VICTORIAN CELTIC REVIVAL SMOKY QUARTZ AND SEED PEARL CROSS BROOCH, CIRCA 1880

Victorian Celtic Revival brooch and pendant centered with a raised cross setting featuring five faceted smoky quartz gemstones, set over a circular medallion finely hand-engraved with intricate Celtic interlace knotwork, framed by four arcs of seed pearls, bordered by a pierced openwork gallery of radiating gothic apertures, flanked at the cardinal points by openwork scroll terminals tipped with spherical gold finials, the reverse featuring open-back stone settings, fitted with a long hinged pin stem, C-clasp mechanism, and a folding pendant loop, tested 15 karat yellow gold, circa 1880.

Why we are obsessed:

Queen Victoria and Prince Albert’s mid-19th-century purchase of Balmoral Castle sparked a wave of Highland romanticism and Gaelic fascination across Great Britain. Fine jewelers embraced the trend, adapting the intricate knotwork of early medieval high crosses and 8th-century manuscripts like the Book of Kells into high fashion.

Historically mined in the Scottish Grampians as the revered Cairngorm stone, smoky quartz became the quintessential gemstone for these revivalist jewels.