c. 1820-30 French Charles X Colored Gold Fob

A substantial c. 1820-30 French Bourbon Restoration fob, set with a large 35 x 27 mm oval faceted citrine (approx. 80 ct) in a swivel setting of solid rose gold. The overlay of multi-hued gold flowers is executed in a technique called ‘à quatre couleurs’ (of four colors) by the French, which was developed around 1750 by Parisian goldsmiths like Jean Ducrollay. Initially found on luxury snuff boxes, colored gold was popularly applied to jewelry during the 1820s, nearly defining the look of chased and repousse-worked gold of this era. The ‘quatre couleurs’ refers to yellow, pink, whitish, and green gold, achieved by alloying gold with varying formulas of silver and copper (with some small amounts of cadmium for ‘green’). Also of note is the large citrine: its amber-orange tone suggests it was mined from the Palmira region (modern day Santos Dumont) of Minas Gerais, Brazil. Following the restoration of international relations after the fall of Napoleon, France opened trade with Mexico and Brazil; nearly all quartz, beryls, and topaz available to French jewelers during this period were sourced from Minas Gerais. While fobs of a decade prior may have weighed under 10 grams, counterparts from the 1820s were large and hefty: “One often sees watch chains (for men) with merely two seals and a key; but they are so bulky that, on the thigh, they alone form a greater bundle than the fifteen or twenty charms which were worn ten or fifteen years ago. The current fad is for the monumental” (from an 1820 Paris journal, quoted on p. 154 in Henri Vever’s French Jewellery of the Nineteenth Century). Weighing a good 31.5 grams, this present fob is indeed of the “monumental” variety, featuring a broad barrel-shaped bail and arms of a conchoidal revival form.
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