Victorian jewelry became popular during the reign of Queen Victoria from 1837 to 1901. The queen had a passion for jewelry design and often gifted pieces to friends and family. Common jewelry materials of the time included opals, cameos, lava from Mount Vesuvius, and affordable semi-precious stones like amethyst, coral, and turquoise. Jewelry designs frequently featured romantic, natural motifs like birds, flowers, and insects. Mourning jewelry made of black materials like jet also became popular after the death of Prince Albert in 1861.

1. VICTORIAN JEWELRY
Surprisingly, the Molank jewelry discovered in South Africa proves that opal jewelry was
introduced by humans 100,000 years ago. Molank is jewelry made from small snails, oysters
and their shells.Although it was no doubt a more functional purpose than man sorting (e.g. to
keep clothes together). In the early days, natural materials were used, such as animal teeth,
shells, bones, wood and stone. The Georgian era began in the 1760s. The large-sized
ornaments of the past were replaced by subtle small sizes. Jewelry from this period is hard
to find, but Victorian jewelry from the mid-1800s to the reign of Queen Victoria is a different
story. The Queen's death marked the end of the Victorian era in 1901.The eighteen-year-old
queen not only liked jewelry, she also designed it. The conch carvings by the Italians were in
favor of cameos. Women were known to travel to Italy to buy opal necklaces, earrings and
cameo design brooches and lava jewelry made from the colorful lava of Mount Vesuvius.
Soon the Industrial Revolution saw the work of making jewelry and as a result the hand
carving ended.
The Queen was also credited for the attractive opal bracelet, and she had several
interesting designs. He often gave jewelry as gifts to family and friends. Jewelry was a
symbol of the dignity of the rich, or with fashionable clothing, but the rise of the middle class
created the demand for a large-scale production.Queen Victoria continues to set trends for
other women and her romantic nature and nature itself is reflected in jewelry designed with
birds, hearts, butterflies, dragonflies, ornamental flowers, ribbons and bows. Jewelry with
hair on both the living and the dead was especially popular. Some of these pieces were very
complex in their design. Pendants were used to hold the hair or pictures of the dead.Victoria
also liked the design of the serpent, a symbol of eternal love and her engagement ring to
Prince Albert in 1840 was a serpent with an emerald on its head. Terms of love such as
“beloved” or “honor” often appear in the engagement ring. A brooch of sapphires and
diamonds, a gift from her husband, adorned her wedding dress.The queen also liked opal,
but other affordable semi-precious stones such as amethyst, coral, pearl, turquoise and
garnet were widely applied in the market. Ivory, seed pearl, bog oak, smoky quartz, jasper,
agate, enamel, petrified wood, marble, as well as gold and silver found in Scottish jewelry
were popular with the public as tartan plaids became fashionable after the Queen's
birth.New inventions of gold have resulted in different methods of processing gold and
making gold jewelry more affordable. Diamonds, due to the opening of diamond mines in
South Africa, were also becoming within the reach of the middle class. In 1861, Victoria's
husband Prince Albert died and so-called mourning jewelry made of black stone such as
black roses, jets and black enamel. These were usually worn by the relatives of the
deceased.The jet was engraved on necklaces, earrings and pins. The suffrage movement
began and black jewelry became fashionable. Jewelry sets were introduced during this
period.