Antique Victorian 12k Gold Turquoise Key Brooch Pendant

Antique brooch made with solid gold and turquoise cabochons.
Italy, XIX Century, Victorian era.

A large, life-size skeleton key adorned with a cartouche and small turquoise cabochons.
It is beautiful as a brooch, but it could also be converted to pendant; in one of the pictures, I show it worn as a pendant, by passing the pin through the links of a rolo chain.

Measures: ca. 55.5 x 16.7 cm (2,1 x 0.6 inches).

Weight: 4.23

This is a beautiful example of Italian Victorian jewelry, the so called "Borbonica" (Bourbon jewelry).

HISTORY:

Bourbon jewelry
In an era in which the bourgeois class was on the rise, the desire to own beautiful jewels - until then prerogative of only the nobility and clergy - spread among the middle classes.

Bourbon jewelry was popular goldsmithing. Made in the South of Italy in the 1800s, it was usually executed in low grade gold and very light despite the large volumes. It was however highly prized in manufacture. The new manufacturing techniques of the period made it possible to create jewelry in thin foil, so as to limit the amount of gold used, but the fine manufacturing and the use of colored enamels, stones, glass pastes and seed pearls gave the jewelry of the Bourbon period a rich and attractive look.


This piece is in very good antique condition, with signs of time and use to be expected in an antique jewel.
Please refer to the pictures and video as they are part of the description, and feel free to reach out with any questions.

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