Design for a Gold Hook Earring with Diamonds, Emeralds and Rubies

Drawing with a design for a gold hook earring with diamonds, emeralds and rubies that is part of a collection of 85 drawings with figurative designs for earrings, brooches, pendants and other jewels, possibly real-sized, created with graphite and gouache and heightened with gold inside lithograph frames. These designs are all characteristic of the period between 1870 and 1900, when jewelry design saw a great degree of innovation and creativity in both style and technique. Some of the most important innovations that took place at this time included the setting of diamonds without metal on the back to reinforce the refraction of light on the cut surfaces of the stones, and the use of gold granules and cannetille (scrolls of metal strips) in the creation of fine metal surfaces. (Semi-)precious stones continued to be used in jewelry design at this time, especially with the discovery of diamond mines in South Africa, although alternative techniques, many of them inspired on ancient jewelry, were also common: Enamel in its different application techniques (including champlevé, cloisonné, and low-relief) was particularly popular. In addition to enamel, colored glass was used to add touches of color to the metallic structures that formed the base of the jewels. In general, jewelry design during this period became more complex, and the colors in nature were mimicked by the color of gemstones used for jewelry design: the designs were elaborate and relied in the natural beauty of cabochon gems, curving, and figurative designs with symbolic meaning, typical of the Arts and Crafts movement. Towards the end of the nineteenth century, the Art Nouveau movement created sinuous and organic pieces that moved away from conventional stones and put emphasis on the subtle effects of materials such as glass, horn and enamel. The European Middle Ages and the Renaissance, as well as civilizations of the Mediterranean, and even Japan, became important sources of inspiration for jewelry design at this time.

This design for a gold earring is made up of a gold hook that holds a thin round gold frame with four small round diamonds and an emerald in the center, from which hang two thin stripes of gold, decorated with two small round rubies and with two round diamonds on the lower ends, that hold a rosette, which is made up of interlacing C-curves made with thin strips of gold, each of them decorated with a square-cut ruby on the outer end of the curve, placed around a smaller central rosette of a cabochon round emerald with six round diamonds as petals. The precious stones could have been replaced in the creation of the manufactured jewel by colored glass stones, a technique that was very popular at the time when the drawing was created. This drawing for an earring was created over a lithograph cream frame with a light-brown ear, to show how the earring would look like when worn.