Gold Gilt Gold Victorian pendant, handmade circa 1880. This is a particularly fine piece, crafted in a fine jewellery house, its design referencing “classical” architecture motifs (dogtooth and domed fineals). Bench jewellers  in England’s fine jewellery houses of the period played with textures and with the colours created by mixing certain alloys with Gold, and, as is the case with the above pendant, with gilding Gold with Gold.
The above pendant was hand-crafted in 9ct Gold; the polished centre oval frame, almost a greenish Gold, is probably a man-made electrum; the Gold of the rest of the piece is probably Rose Gold, gilded. The gilding is thick and heavy, and the experienced jeweller who, on the instructions of Christopher William, transformed what was originally a “momento” brooch into a “momento” pendant by removing the rear brooch-pin fittings and soldering in place the two 18ct Gold rings (almost a half gram of 18ct Gold in the two rings), considers the gilding so thick and durable that it is possibly the result of mercury gilding, an ancient practice involving alloyed pure Gold and mercury.
Historically this mercury gilding has always produced the brightest, finest, thickest and most durable of gold gildings.