Gifts of Grandeur: A Swiss Enameled Gold Necklace, 1860

Enamelled Gold Necklace
Switzerland, 1860
The Victoria & Albert Museum

When visiting Switzerland in the late Nineteenth Century, fashionable people often returned to their homes with examples of the enameled gold jewelry for which the Swiss had become celebrated.


This enameled gold necklace was a gift purchased in Switzerland and comes from the collection of an anonymous donor to the V&A. Showing the fine enamel-work of the Swiss, the necklace features multiple portraits of ladies of fashion, linked by heavy gold chain.

Such a souvenir would have been highly coveted. This style of necklace was especially in vogue during the London Season of 1861.