Georgian Silver & Gold, Paste Pear Shaped Drop Earrings

A beautiful pair of silverA metallic element which is malleable and ductile, and white in colour, making it ideal for use in jewellery. It is usually mixed with copper to improve its hardness.
and gold backed GeorgianJewellery made in the Georgian era (1714-1830). earrings. They are set with pastes that have been foiled at the back and pierced with what looks like a black spot. This was to emulate the culet on a diamondA precious, lustrous gemstone made of highly compressed carbon. Diamonds are one of the hardest materials known to mankind. Colours of diamonds range from colourless, yellow, orange and brown to almost black. Natural coloured (or ‘fancy’) diamonds can be extremely rare. The cut, colour, clarity and carat weight of a diamond are the criteria jewellers use…. Old mine cutAn 18th, 19th and early 20th century diamond shape, typically cushion or asymmetrical, marked by a small table, a high crown and a large culet. Culets are the small flat facets at the bottom of a stone which appear to the untrained eye as a hole in the middle of the stone. Before the advent of modern machinery which allows for the precise faceting we see tod… diamonds were cut off at the pointA unit of weight for a diamond, being one-hundredth of a metric carat. It is used for weights that are decimal fractions of a carat, and all figures after the second decimal point are, in the diamond and jewellery trade, generally discarded. on the base so that more light would refract through the stone. PasteGlass made to resemble gem materials, which may be moulded, faceted, carved, etc.  jewellery is very collectable today especially when it is in good condition. Sometimes damp can get in to the foilA thin metal foil placed behind a gemstone within a closed-back setting to improve its appearance. Metallic foil improves the reflectivity of certain gemstones, whilst coloured foils act as colouring agents when placed behind colourless materials, such as paste and rock crystal. The practice of foil-backing gemstones can be traced back to Minoan times (circa… settings over the years and discolour them . These earrings are in excellent condition for their age with good white paste and no discolouration. They were made circa 1820.