to time travel back to the roaring twenties in Midnight in Paris, nineteenth-century Brits pined away for a life in Medieval Scotland. The country’s romantic castles and dramatic, empty landscapes provided the perfect backdrop for urbanites caught up in the industrial revolution to imagine themselves as noble knights and their lovely ladies.

Queen Victoria herself was an enthusiastic proponent of all things Scottish. In 1847 she purchased Balmoral castle in Aberdeenshire as a vacation home, and published affectionate memoirs of hunting for gems in Scottish streams. 

Illustration of Queen Victoria rocking some tartan. 

Tourists were swept up in the Queen’s fascination with the highlands, and followed her there in search of their own authentic Scottish experience. Local jewelers and merchants capitalized on this influx of vacationers by producing jewelry featuring stones like the ones Queen Victoria had found in the creeks near Balmoral. Multicolored mosaics of striped and speckled agates, smoky quartzes and pink granite were carefully arranged in engraved settings of silver and gold.

Many of these jewels were fabricated as traditional Scottish forms dating back to the Middle Ages - like the luckenbooth, or crowned heart brooch pictured above. Scottish style agates were also used in more contemporary Victorian designs, as demonstrated by the two stunning bangles below. 

Two hinged bangles in silver, Scottish agate and cairngorn. c. mid-nineteenth century. Currently available at Gray & Davis.

Scottish jewelry was at its height of popularity between 1845 – 1870, but remained fashionable until the turn of the century. A fair number of pretty pieces survive today, waiting to be taken from their dusty velvet boxes by those nostalgic for a time long before their own.