This unusual stickpin is significant inasmuch as it marks several notable changes in fashion. Toward the end of the Victorian era, as Queen Victoria remained in a permanent period of mourning following the death of her beloved husband, men’s fashions began to become more somber. Upon her death, when Edward VII became King, men’s fashions would again change—becoming tweed-ier and sportier. However, this stickpin dates to the late Victorian period and shows the trend toward more sober jewelry styles for gentlemen.
The pin features an interesting coffin-shaped amethyst mounted in a deep setting of engraved gold. The amethyst, with its elegant deep color, is particularly fine and flawless. This pin would have been worn during the day or during a period of mourning. While jet jewelry was worn during the initial stages of mourning, after a set period of months (depending on who died), a man was permitted to wear amethysts as purple was an acceptable mourning color.
The angularity of the cut and the decided lack of pearls or other stones stylistically brings us toward the more reserved jewelry designed for gentlemen in the Twentieth Century.
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