Girandole, diamond earrings with pendants, add special charm to the wearer. The play of light in the stone, a whole handful of sparks escaping from the “dancing” precious mineral, fascinates and does not allow you to take your eyes off the man-made miracle.
The history of a jewelry miracle
Although the desire to decorate the body appeared simultaneously with the desire to illuminate the room, the masters of artistic forging learned to make shaped candlesticks, which in France were called girandoles (armful of sparks).
Jewelers, noticing how the crystal facets shimmered on the pendants decorating the lamp, almost immediately introduced earrings into fashion, where the precious mineral (often the only large satellite) moved freely due to the fastening. The name stuck. French ladies now strutted their stuff at court, decked out in intricate jewelry.
A beautiful decoration and a simple fairy tale. Earrings with pendants were worn back in Athens (4th century BC). Moreover, the microtechnique of processing and laying out gold granules in one product has not yet been repeated.
Important. Antique earrings were found in 1853 during excavations on the outskirts of Feodosia, and are now kept in the Hermitage treasury
Earrings decorated with pendants are a traditional decoration for the inhabitants of Central Asia and the Middle East. During the Crusades, when Teutonic knights and traders came into contact with a different culture, gold and silver jewelry, richly decorated with stones and enamel, began to be sent to Europe as trophies or goods.
Then local jewelers decided to replace the semi-precious stones with diamonds. The technique of modern cutting, when the number of facets is calculated from the surface area and shape of the stone, has not yet existed. Metal foil was placed under the jewelry mineral, a polished cabochon without edges, to play with light.
Having received and tried on the jewelry, the ladies of high society, or rather, their gallant gentlemen, saw the similarity of the earrings, where several bright stones hung in a pendant, with a bouquet (at that time a sheaf). This is where the name girandole comes from, a sheaf of sparks from French.
Then they began to decorate interior items with pendants. But since a candlestick made of several candles is also, in fact, a sheaf, a lamp with pendants also received this name.
Girandole for socialites
A modern girandole with diamonds is a fine piece of jewelry and an impeccable sense of the craftsman. The pendant hanging from the earring can be decorated with a scattering of small (less than 0.01 carat) stones. Or an intricate pattern can be laid out around one large stone.
Note. Of the entire variety of minerals included in the precious group (about 100), only 20 are popular among jewelers
It is still rare to find products where a girandole with diamonds also includes a small gold nugget instead of a central stone.There are no two identical nuggets in the world. Only a master who has a keen sense of the “soul” of the stone and the gold bar is capable of selecting similar ones and creating a “duet” when the diamonds do not draw attention to themselves, but force them to “play” the curves and curls of gold.
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