Antique Chinoiserie Silver Earrings. These eardrops are excellent examples, in handcrafted Silver, of the sorts of intricate design works out of China that so excited and intrigued Europe and north America in the latter part of the 1800s and early 1900s. These earrings have it all: the shimmering dangle of multiple pendular rods; all the interconnecting “S” links; the two duck-like heads delineated on the top sections, one facing left, one right; meticulously applied fine twist wirework marking out everything, every cut and curve, on both top and bottom sections; the two pendulant so-finely crafted birds-on-the-wing in the window frames of the lower sections.
The London dealer from whom these Antique Chinoiserie Silver earrings were sourced dates them to around 1910, probably crafted in Shanghai or nearby, and probably crafted for either export or for sale to an appreciative foreigner. They have never been worn and are virtually in the same condition in which they started one hundred and thirty years ago.
Items of jewellery can embody a whole culture, a period, an era; the above Antique Chinoiserie Silver earrings speak of Shanghai in the year 1910.