Antique Travel Jewelry Sterling Silver Pin

Travel jewelry enjoyed a great vogue in Belle Epoch Europe. Slightly different from costume jewelry, travel jewels were meant to pass as precious jewelry and were therefore made with precision and quality materials such as sterling silver and the finest glass stones. Vast wealth, new luxurious modes of transportation and ample leisure time for the moneyed classes made going to fashionable places, conspicuously attired, irresistible.  It also made first class train carriages, boat decks and corniches the playgrounds of master jewel thieves.  Hence, society craved and was willing to pay for meticulous replaceable examples of the jeweler’s art. The present brooch is a perfect illustration. This flower spray, crafted around the turn of the 20th Century, is sterling silver set with “diamonds” “turquoise” and “pearls,” all fashionably worn during the Edwardian era after Queen Victoria’s death. True diamonds, opals, moonstones, pearls and airy platinum settings provided much needed visual rel