DATE: Art Deco Revival, c.1980
Exquisite Art Deco Revival aquamarine cocktail ring with diamond-studded stepped shoulders. It's crafted in platinum throughout, beautifully proportioned with edges and a 3.14ct principal asscher cut aquamarine. It dates from the early 1980s, the peak of the Deco Revival movement, made by hand in England.
The Art Deco Revival movement was seeded in the 1960s as part of a backlash against modernist trends of the preceding decades (namely pure utilitarianism, lack of ornamentation, mass production, and by extension mass consumerism). To the generation born during the turmoil of the 1940s, the 20s and 30s were presented as Golden Age, in stark contrast with the functionalist and consumerist principals of post-war modernism. By the 1970s, when the post-war boom was over, and the general optimism and "faith in progress" rapidly diminishing, people began to look back drawing inspiration from previous cultural movements. Design houses such as Archizoom, Maison Jansen, and the Memphis Group incorporated strong Deco elements - geometric ornamentation, stepped profiles, bold use of colour - into their works, and reminiscing period movies such as The Great Gatsby and Bugsy Malone were box office hits. By the 1980s there was a strong appetite for Art Deco revival jewellery, and jewellers were creating pieces that ranged from subtly inspired by 20s/30s designs right through to near exact replicas.
While it sort of feels counterintuitive (as an antique jewellery shop), we actually quite like finding Deco Revival pieces like this one. You're getting the same designs and "looks" as original Deco pieces, and since they're constructed by hand using traditional techniques the quality is there too, so all that's missing is the age - and of course, this latter point is reflected in the pricing. We can buy them for considerably less than the true Art Deco pieces that inspired them, and therefor pass on this price-point to you.
STONES
3.14ct Natural Aquamarine
Brilliant Cut Diamonds
MEASUREMENTS
Head: 9.8 x 9.0mm
Width of band: 1.3mm
WEIGHT
5.1g
MARKS
Stamped PLAT
CONDITION
Excellent
