Elegant Berlin Iron earrings c.1820.
Fine, lace-like miniature cast iron grille design with hinged original tops.
2.75 inches. Feather light.
Berlin iron jewellery symbolised patriotism in Prussia against Napoleon in the early c19th originating at the Royal Ironworks at Gleiwitz in 1806.Reputedly in 1814 no less than forty thousand pieces of iron jewellery were made.
Johann Conrad Geiss (1771- 1846)and Karl Friedrich Schinkel (1781–1841) were both leading German designers of the period and were responsible for some of the best Berlin Iron jewellery designs, and these earrings are likely designed by one of them.