This is a brooch that is normally worn at the collar in the center where it comes together. It was made by selecting deep red Almandine Garnets that match in color and hand cutting each stone. Except the center stone is hand polished in a cabochon Garnet instead of faceting the gemstone. The brooch is set in a setting and vermeil and all handmade. A lot of garnet jewelry in the Victorian era is set in vermeil which is gilded silver. This type of construction is very labor intensive and took hours to cre ate because of the small stones and all the prongs to hold each hand cut gemstone. Garnet is probably the most used gemstone of the mid-19th century.
Garnet, so called by the ancient Greeks because the color reminded them of the "granatum," or pomegranate seed. Noah used my inner fire as a lamp on his bow as he cast about on the ocean. The roots as a gemstone are found in the Nile Delta in 3100 B.C., where Egyptian artisans would craft me into beads or inlay me into hand-wrought jewelry. In the Victorian language of Gemstones Garnet meant “Virtue” and garnets are the birthstone for January.

This brooch is 1 1/3 inches across and has the original T-bar Pin and C-clasp. The lovely brooch is in excellent condition and strong to wear.
Price $295