Mastery of Design: Gold and Diamond Bracelet Clasps, 1770

Bracelet Clasps
French, 1770
Gold, Diamonds, Blue Paste
The Victoria & Albert Museum

In the late, Eighteenth Century, bracelets were usually worn in pairs. The height of fashion at the time, strings of pearls, beads or both comprised most bracelets. These strings were held together by elaborate clasps such as these.


Designed to be worn one on each wrist, these clasps provided both a practical purpose in securing the bracelets as well as a purely decorative function. This set of clasps has long been associated with Queen Marie Antoinette (1755-1793), consort of Louis XVI of France. Made of gold and European-cut diamonds set into deep blue paste, one clasp bears the initials of Marie Antoinette while the other depicts a “trophy of love” surrounded by doves, a quiver of arrows and a hymeneal torch (so named for Hymen, the Greek god of marriage).