285.00 USD
A beautiful pair of true whitby jet earrings. Mourning jewelry from the late 1800s.
Around 1880 Queen Elizabeth of England lost her husband. She went into deep mourning and began a new tradition. She had the whole palace wear only jewelry made out of this beautiful natural material, called jet. Jet is a natural material mined from the earth.
The trend of wearing mourning jewelry spread to the US, although jet was only sourced in England. Soon, with high demand, other similar materials began being used – including French jet ( we have a french jet necklace available).
Black jewelry was in vogue through the last couple decades of the Victorian era. Not all jet or black adornment is mourning jewelry.
We know this piece and the couple others we'll be posting were made to be worn in the time after losing a loved one due to their symbolic nature. These dark beauties meant to symbolize teardrops.
Whitby jet is brittle and tends to have cracks or chips, especially since theyve been around for well over 100 years. These special hand carved earrings are typical in that way, they have character but are still so wearable.
Almost 2" long
All questions welcome… thanks for looking, more coming!
