Antique Dutch Victorian pendant locket sacred heart with rose cut diamonds

This Victorian locket from 1870 enshrines a 14K yellow gold Sacred Heart in between transparent plates set with 14K red gold frills. The passionate inner beams radiate through the outer rim of 24 rose cut diamonds set on foil in silver encrustations. Even the small frills topping this pendant could teach every generation to cherish humanity.

Antique jewelry object group: pendant/locket

Condition: excellent condition
  -  (more info on our condition scale)

Country of origin: Netherlands

Style: Victorian - Victorian decorative arts refers to the style of decorative arts during the Victorian era. The Victorian era is known for its eclectic revival and interpretation of historic styles and the introduction of cross-cultural influences from the middle east and Asia in furniture, fittings, and Interior decoration. Victorian design is widely viewed as having indulged in a regrettable excess of ornament. The Arts and Crafts movement, the aesthetic movement, Anglo-Japanese style, and Art Nouveau style have their beginnings in the late Victorian era.
  -  See also: Victorian or more info on styles

Style specifics: The Grand Victorian Period - Experts divide the reign of Queen Victoria, also called The Victorian era (1837 - 1901) into three periods of about twenty years each; The Romantic Victorian Period (1837 - 1860), The Grand Victorian Period (1860 - 1880), and the Late or Aesthetic Victorian Period (1880 - 1901).

We consider this to be of the Grand Victorian Period.

This second Victorian period is famous for its ostentatious pieces set with pearls and diamonds (from South Africa). From ca. 1850 wealthy English had reported about jewelry from India and Japan, which heavily inspired the jewelers of this period. This period also corresponds with the death of Queen Victoria's husband King Albert making mourning jewelry (set with heavy dark stones) the type of jewelry specific for this period.

Period: ca. 1870
  -  (events and facts in 1870)

Source of inspiration: Christianity

Theme: Sacred Heart - The devotion to the Sacred Heart (also known as the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus) is one of the most widely practiced and well-known Roman Catholic devotions, taking Jesus Christ's physical heart as the representation of his divine love for humanity.

This devotion is predominantly used in the Catholic Church and among some high-church Anglicans and Lutherans. The devotion is especially concerned with the what the Church deems to be the love and compassion of the heart of Christ towards humanity, and its long suffering. The origin of this devotion in its modern form is derived from a Roman Catholic nun from France, Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque, who said she learned the devotion from Jesus during a series of apparitions to her between 1673 and 1675, and later, in the 19th century, from the mystical revelations of another Roman Catholic nun in Portugal, Blessed Mary of the Divine Heart, a religious of the Good Shepherd, who requested, in the name of Christ that Pope Leo XIII consecrate the entire world to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Predecessors to the modern devotion arose unmistakably in the Middle Ages in various facets of Catholic mysticism.

Historically the devotion to the Sacred Heart is an outgrowth of devotion to what is believed to be Christ's sacred humanity. There is nothing to indicate that, during the first ten centuries of Christianity, any worship was rendered to the wounded Heart of Jesus. The revival of religious life and the zealous activity of Saint Bernard of Clairvaux and Saint Francis of Assisi in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, together with the enthusiasm of the Crusaders returning from the Holy Land, gave a rise to devotion to the Passion of Jesus Christ and particularly to practices in honour of the Sacred Wounds. (From: Wikipedia)

Material: 14k yellow and red gold and silver, see also: The silver on gold technique
  -  (more info on precious metals)

Technique: The rose cuts are set on foil. This is a special technique that was used to bring the lustre of the diamonds to its best quality.

Extra information: The gold heart is made of gold and held between the transparant front and back of this locket.

Diamonds: 24 rose cut diamonds. We do not have the weight of the diamonds which is normal in our trade when it comes to rose cuts.

Birthstones: Diamond is the birthstone (or month stone) for April.
  -  (more info on birthstones)

Hallmarks: The Dutch control mark representing an oak leaf and that was in use between 1852 and 1906.
  -  (more info on hallmarks)

Dimensions: height 4,45 cm (1,75 inch), width 2,68 cm (1,06 inch)

Weight: 6,40 gram (4,12 dwt)

Reference Nº: 14170-0003

Copyright photography: Adin, fine antique jewelry

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