For Jewelry Enthusiast Flora Steel, Lightning Strikes Thrice!

In 1988, jewelry enthusiast Flora Steel found an interesting-looking silver brooch at an antique market in England. Not recognizing a maker, but drawn to what she described as “its strong design, strange lettering, and unusual stones” –a lapis lazuli in the center, coral and malachite alternating around the circular frame—she bought it for under £20 […]

Gothic Revival (1840-1860)

Gothic Revival architecture was popular in England during the 1820s and 1830s and in the United States by the 1840s. Furniture made to fill the pseudo-castles of the time resembled small bits of Gothic architecture. Backs of chairs looked like church arches. Headboards and footboards were made to look like the panels of a Gothic […]