ABOUT FILIGREE JEWELRY

The art of filigree jewelry started during the Edwardian era (early 1900's) and extended through the early part of the Art Deco period. In the late 1880's platinum was first commercially used in coins and in jewelry by the Russians. As the millennium approached, western jewelers searched for a new style to differentiate the staid Victorian styles. Jewelry designers started using platinum and they discovered that it was a stronger metal than gold and a small piece of platinum could maintain a design. Also fine quality white diamonds and strong colored gem stones looked much better against a white metal than gold. Since the guild system was in effect (in which apprentices paid jewelers to learn the "trade"), jewelers could afford to create extremely time consuming and intricate designs in their jewelry. Hence filigree with its illusion of light airiness and its fine intricate artistic designs became popular. Only the rich could afford this type of platinum jewelry. As this style became even more popular in the early Art Deco era, jewelers sometimes substituted platinum with a new type of gold...white gold with its alloy of nickel to give gold a white color. Handmade platinum jewelry of first quarter of the 20th century is extremely rare.