Jenna Lyons Chandelier

Rooted in centuries of history of adornment dating back to the ancient world, modern jewelry reimagines traditional techniques, forms and materials for expressive new pieces. As opposed to contemporary jewelry, which responds to the moment in which it was created, modern jewelry often describes designs from the 20th to 21st centuries that reflect movements and trends in visual culture.

Modern jewelry emerged from the 19th-century shift away from jewelry indicating rank or social status. The Industrial Revolution allowed machine-made jewelry using electric gold plating, metal alloys and imitation stones, making beautiful jewelry widely accessible. Although mass production deemphasized the materials of the jewelry, the vision of the designer remained important, something that would be furthered in the 1960s with what’s known as the “critique of preciousness.”

A design fair called the “Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes” brought global attention to the Art Deco style in 1925 and gathered a mix of jewelry artists alongside master jewelers like Van Cleef & Arpels, Mauboussin and Boucheron. Art Deco designs from Cartier and Van Cleef & Arpels unconventionally mixed gemstones like placing rock crystals next to diamonds while borrowing motifs from eclectic sources including Asian lacquer and Persian carpets. Among Cartier’s foremost design preoccupations at the time were high-contrast color combinations and crisp, geometric forms and patterns. In the early 20th century, modernist jewelers like Margaret De Patta and artists such as Alexander Calder — who is better known for his kinetic sculptures than his provocative jewelry — explored sculptural metalwork in which geometric shapes and lines were preferred over elaborate ornamentation.

Many of the innovations in modern jewelry were propelled by women designers such as Wendy Ramshaw, who used paper to craft her accessories in the 1960s. During the 1970s, Elsa Peretti created day-to-night pieces for Tiffany & Co. while designers like Lea Stein experimented with layering plastic, a material that had been employed in jewelry since the mid-19th century and had expanded into Bakelite, acrylics and other unique materials.

Find a collection of modern watches, bracelets, engagement rings, necklaces, earrings and other jewelry on 1stDibs.

Antique and vintage chandelier earrings, as their name implies, are decorative wide pendants lit up with gems. The most coveted are set with diamonds, but there are stunners in gold and pearls as well as enamel.

The accessory is a well-known object of desire — Kate Middleton, the Duchess of Cambridge, is an enthusiast of diamond chandelier earrings. She’s borrowed them from Queen Elizabeth II, who received the jewels from her father, King George IV, as a wedding gift when she was a princess.

Fine jewelry examples from the Georgian, Victorian and Edwardian eras are eternally on the wish lists of fashionable romantics — the types who would toss on these jewels with a T-shirt and jeans as easily as with a floral gown. And while earrings of any kind are the best type of jewelry to give or receive, chandelier earrings are popular and rather imposing — they embody movement and elevate individual style.

Browse antique and vintage chandelier earrings on 1stDibs today. Find a variety of these accessories in our collection of fashion jewelry, too.