Unusual Georgian aventurine glass and 15ct gold pansy necklace c.1825.
Designed as swagged pansies with girandole drops decorated with fine gold beads and connected with micro belcher chain.
Length 16inches. Largest pansy 2.5inches length.
The brownish glass with gold spangles was named aventurine glass from the original Italian name avventurina (from avventura, "adventure" or "chance"). The manufacturing process for 'goldstone' was invented in seventeenth-century Venice by the Miotti family, which was granted an exclusive license by the Doge. Urban legend says aventurine was an accidental discovery by Italian monks or the product of alchemy. Only in the early c19th did the recipe for goldstone(the combination of Gypsum and Feldspar with added copper flecks) become known outside of Venice and this necklace is an early example of its use in jewellery, the height of fashion.