18th c Portuguese Pink Topaz Pendant

A pretty c. 1750 Portuguese pendant with foiled pink topaz, quartz, and rose cut diamonds, in a mature mid-18th century rococo style with chiseled and chased floral and foliate scrolls, the openwork two-sectioned body in silver and rose gold. A near-identical pendant was sold at Christie’s South Kensington in 2006 (lot 28 sale 4987). Other examples of this type are in major museums: National Museum of Ancient Art, Lisbon (inv. 52B), Victoria & Albert Museum (inv. M.590-1911), and The Metropolitan Museum of Art (1980.343.19). Yet another pendant, with an extra middle ornament and a parure pairing, is illustrated on p. 212 of “A History of Jewels” by J. Anderson Black. Both the present pendant and the Christie’s example have later brooch fittings, but during the 18th century, pendants of this type would have been worn high on the neck with a ribbon, or mounted as the centerpiece of a larger necklace, and paired with matching earrings of the same type. Cheerful and effervescent, this piece is highly representative of the era’s passion for flowering ornamentation and light pastel tones. French influence is also evident in the material craftsmanship. The mixed-metal use of both silver and gold is rather unique to early rococo jewels, first appearing in France around 1730 and rapidly disappearing everywhere after 1750; this practice reflects a design transition between the all-gold jewels of early 18th century and the all-silver jewels of the century’s latter half. The thinly faceted rose cuts found throughout the present pendant was popularly used on jewels made in France and Portugal during the 1750s decade. Sometimes called a “mirror cut”, these diamonds feature extremely compressed crowns with no pavilion depth, resembling slivers of ice or the surface of water; when silver-foiled, these flat rose cuts offered desirable reflecting surface area for candlelight evenings, while conserving material. For an earlier French rococo jewel with mixed silver and gold, see Musée des Arts Décoratifs inv. 5275.A. Inv. 8818 from the same museum is a mid-18th c French pendant with flat rose cut diamonds.
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