The Late Victorian period in British jewellery, conventionally dated from about 1885 to Queen Victoria's death in January 1901, is the third and final phase of the long Victorian era, following the Romantic (1837-1860) and Grand or Mid-Victorian (1860-1885) periods. It is sometimes described as the Aesthetic period, particularly in its earlier years, and it overlaps stylistically with the rise of the Arts and Crafts movement and with the very beginnings of Edwardian taste that would crystallise after 1901.

The shift away from mourning

The Grand Victorian period had been dominated by mourning conventions following Prince Albert's death in 1861. Heavy gold, jet from Whitby, onyx, black enamel, and sentimental hair jewellery defined the look. By the mid-1880s, social and demographic shifts were moving the fashion plate forward. Queen Victoria's withdrawal from public life left the Prince and Princess of Wales as the practical leaders of court fashion, and Princess Alexandra in particular favoured lighter, more delicate work. The development of new diamond fields in South Africa from the late 1860s onwards had, by the 1880s, lowered diamond prices and made the stone available to a much broader middle class. Late Victorian jewellery is, accordingly, lighter, brighter, and far more diamond-focused than its predecessor.

Materials and metalwork

Gold remained the dominant metal but was used in lighter constructions. Silver-topped gold, in which a silver setting for a diamond was backed by gold to prevent tarnish staining clothing, was the standard for diamond work until the very end of the period, when platinum began to replace it for fine pieces. Platinum had been technically available for decades but only became practically workable for jewellery after the development of the oxyhydrogen torch in the 1890s, which could reach the metal's high melting point reliably. By 1900 the leading houses were producing all-platinum pieces, anticipating the Edwardian style.

Rose-cut and old-mine cut diamonds gave way progressively to the old European cut, with its higher crown, smaller table, and open culet, as bruting machines and improved cleaving techniques allowed greater symmetry. The brilliant became the default, and stones were increasingly set in star, knife-edge, or millegrain mounts that put as little metal as possible between viewer and gem.

Coloured stones

Demantoid garnet from the Urals, discovered in the 1850s but reaching wide commercial use only in the 1880s, became one of the period's signature stones, prized for its dispersion and bright green colour. Cape rubies (almandine garnets), Burmese ruby, and Kashmir sapphire (the deposits of which were being worked in the high Himalaya from 1881) supplied the palette of important coloured-stone pieces. Demantoid in particular almost always came set with diamonds in delicate flower or insect forms.

Motifs

Insects, particularly bees, butterflies, dragonflies, beetles, and spiders, are diagnostic of the Late Victorian period. So are stars, crescent moons (often pavé-set with diamonds), swallows in flight, horseshoes for luck, and clover leaves. Naturalistic flower spray brooches, set en tremblant so the petals trembled with the wearer's movement, descended from earlier Victorian work but became more refined and lighter in construction. Renaissance Revival pieces, drawing on Holbein and Castellani's archaeological work, produced enamelled gold pendants and chains. Egyptian Revival pieces had a second flowering after Cleopatra's Needle was erected on the Thames Embankment in 1878.

The rise of the firm

The Late Victorian period saw the firms that would dominate the early twentieth century come into their commercial maturity. Cartier had been founded in Paris in 1847 but was passing into the second generation by the 1890s. Tiffany & Co. of New York had become an international force. Faberge in St Petersburg was at its creative height. The British trade was still organised around named makers in Bond Street, Regent Street, and Bristol, with hallmarks giving precise dating evidence that earlier periods often lack.

Hallmarking and dating

British gold and silver pieces from the Late Victorian period are usually fully hallmarked, giving the assay office, date letter, standard mark, and maker's mark. This makes the period one of the easier to authenticate provided the marks are consistent with construction and wear. Pieces with hallmarks struck on later additions, or with marks that do not match the metal or carat, are common and require careful examination.

Legacy

The Late Victorian period is the immediate ancestor of the Edwardian style and, through it, of much twentieth-century fine jewellery. Its emphasis on platinum, on diamonds set with minimal visible metal, on millegrain edging and on naturalistic motifs survived intact into the Edwardian and Belle Epoque years and influenced the early Art Deco. For the trade, Late Victorian pieces sit at a price and craftsmanship level that often exceeds Edwardian work of similar weight, particularly when they retain original cuts, untouched mounts, and clear hallmarks.