Mastery of Design: The Piedmont Stomacher Pendant, 1800-1850

Pendant
Piedmont, Italy
The Victoria & Albert Museum

While this piece looks like a traditional stomacher, it’s actually meant to act as a pendant. Made in Piedmont Italy, the piece shows the ingenuity of the early Nineteenth Century Italian jeweler.

Since most Italian women loved the beauty of heavy gold jewelry, Italian jewelers found ways to make their wares look substantial while keeping the cost relatively modest. This piece looks quite heavy, but it’s actually made from a thin sheet of hold. The stones are a bit of trickery as well. While they look like whole gems, they are, in reality a very thin sliver of garnet which has been set into a piece of transparent glass which serves to spread the color and add sparkle. This sort of stone is called a “doublet.”

By this point in fashion history, the stomacher favored by the European aristocracy during the eighteenth century, had fallen out of use except in the royal courts. Softer fabric stomachers with embroidery were adorning that triangle-shaped section (below the bust and pointing over the stomach) on the bodices of ladies’ gowns. However, the shape of a stomacher was still considered quite fashionable and the silhouette found its way into pendants like this one. These were traditionally worn, suspended from velvet or silk ribbons.

This jewel was purchased by the Italian jewelry firm of Castellani to add to their collection of Italian Peasant Jewelry which was displayed at the 1867 International Exhibition in Paris. The pendant is made up of five sections and ends in a stylized cross.

Gifts of Grandeur: A Stomacher of Rock Crystal and Paste Set in Silver, 1760

Stomacher
England, 1760
Silver set with foil-backed rock crystal and paste.
The Victoria & Albert Museum

In the Eighteenth Century, jewelers were able to meet greater consumer demand by offering imitation stones set in silver as alternatives to their costlier pieces. Similar in style to works which glittered with diamonds, these costume alternatives were suitable for travel when transporting real jewels would have been unwise or for families who wanted to give the appearance of great wealth during more difficult financial times. For as long as there’s been jewelry, there’s been costume jewelry, and this stomacher shows just how clever jewelers had become in imitating the real thing.

This bodice ornament, known as a stomacher, was meant to be worn on a lady’s gown between her neckline and waist. Regal and noble ladies had begun to wear such jeweled pieces on the cloth front of their gowns (also called stomachers) and by the mid Eighteenth Century, this was the height of fashion.

Here, we see a combination of faceted rock crystal and paste (basically glass formed from a fine powder—often diamond powder) which has been backed in foil to increase the shine and sparkle. In candlelight, these inexpensive stones looked much the same as diamonds. Even the cut of the stones mimics the popular diamond cut of the day—rose-cut. Being as rose-cut diamonds were usually foil-backed themselves, the look of the costume piece wasn’t too different from the look of an expensive article.

Made around 1760 in England, such a piece would have been sold by a reputable up-scale jeweler, probably quite discreetly.

Mastery of Design: A Stomacher of Rock Crystal and Paste Set in Silver, 1760

Stomacher
England, 1760
Silver set with foil-backed rock crystal and paste.
The Victoria & Albert Museum

In the Eighteenth Century, jewelers were able to meet greater consumer demand by offering imitation stones set in silver as alternatives to their costlier pieces. Similar in style to works which glittered with diamonds, these costume alternatives were suitable for travel when transporting real jewels would have been unwise or for families who wanted to give the appearance of great wealth during more difficult financial times. For as long as there’s been jewelry, there’s been costume jewelry, and this stomacher shows just how clever jewelers had become in imitating the real thing.
This bodice ornament, known as a stomacher, was meant to be worn on a lady’s gown between her neckline and waist. Regal and noble ladies had begun to wear such jeweled pieces on the cloth front of their gowns (also called stomachers) and by the mid Eighteenth Century, this was the height of fashion.

Here, we see a combination of faceted rock crystal and paste (basically glass formed from a fine powder—often diamond powder) which has been backed in foil to increase the shine and sparkle. In candlelight, these inexpensive stones looked much the same as diamonds. Even the cut of the stones mimics the popular diamond cut of the day—rose-cut. Being as rose-cut diamonds were usually foil-backed themselves, the look of the costume piece wasn’t too different from the look of an expensive article.

Made around 1760 in England, such a piece would have been sold by a reputable up-scale jeweler, probably quite discreetly.

Mastery of Design: The Piedmont Stomacher Pendant, 1800-1850

Pendant
Piedmont, Italy
The Victoria & Albert Museum

While this piece looks like a traditional stomacher, it’s actually meant to act as a pendant. Made in Piedmont Italy, the piece shows the ingenuity of the early Nineteenth Century Italian jeweler.

Since most Italian women loved the beauty of heavy gold jewelry, Italian jewelers found ways to make their wares look substantial while keeping the cost relatively modest. This piece looks quite heavy, but it’s actually made from a thin sheet of hold. The stones are a bit of trickery as well. While they look like whole gems, they are, in reality a very thin sliver of garnet which has been set into a piece of transparent glass which serves to spread the color and add sparkle. This sort of stone is called a “doublet.”

By this point in fashion history, the stomacher favored by the European aristocracy during the eighteenth century, had fallen out of use except in the royal courts. Softer fabric stomachers with embroidery were adorning that triangle-shaped section (below the bust and pointing over the stomach) on the bodices of ladies’ gowns. However, the shape of a stomacher was still considered quite fashionable and the silhouette found its way into pendants like this one. These were traditionally worn, suspended from velvet or silk ribbons.

This jewel was purchased by the Italian jewelry firm of Castellani to add to their collection of Italian Peasant Jewelry which was displayed at the 1867 International Exhibition in Paris. The pendant is made up of five sections and ends in a stylized cross.

Mastery of Design: A Stomacher of Rock Crystal and Paste Set in Silver, 1760

Stomacher
England, 1760
Silver set with foil-backed rock crystal and paste.
The Victoria & Albert Museum

In the Eighteenth Century, jewelers were able to meet greater consumer demand by offering imitation stones set in silver as alternatives to their costlier pieces. Similar in style to works which glittered with diamonds, these costume alternatives were suitable for travel when transporting real jewels would have been unwise or for families who wanted to give the appearance of great wealth during more difficult financial times. For as long as there’s been jewelry, there’s been costume jewelry, and this stomacher shows just how clever jewelers had become in imitating the real thing.
This bodice ornament, known as a stomacher, was meant to be worn on a lady’s gown between her neckline and waist. Regal and noble ladies had begun to wear such jeweled pieces on the cloth front of their gowns (also called stomachers) and by the mid Eighteenth Century, this was the height of fashion.

Here, we see a combination of faceted rock crystal and paste (basically glass formed from a fine powder—often diamond powder) which has been backed in foil to increase the shine and sparkle. In candlelight, these inexpensive stones looked much the same as diamonds. Even the cut of the stones mimics the popular diamond cut of the day—rose-cut. Being as rose-cut diamonds were usually foil-backed themselves, the look of the costume piece wasn’t too different from the look of an expensive article.

Made around 1760 in England, such a piece would have been sold by a reputable up-scale jeweler, probably quite discreetly.