Engraved Gold Antique Oval Locket, English 9ct Gold handcrafted in the late 1800s. No stamps; English Gold lockets of the 19th.Century usually were not stamped, presumably through fear of the force of the hammer and stamp actually damaging the locket itself, for the two sections of these lockets, front and back, were always as lightly crafted as feasible given the cost of the metal involved.
Neat and compact, in very good condition, in very good working order, and with the original 9ct Gold flanges in the interior, to hold down the transparent protective covering for whatever momento it is to contain. (Or two momentos, for the locket’s interior has two compartments.)
Originally, the interior transparent protective coverings were blown glass, but glass so thin that it simply did not last, and of such thin-ness as to render it in modern terms irreplaceable. Nowadays more useful transparent protective sheets are provided in perspex, as is the case in the above Engraved Gold Antique.
The hand-engraving in the above Engraved Gold Locket is very fine, both sides, the front dominated by three classical linear motifs separated by worked “diamond” forms, the rear a rhythmic mass of ellipsed blooms about a central plain “parchment” motif for an inscription.