These carved jet earrings were once part of a Victorian woman's mourning ensemble. In the first stages of mourning the bereaved wore only black, so any jewelry also had to be dark-colored and preferably matte. Jet, mined in the Yorkshire town of Whitby, fulfilled these requirements for mourning jewelry extraordinarily well and was popularly used by the Victorians until the mines were more or less exhausted of their supply. Jet itself is a mineraloid formed by the fossilized wood of the monkey-puzzle tree, and the jet harvested in Whitby dates back to the Jurassic period (that makes it 182 million years old). These lightweight earrings are carved in a modern double hoop design with silver ear wires.
MATERIALS: Whitby jet, silver ear wires
AGE: c. 1860
CONDITION: Very good
SIZE: 1 7/8" length measured from the top of the ear wire, 7/8" width