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This earring is one of a pair that forms a set, or parure, of jewelry made from steel pave-set with iron pyrite and made in the shape of trefoil shamrock leaves. The shamrocks hang from French ear wires.
earrings (jewelry)
pyrite
silver (metal)
Steel
Mica
Earring
Jewelry sets such as this were tourist souvenirs made from the locally-produced iron pyrite crystals often called "Irish diamonds." Other popular Irish motifs included in this set are trefoil shamrock leaves. For more on this type of jewelry and to see a similar set in the Birmingham (UK) Museum of Art, see Charlotte Gere and Judy Rudoe, Jewellery in the Age of Victoria (2011), 496.
Original to Castle Tucker (Wiscasset, Me.),
Unknown
0.875 x 0.5 (HxW) (inches)
Gift of Miss Jane S. Tucker
1998.4924.6AB
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