Grape cluster and swallow antique locket necklace valentine

Grape cluster and swallow antique locket necklace valentineVictorian Cluster of Grapes and Swallow Locket Necklace. This 1880's era locket features a wonderful and rare motif: a grape vine which curls around the locket and proffers a generous cluster of grapes whose leaves are delicately and beautifully hand engraved into the surface of the metal. The grapes themselves are set with sparkling paste crystal stones, and are being eyed by a small swallow whose eye is set with a ruby. Wild grapes, according to a

an era spanning most of the 19th century

This became even more the vogue when the leading monarch of the Western world

Band is recycled new metal

This means there is five times more gold than the more commonly seen 'Gold-Filled'

Signets during this time were costly to make and increasingly elaborate in design and became status symbols for those important enough to need their documents to carry legally binding seals

Along the inside of the ring there is a well-worn karat mark

the horseshoe represents among other things luck

We salvaged the horseshoe

The 'noose' knot used is exaggeratedly long and is both part of the body of the necklace and the clasp: The necklace is opened and closed on one side by sliding a vintage circa 1940's brass anchor and natural agate druzy orb through the loop

Can be sized between 4 and 9 approximately

to commemorate an anniversary

in other words spanning the decades between 1880-1930