#Extension #Fixation #Peacock #Eye #Glass #WorthPoint
I first took note of peacock eye glass about twenty-five years ago while shopping with some friends at an antique mall in Massachusetts. When I asked one of them what she was looking for, she didn’t skip a beat, stating that peacock eye glass was her first love. I implored her to elaborate, and she showed me a beautiful brooch with a glass cabochon that resembled an eye found on a male peacock’s feather. After that, I hoped to start seeing them everywhere as I searched vintage shops and flea markets.
Unfortunately, this was not to be. Over the decades since then, I’ve learned that peacock eye glass is not easy to find. I have only run across a handful of pieces priced reasonably enough to consider buying them. Of course, this scarcity made me admire my friend’s collection and her efforts to hunt them down even more. Through my travels, studies, and conversations with others, I have concluded that these stones and beads were likely part of a larger fascination with peacocks that emerged in the late 1800s.
The Peacock’s Place in Victorian Life
When exploring the Victorian obsession with peacocks, you don’t have to look further than any reputable decorative arts museum to find examples. “In the late 19th century, the peacock became an icon of the aesthetic movement, which emphasized the importance of art above everything else in daily life,” as noted by the Wiener Museum of Decorative Arts.
Male peacocks throughout history have exemplified splendor, renewal, and prosperity. At a time when many Victorians were keenly aware of artistry and design and were turning away from industrialism, peacocks were the perfect depiction of beauty. By the late 1800s, peacocks were reproduced in every ornamental form imaginable. Louis Comfort Tiffany, in fact, incorporated the peacock into designs ranging from leaded glass windows to vases and even gem-laden jewelry.
The beautiful birds weren’t just depicted in decorative objects and paintings. At times, whole male peacocks became art when taxidermists stuffed them for display on pedestals in fine homes. Occasionally, one of these will come on the secondary market, and they’re both intriguingly beautiful and a little disturbing at the same time. Peacock feathers were also used to decorate grand hats and decadent hand fans, which is a bit easier for the modern mind to grasp.
In its many forms, the enthralling peacock was indeed idolized from the time the aesthetic movement began in the 1860s through the art nouveau era ending around 1910. And, as a further testament to the fascination with these birds, we also find peacock eye glass adorning jewelry.
The Origin of Peacock Eye Glass
As an extension to the peacock mania during the late-Victorian era, peacock eye glass cabochons and beads were made using lampworking techniques in the Eastern European region called Bohemia (now part of the Czech Republic). As a result, they’re sometimes described as Bohemian glass. In addition to green glass decorated with blue dots in homage to the peacock’s coloring, the pieces incorporate foil within the glass to give them a shimmering look akin to the bird’s feathers.
Round or oval cabochon stones are the most common, but they’ve been found in many different shapes. Beads are even more varied, with examples ranging from round with multiple blue dots to elongated ovals and teardrops. They can be drilled for stringing or bezel set in metal and linked together to form chains in varying lengths.
One of the interesting things about peacock eye glass is that jewelers rarely used it to decorate forms shaped like actual birds. Instead, these stones and beads were added to an array of jewelry pieces such as brooches, necklaces, and hatpins with other motifs, including freeform designs and florals. Collectors also seek clothing buttons and belt buckles decorated with peacock eye glass.
These items, for the most part, were mass-produced. So, incorporating the beauty of peacock colors does pay tribute to the ideals of the aesthetic movement. Still, they don’t totally shun industrialism or follow the tenets of the concurrent arts and crafts movement by demanding hand craftsmanship. Nevertheless, collectors do find beauty in these designs, and their original owners found a way to have a little peacock inspiration in their lives without splurging on hand-crafted jewelry and accessories.
The Most Valuable Peacock Eye Designs
Some of the most desirable pieces in this collecting genre are necklaces featuring peacock eye glass beads. Original necklaces with very long strands of peacock eye glass in bezel settings, in fact, are some of the costliest depicted in the WorthPoint Price Guide. These can easily sell for a thousand or more, so if you run across one “in the wild” for a reasonable price, you’ll definitely want to consider picking it up.
Other prized jewelry pieces among peacock eye glass aficionados are Egyptian revival styles. In these designs, peacock eye glass cabochons accent metal work with Egyptian influences. Although they’re not common, winged scarabs are among Egyptian-inspired motifs embellished with these stones.
Art nouveau influences like flowers, dragonflies, and flowing lines are also found in the metalwork of peacock eye glass pieces. These, along with clothing buttons, can sometimes be found more reasonably priced with some patience. Some very collectible designs using these stones and beads were made during one of the first Victorian revival periods in jewelry design in the 1920s and ’30s. The quality does vary, though, since some pieces are set with lesser-quality stones imitating Bohemian glass.
Decades later, a few costume jewelry manufacturers, including Original by Robert and Hattie Carnegie, used peacock eye glass in select pieces. They don’t come on the market often, but the stones in these mid-century styles look very much like old Bohemian glass. They may have been newly lampworked at that time, but it’s entirely possible they had been warehoused since the turn of the century.
Even though the fixated Victorians got the party started with peacock eye glass jewelry, collectors are still obsessing over it more than a century later. Long live the peacock in all its forms, especially when it comes to jewelry.
Pamela Siegel is a freelance writer and author who has been educating collectors for more than two decades. In addition to three books on topics relating to antiques and collectibles, she frequently shares her expertise through online writing and articles for print-based publications. Pamela is also the co-founder of Costume Jewelry Collectors Int’l (CJCI) and the proprietor of Chic Antiques by Pamela.
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