18th c Portuguese Gold & Diamond Girondole Earrings

A rare pair of early 18th c Portuguese high-carat gold and diamond girondole earrings, c. 1700-1730s, of a scrolled openwork and triangular drop design highly similar to a pair in the Victoria & Albert Museum, dated c. 1690-1730 (n. 804A&B-1902). Another closely related example, from Sotheby’s archives, is illustrated on page 63 of “Earrings from Antiquity to the Present” by Mascetti and Triossi. Named after a type of luxury lighting fixture with branched arms and hanging ornaments, the girandole earring emerged around 1650 and was the most popular earring type until the late 18th century, when it was supplanted by the pendeloque. Largely defined by the three drops suspending from a central element, the girandole accommodated fashionable 18th century taste for upswept hair (which exposed the ears) and low necklines (which left a visual vacuum to be filled by statement earrings). Improved lighting during this period also increased the popularity of evening social gatherings. The girondole’s fragmentory construction allowed for its components to move and swish, creating desirable glitter under candle light. The present earrings belong to a group of Portuguese jewelry in high-carat gold made between 1690-1730, which mark the transition between late Baroque and Rococco design. Characterized by its fine chiseled workmanship, foliate ornamentation, rose cut diamonds set in conical rub-over settings, curvilinear movement, a butterfly shaped central element, and triangular tips, jewelry of this type represented an age of lavishnenss and pomp in Portugal. Gold and diamonds were scarce enough throughout the 17th century that Pedro II issued a sumptuary law in 1690, restricting the wearing of jewelry to “persons of quality”. Yet three years later, in 1693, roving bands of bandeirantes discovered a vast deposit of gold along the Rio das Velhas in Brazil, then a Portuguese colony. The find transformed the country, sending its citizenry into a frenzy of optimism and excitement; crowds in Lisbon gathered to celebrate the arrival of 514 kilos of gold in 1699, and a French traveler noted in 1725, “The Portuguese nobility have a great passion for gold… the ladies’ balcony presented a sumptuous sight.” This discovery of gold pre-dated the discovery of diamonds in Brazil, for which mining would not begin until 1723. Jewelry of this type, with its emphasis of gold over gemstones, thus corresponded with the height of gold production in Portuguese history, yielding some 5,000 kilos annually, with the greatest amounts occuring during the 1730s. Ironically, Brazil’s gold deposits were rapidly depleted after 1740; so complete was this exhaustion that new Portuguese jewelry made after 1750, except for rings, were almost always in silver or gilt silver, and no customs declarations in Brazil were for gold by the end of the 18th century.
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