Antique Diamond Pendant Brooch

1900s Straits Chinese brooch pendant set with Old Single Cut diamonds and a centre Old Cut diamond weighing 0.92ctw in 20k.

This was designed to be an original two-way wear jewelry and not a later rework.

This starburst-floral brooch is a showmanship of our pierced gold work, all parts delicate and no part bulky.

Controlled gold work, where the gold is thinned down to a foil-like sheet, is customary of traditional Ceylonese and Chinese craftsmanship.

Today this technique is a challenge to forge as it will require years of craft and repetition to master the handmade rigour.

Revival pieces do not come close. They are neither feather light nor gossamer in the air, whether worn as a pendant or brooch.

Many converted pieces (from brooch to pendant, or vice versa) also lack this gossamer vibrancy.

Placed beside a Victorian brooch of equivalence made in that same period and you can immediately discern the insistence of time and technique exerted on this Anglo-Sino brooch.

By threading the filigree, the only whole piece of gold is at its centre, a floral core. In this way the jewelry has a centre of weight distributed so well it feels weightless, even where it certainly is not.

Weight aside, the reason for crafting the gold so sheet-like is to design a piece of ornate jewelry without it feeling so.

Setting diamonds on the paper-thin gold is another technique of these old masters.

We can no longer make one like this, both because the masters have come and gone, and because the commission fee (even at premium) just isn’t worth the work to produce this level of jewelry art.

This piece has come to us in very well worn condition (or we won’t even get one!), but we have readied the piece for another century.

This is also the first pendant proper to have an artful bail that can be effortlessly removed to wear as a brooch, without plier or fuss.

The bail itself is a trifle joy, what more its whole?

This brooch will pin on even silk, without wearing it down.

The brooch measures 4cm and 5cm (including the bail).