Imagine you are a stylish lady living in the 1930s. You are almost ready to go out for a night on the town, but first you really must put the finishing touches to your outfit. Jewellery is, of course, something which you simply must wear, and you have a splendid new set of marcasite which will be ideal. You are constantly amazed by the variety and intricacy of the marcasite jewellery which is available today!
When I showed the children these marcasite earrings, they thought they were just beautiful. The earrings had such intricate patterns and the ‘stones’, though old, continued to shine so brilliantly. The children at once assumed that they were tiny chips of some precious stone, and that the earrings must be very valuable and were amazed to discover that actually, it was essentially ‘costume jewellery’.
Many people associate marcasites jewellery very closely with the early to mid 20th century, and particularly with the Art Deco movement. Yet marcasite has been used to create jewellery since ancient times, being popular with people ranging from the Ancient Greeks to the Incas. It wasn’t until the 18th century that marcasite began to gain popularity in England though, and during the 1700s it became increasingly used for lockets, brooches and cameos. It was Queen Victoria who really brought it to a popularity boom though. After the death of her beloved husband, Queen Victoria went into a period of deep mourning. Marcasite, with it’s dark hued ‘stones’ set in silver toned metal (sometimes silver, sometimes not) was perfect and soon became popular with the middle classes. It continued to rise in popularity through the early 20th century and during the Art Deco period was very common.
Although the children immediately assumed the tiny marcasites in the earrings were some sort of precious stone, marcasite is actually quite common, but what exactly is it? Marcasite is a type of iron disulphide. In nature, there are two ways in which iron disulphide can form crystals, one of which creates marcasites and the other of which creates pyrite, which is more commonly known as Fool’s Gold. Yet it isn’t the real marcasites which are used in marcasites jewellery as they are far too brittle. Instead, it is actually fool’s gold which creates the lustrous shine.