“Well,” you may ask, “isn’t jewelry amorous by it’s very nature?” To some extent this is correct, although we wear jewels for every number of reasons that are not amorous… to seem sophisticated, to appear professional, to [impress our friends and neighbors. Therefore what about the romance of jewelry? In this case I am chatting regarding romance in a broader sense than only relations. “A condition or feeling of mystery, anticipation, and remoteness from everyday life” Romantic jewelry is that jewelry that causes you feel exceptional, dissimilar, like a princess or a prince. That jewels that takes you out of your normal buzz drum life each time you put it on. I adore silver and platinum and there are other metals (titanium comes to mind) that create remarkable jewelry, but there’s none like the romance of gold. To wear gold is to wear the jewelry of kings and queens. In earliest Egypt only the pharaohs and those particularly favored by the pharaohs were permitted to wear gold. Other jewelry that move feelings of romance are pearls, emeralds and rubies… and, obviously, for lots of people, diamonds. By some means though diamonds do not seem to have the same tenderness and romance as the other stones. Much of the romance that has been generated around diamonds is do to de Beers in the early part of the 20th century instituting a skillful and very effective advertising campaign… so I’ll leave diamonds for a different day. Then again pearls… Pearls feel amazing against your skin. To look intensely into a excellent pearl is to look into infinity. Pearls have been valued in all time periods and all cultures. Historically baroque pearls (large irregularly shaped pearls) were used to make astonishing and fantastic jewels by embellishing them with gold an gems. Commonly these took the shape of Neptune or other greek gods, sirens, attractive females and animals. The Canning Jewel in the Victoria and Albert museum is a popular and complex use of a baroque as the base for a beautiful merman. Black pearls, especially Tahitian black pearls have turned out to be very well known in current years. They come in a range of colors from fantastic purples and greens, thru pinks to chic browns. All are lovely and the variety of colors gives them a great deal of flexibility in choosing just the correct pearl for your outfit and feeling. The most gorgeous black pearl necklace I have observed was from Morrison’s a small built-up jeweler in Berkeley. The pearls were set in a rainbow strung together so that each color melted into the 1 next to it — remarkable. (By the way, if you wear pearls, do wear them against your skin, it is good for them, but be definite that you do not wear any perfume, fragrance or lotion, in any case not where it might contact your pearls.) Emeralds and rubies are conventionally the monarch and empress of gems. Conceivably it is their alive colors that stirred our relatives. Surely that vivid blood red and cool serpent green are hard to disregard. Even nowadays emeralds and rubies of identical size and quality are more expensive than alike diamonds. In Victorian times colored gemstones were used to read out love mail. For example a piece of jewels may have these gems in sequence: LOVE: Lapis, Opal, Vermeil and Emerald. REGARD: Ruby, Emerald, Garnet, Amethyst, Ruby and Diamond. The shape of jewels also can harbor a romantic message. Hearts and clasped hands, hands holding a heart (Claddagh) and cupids are self descriptive, but several shapes are a bit more understated. For a lot of cultures, plus the Romans and the Victorians, snakes were a sign of lasting love. Prince Albert gave Queen Victoria a snake engagement ring — the beginning of a long and celebrated marriage. Amusingly lizards and frogs were (and possibly still are) also symbols of married happiness. Perchance this describes the continuing status of jewels depicting this wiggly creatures. Jewelry in the form of flowers may also be symbolic. To recite Ophelia “There’s rosemary, that’s for memory; pray, love, remember: and there is pansies. Other flowers generally establish in jewelry are daisies for innocence, roses for the growth and continuance of love and bouquets expressing the commingling and compatibility of marriage. When you are taking into account the great present from that next anniversary, rather than the regular “anniversary ring” how about a more romantic bouquet pendant? So the next time you are rooting through your gemstone container before that particular assignation or in the hunt for the wonderful gift for the great lover, think the figurative romance of jewelry and gems.
