Masquerade - Vintage Gold Plated Red Enamel & Crystal Rhinestone Mask Brooch (VBR248)

Masquerade - Vintage Gold Plated Red Enamel & Crystal Rhinestone mask Brooch. This charming brooch is crafted from gold-plate over metal. The brooch features vintage styling, round cut crystals, enamel work, and quality craftsmanship. This gorgeous brooch is made in the form of a masquerade mask, which showcases a gold polished mask framed by sparkling clear crystals. There is also a pretty ribbon and bow, which is decorated with beautiful vibrant red enamel-work. The back of the brooch is gold in color, and features a pin, and secure locking mechanism. This vintage  brooch would make a perfect addition to any vintage jewelry collection. 

History: The earliest known enamelled objects were made in Cyprus in around the 13th century BC during the Mycenæan period. Six gold rings discovered in a Mycenæan tomb at Kouklia were decorated with various vitreous coloured layers fused on to the gold.

Joseph Strasser could be credited with the precursor to our present-day Rhinestone, but it was really when Georg Freidrich Strass in 1760 invented the first ever rhinestone (artificial gemstone) from a special type of crystal found in the Rhine River that the stones we know today were born.

What Is Gold-plated Jewelry? Gold-plated jewelry is a type of metal jewelry covered with a very thin layer of real gold. The process was invented in 1805 by Italian chemist Luigi Brugnatelli who plated a very thin gold layer on top of silver.

Brooches were known as fibula (plural fibulae) prior to the Middle Ages. These decorative items, used as clothes fasteners, were first crafted in the Bronze Age. In Europe, during the Iron Age, metalworking technology had advanced dramatically.

Masquerade balls were a feature of the Carnival season in the 15th century, and involved increasingly elaborate allegorical Royal Entries, pageants, and triumphal processions celebrating marriages and other dynastic events of late medieval court life.