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For more than two millennia, peridots have been closely associated with light. The Ancient Egyptians worshipped them, believing them to have fallen from the skies, calling them ‘gems of the sun’. Egyptian priests would crush them up and mix them with hot drinks as they believed that imbibing peridot would bring them closer to the light of the world.
The Archduchess Isabella of Habsburg’s peridot and diamond tiara set from the 1820s is the only royal parure with peridot as the centrepiece. The Habsburg Peridot Parure was made in the Georgian style, comprising earrings, a necklace with seven pendants, a large brooch and a bandeau style tiara featuring five apricot size peridots. In 2001 this regal suite of peridot jewels was sold by Sotheby’s London to the New York antique jewellery specialist Fred Leighton. Peridot’s popularity grew enormously in the Victorian and Edwardian eras, when flamboyant jewels set with colourful gemstones were the height of fashion. They also received the royal seal of approval by King Edward Vll, declaring peridot his favourite gemstone.
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